Nigeria: A Failed State At 60?

October 1, 1960. Nigeria’s Independence Day. All the disparate ethnic nations that make up the land were munificently excited and the people overwhelmingly joyful. The country was suffused with pomp, pageantry and manifold emotions. It could not have been otherwise.
It was a symbolic day; a phenomenal moment encapsulating the collective agenda of a people’s desire for identity and recognition.
What is more? It was a culmination of the people’s sustained agitation for self rule from Britain which had, through Frederick Lugard, amalgamated the colonies and protectorates of North and Southern Nigeria in 1914 for its selfish interest. Though British conservation and institutional bureaucracy delayed the glorious moment, the inevitability of October 1 was already destined. And when the day finally came, Nigerians breathed the fresh air of freedom, and with euphoric symbolism, ascended the enviable status of independence.
The day was significant in two major respects. First the independence was achieved through dialogue and negotiation rather than violence; second, Nigeria people were going to govern themselves.
Nigeria’s achievement of freedom climaxed the joint efforts of the people of the diversified nation for national independence. Although, many fighters did not live to witness their efforts come to fruition, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa withnessed the great day. These were men whose visions transcended their narrow ethnic origins and who made personal sacrifices and concessions to make independence possible. They had during constitutional talk with Britain in 1958, agreed on a rough charter for independence. On January 15, 1960, Balewa, who’s Northern People’s Congress had won majority seats in the Federal House, led the motion for independence at the plenary demanding a legislation in the United Kingdom Parliament, providing for the establishment of the Federation of Nigeria on October 1, 1960 as an independent Sovereign State.
The United Kingdom accepted that request after final constitutional talks.
Back home in Nigeria, the stage finally came on midnight October 1, 1960 when the Union Jack gradually descended from Nigeria’s Parliament building and Nigeria Green-White-Green ascended. Princess Alexandra of Kent, representing the Queen of England, thereafter handed over the constitutional instruments of Nigeria’s Independence to an elated Balewa who stated thus: “It is with justifiable pride that we claim the achievement unparalleled in the annals of history. Each step of our constitutional advance has been purposefully planned with full and open consultations not only between the representatives of various interests in Nigeria but in harmonious cooperation with the administering power which has today relinquishe d its authority”.
The euphoria over the great day was all consuming just as the mood was electrifying. Infact, celebrations marking the independence were as diversified as the peoples of the nation. There was the £1,000,000 Nigerian Exhibition at Victoria Island in Lagos depicting Nigeria’s social, economic and political life.
In the North, celebrations included horse races and durbar while the East and West featured mainly traditional dances and masquerades.
Miss Rosemary Anieze, from the defunct Mid-West region, was crowned Miss Independence while in London Adesodi Omodele Abu, became the first baby of independent Nigeria to be christened in West Minister Abbey.
Toddlers in primary schools, most of whom are now septuagenarians, were compelled to cram the first National Anthem and made to appreciate the importance of that celebration with gifts or flags and plastic cups engraved with the Green-White-Green of the national banner as a symbolic identification of their sense of belonging.
Indeed, that first independence celebration under a civilian government represented divergent realisations for different Nigerians, including some institutions.
The Daily Times editor of October 1,1960, under the editorship of the legendary Babatunde Jose, rolled out a 64 page commemorative compendium never before attempted in the history of print Journalism.
In Its brief editorial, that Daily Times edition which paid glowing tributes to the heroes of the struggle, noted that “A nation conceived in faith and unity is born today … Yesterday ended 100 years of British rule in Nigeria. Two great assets we have inherited from the British Parliamentary democracy and the rule of law…. We shall firmly uphold these principles”.
Sixty years after, however, many believe that Nigeria has failed to use the independence to chart a national integration, a common good and build a nation which will be a pride of its citizenry.
About six decades ago, our past leaders who had held the struggle against colonialism had a vision of a strong, united and developed Nigeria; a nation free from poverty, disease, unemployment, and underdevelopment. Whether these dreams have become real or have been shattered, analysts say, is everybody’s guess. It is probably for this situation that many Nigerians insist that there is very little or nothing at all on the credit side of our balance sheet to warrant all the accolades we have been heeping on ourselves as gains of self rule.
