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National Unity has remained very elusive in Nigeria because the 1914 Amalgamation Proclamation by Lord Lugard was a marriage of convenience solemnized without consultation or consensus of the 3 nations that were merged into one in a grand deception which was the brainchild of Lord Lugard the British Envoy who had made the suggestion to merge the two Protectorates and the British Government simply agreed with him because his suggestion had served their purpose at the time and for years to come.
It was the wife of Lord Lugard who suggested the name “Nigeria” meaning a nation founded around the River Niger”
But the lady forgot that many other nations in the West African Sub Region like Ghana Upper Volta Region, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso also have the same claim to the River Niger which flows through them
When Nigerian Government decided to build the Kainji Dam In Nigeria, our leaders forgot that the Dam could be easily sabotaged by other nations which had equal access to the same River Niger that produces the water to make the Dam function all year round.
The Dam for Electricity generation was completed before they discovered the drawback to its success especially during the dry season.
That informs the reason why Nigeria had a contractual agreement to appease those countries not to build their own Dams to sabotage the free flow of water into the Kainji Dam.
Nigeria therefore agreed to sell Electricity to those countries even when Kainji Dam could not generate sufficient Electricity to meet the needs of Nigeria and at a time when Solar Energy had not yet been discovered.
The Amalgamation of the North and the Southern Protectorates was done by Lord Lugard to save the British Government from having to cover the expenses for running the Northern Protectorate with funds provided by the British Government.
Lord Lugard had simply wanted to find an excuse to use part of the many mineral resources and Agric products of the Southern Protectorate to augment the meager resources of the Northern Protectorate.
Those resources of the South were used to augment the resources of the Northern Protectorate from 1914 to 1959 when the Lancaster Conference was held in London to finalize the granting of Independence to Nigeria on October 1st 1960 and to discuss the logistics of that independence.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo in that Conference had the common sense to suggest that a provision be added to the Agreement that if any of the signatories to the Agreement was unhappy with any part of the agreement, in the future, such a region or signatory should reserve the right to walk away from the Agreement.
If that provision had been added ab initio, much of the problem of national integration would have been nipped in the bud, right there and then.
It was Nnamdi Azikiwe who had opposed the Awolowo motion and Zik was supported by Sardauna Bello.
Azikiwe had called Awolowo a tribalist while projecting himself as the nationalist but as it turned out, the chief tribalist was in fact Nnamdi Azikiwe as I would prove with the remaining paragraphs of this write- up.
Herbert Macaulay the Pioneer Yoruba leader of the Nigerian Nationalist Movement was the only one who had behaved as a true nationalist when he chose to appoint Nnamdi Azikiwe as his successor rather than choose a fellow Yoruba member as his successor.
He deferred to ability and competence in picking the American-trained Azikiwe as his successor and rightly so at the time.
Azikiwe did not follow the Macaulay example once he took over the leadership of the National Movement.
The Nationalist Movement under Azikiwe was turned into the first political party in Nigeria and and was renamed the NCNC ( National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroon) which over time became an Ibo- dominated Party.
That move had forced Awolowo to form the Action Group to champion the interest of the Yoruba Western Region while Sardauna Bello had formed the Northern People Congress NPC to champion the interest of the North .
That was how Tribalism became the foundation pillar of Nigerian Politics till now.
Reasonable people can correctly ascribe that development to Nnamdi Azikiwe who initially showed his nationalist credentials as a Pan Africanist like Kwame Nkrumah thru many of his articles in his West African Pilot Newspaper.
Azikiwe had tried to use the NCNC platform to become the first Premier of Western Region but was stopped by Awolowo.
You will be right if you call what Awolowo had done tribalism as well.
My point is that all of our founding fathers were Tribalists, if the truth be told.
That move had forced Azikiwe to run back to the East to stop Imoke from becoming the first Premier of the
Eastern Region.
Azikiwe too had played the tribal card like Awolowo had done at Ibadan.
The same thing was true of Sardauna Bello who did not even allow non Northerners to ever enroll in his Northern People’s Congress like the NCNC and the Action Group had done in the East and the West.
So our 3 founding fathers namely Sardauna Bello, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo were all tribalists based on those observations in my own opinion.
Obafemi Awolowo, to his credit, was first to suggest the breakup of Nigeria into 12 States.
The Eastern and the Northern Region in a Coalition Government at the Federal level had opposed the suggestion by Awolowo.
Azikiwe and Sardauna Bello had ganged up to carve out the Midwest from the old Western Region in 1964 to weaken Awolowo while keeping their own regions in tact.
Nigeria was forced to to go back to the Awolowo suggestion and to break up Nigeria into 6 states with 3 in the North and 3 in the South until 1967 when the number of States grew to 12 with 6 in the North and 6 in the South just to weaken Biafra, and to stop her from breaking away from Nigeria.
But that did not stop Tribalism from growing its tentacles in Nigeria up till now.
The ultimate solution cannot be in the present American Presidential System we have plagiarized and embraced.
A Confederal System like the one that currently exists in Canada would appear to be more appropriate for Nigeria.
The current 6 Geo-political zones could be recognized as independent entities under a Federal Government at the Center.
Each State or Province should be allowed a level of self governance to manage her own mineral resources and Agric products but contribute In maintaining the Central Government which would be placed in charge of Foreign Affairs, Defense and National Security .
Under such an arrangement, no State or Province or any ethnic group like the Fulani or the Igbos or the Yorubas
would be able to dominate other tribes or hold any part of Nigeria to ransom like it is today.
Under such an arrangement, Arewa, IPOB and Oodua Republic and the South/South and the Middle Belt and The Kanuri State can all co-exist in peace and Unity and internal strife and civil war would cease to be a recurring problem of Nigeria.
Nigeria would still remain one powerful country that we can all benefit from and be proud of, and Secession would cease to be a profitable option or goal to pursue by any of the component parts of Nigeria
Dr. Prince Wumi Akintide writes from Oyemekun Terrace New York City