At the time of independence, Nigeria inherited an economy that had export of cash crops as its major foreign exchange earner. This monoculture products or primary goods left the economy at the mercy of the vagaries of the international market.
Later, when production of crude oil in commercial quantity became Nigeria’s chief foreign exchange earner, the economy became very buoyant such that at a point the country was adjudged the fastest developing, third world nation by the World Bank.
Buoyed or perhaps, blinded by the endless roll of petro-dollars in the national coffers’ Nigerian leaders went to the extent of proclaiming that the country’s problem was not money but rather how to spend it. This began Nigerian’s journey with every move being a wrong step. In the first place, production of both food and cash crops suffered greatly and such economic monuments as the groundnut pyramids disappeared while our food import bills rose. Even the billions of petro-dollars ploughed into assembly plants and packaging companies through the import substitution industrialisation policy went down the drains as the success or failure of these ventures can best be appreciated by the sorry state of our local automobile industry.
It was also then that Nigeria wasted good money in the so-called World Black Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC’77). Economists have argued lamentably that the money spent on sponsorship of trip dances alone could have been enough to construct good network of roads that could link together all nooks and crannies of the country. Such roads, they further argue, could have stimulated economic growth by creating internal markets as well as lead to greater cohesion and unity among the various people of the country.
The report card of virtually every sector of the country’s national life does not give cause for cheer. Sadly, the precedence laid down by the First Republic still remains with us sixty years after.
Central to Nigeria’s problems, observers say, is the misfortune of having come under leaders, military and civilian, almost all of whom have proved far too incompetent, and far too steeped in corruption, to meaningfully tackle the nation’s myriad problems and give its people an abiding sense of direction. They argue further that our problem is rooted to our parochialism and myopic view of the nation as our private entity whose survival we want to start and end within us as an individual and as a generation.
This, they maintained, explains the lack of courage and the will to search for enduring solutions to our problems and circumambulating at the peripheral level.
Even as “every Independence Day brings a sense of foreboding for Nigeria and Nigerians,” observes fiery Bishop of Sokoto Diocese of the Catholic Church, Dr Hassan Mathew Kukah, in a recent press interview, he regrets that “You look everywhere for a sign of something to smile about, something to hope for, something to find encouraging and something to cling to and you are looking for a needle in a haystack “.
Continues Kukah: “Our anniversary is here, but Ali Baba and his 40 friends are still in charge. Nigeria’s internal conflict is a Molotov cocktail of anger, frustration, religious extremism, toxic politics, corruption and deep rut…. The frustration mounts, the criminal political and bureaucratic classes get more daring in their exploits, stealing the country blind and leaving an entire nation bleeding. Yet we had a joke called fighting corruption and we even set up a commission”.
Delivering a paper titled: Sixty Years of Nigeria’s Journey To Democracy: Hopes and impediments, at recent lecture organised by the Association of Retired Career Ambassadors of Nigeria (ARCAN), Kukah reechoed the dashed hopes and expectations of Nigerians.
“ At independence, Nigerians had high hopes. We expected more than what we have now. Nigeria has never been as sad, as cynical, as divided, as frustrated as we are now. The nation is full of ethnic jingoism and cultural arrogance. Political power has been privatised along ethnic lines. Despite the fact that we gained independence without bloodshed, 60 years after, blood now flows on our streets”, he said.
Indeed, most Nigerians hold the view that six decades after independence, nothing has satisfactorily worked for them.
There are also those who argue that the fundamentals of nationhood are flawed, that Nigeria as presently constituted is not a workable union and hence, cannot deliver national security, peace, justice and development.
Even as no less a personality than the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, recently warned of a possible break-up of Nigeria if urgent steps are not taken to nip it in bud, former president Olusegun Obasanjo and Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, not too long ago, took President Muhammadu Buhari to the cleaners over the state of affairs in the country.
Blaming Buhari’s administration for mismanaging the country’s diversity and socio-economic development, Obasanjo, at a function in Abuja, said the drumbeats of hatred, disintegration and separation are being heard loud and clear almost everywhere in the country.
He said: “Nigeria is fast drifting to a failed and badly divided state; economically our country is becoming a basket case and poverty capital of the world, and secondly, we are firming up as unwholesome and insecure country.
“These manifestations are the products of recent mismanagement of diversity and socio-economic development of our country. Old fault lies that are disappearing have opened up in greater tissues and with the drums of hatred, disintegration and separation and accompanying choruses being heard loud and clear almost everywhere”.
Notwithstanding the fact that the presidency swiftly reacted to Obasanjo’s alarm dubbing him Nigeria’s divider-In-Chief, his statement cannot be easily dismissed having been a Head of State and a two-term president. If anything, since he left office on May 29,2007, he has personally held every succeeding administration to account, pointing out their perceived imperfections and failings.
While presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu said that Buhari pulled Nigeria from the brinks of failure, Information Minister, Lai Mohammed said that the country is on a journey to greatness, despite challenges.
“Nigeria today is not a failed state, but a nation that is courageously tackling its challenges and building solid infrastructure that will serve as the basis for socio-economic development; a nation that is unrelenting in battling in security and working hard to ensure greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people”, he said.
Despite that obviously incompetent presidential defense, not a few highly perceptible Nigerians believe that Obasanjo’s outburst was a distillation of the mood of the beleaguered people of Nigeria. They argue that the growing insecurity in the country, the drumbeats of disunity, and the negative and apparently cheerless statistical indicators on critical sectors of our social and economic life reinforced Obasanjo’s position and the imperative of presidential attention to the panacea offered by the statesman, especially, the implementation of report of the 2004 National Political Reform Conference.
Soyinka said that though Obasanjo, his kinsman and other past leaders were complicit in Nigeria’s deteriorating condition, his serial warnings in recent years cannot be ignored if the country must be rescued from total collapse.
In a strongly worded message titled: Between Dividers-In-Chief and Divider-In-Law, Soyinka stated that though he was “notoriously not a fan of Olusegun Obasanjo… co-architect with other past leaders of the crumbling edifice called Nigeria”, he embraces the responsibility of calling attention to any accurate reading of the nation from whatever source, as a contraption teetering on the very edge of total collapse”.
Recalling how in May last year Buhari’s government had shunned his (Soyinka’s) call to heed Obasanjo’s similar warnings in the past, he lamented that “the nation is divided as never before, and this ripping division has taken place under the policies and conduct of none other than President Buhari”.
Speaking in similar vein, Kukah regrets: “We have had too many accidental leaders people who are not mentally prepared to govern; people who do not have the requisite education and lack the capacity to lead and manage diversity are the one governing the nation. We cannot succeed as a nation this way… And that is why President Buhari (is) funding it with severe difficulty to manage diversity which are the key ingredients of democracy”.
As the debate on whether or not Nigeria is not a failed nation at 60 rages on, many think that Buhari, former military governor and Head of State, on assumption of office, should have speedily addressed itself to identifying the nation’s key problems, assessing their magnitudes and analyzing them with a clear-minded, clear-headed objectivity devoid of old prejudices and idiosyncrasies.
They argue that what the Buhari administration needed most, and still needs, is a driving vision of where the nation is, where it should be heading, and why. This implies having, the vision and sense of direction to see the map whole and then chart the course with a view to saving itself, and indeed the entire nation, from going aimlessly on one detour after the other in search of solutions to its myriad problems, as is presently the case.
Now the questions on the lips of many as we celebrate 60 years of nationhood are: How do we crystalise our purposes as a nation at this critical period of our national life? How do we ensure the elusive ‘unity and faith, peace and progress’ embedded in the state emblem? Analysts say it behooves the Buhari administration to urgently rise to the firm, just and orderly exercise of power towards the accomplishment of those purposes, goals and aspiration. Though these tasks are admittedly difficult to accomplish, they insist it can be done. This perhaps, may have informed the theme of this year’s anniversary: ‘ Together Shall We Be?
Vowing to henceforth ensure inclusiveness in governance, ostensibly in an oblique reaction to the deluge of criticism against his administration, Buhari, at the last virtual Federal Executive Council meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said the theme was chosen in order to forge a more united and cohesive Nigeria.
Given the Buhari admini-stration’s notoriety in breaking promises and doing the contrary, as an observer puts it, how this can achieved in the coming months remains to be seen.

By: Victor Tew