Nigeria @ 50: Still In Local Colonialism
By Moses Idahosa
Monday, October 4, 2010
ALAS! Nigeria as a political entity is fifty years of assumed self governance. This therefore, suggests that Nigeria as a sovereign state and by its implications is free to conduct her governmental activities without undue external interference as bestowed on the nation on the historical Saturday October 1, 1960. Indeed, Nigerians who were alive and some are still very much around rolled out drums in ecstasy to celebrate this seemingly political freedom gotten from the Britons after series of political negotiations which many likened to political fight, which mainly was fought on the pages of newspapers by our freedom fighters. Thus, every October 1, 1960 becomes an eventful and memorable day for all true Nigerians within and in diaspora. So, October 1 this year marked our golden jubilee anniversary of assumed self governance. HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY’ any way!
Objectively, independence of any given political entity as it apply to Nigeria is a holistic and a mark of steadily cum progressively development or growth in all indexes of civil development which any political freed nation must experience.
Painfully, October 1, 2010 marked fifty years of our unidentified political freedom from British imperialism and we that are divinely privileged to be alive today should celebrate the golden jubilee anniversary not because of the name ‘independence’ and the chance that we may have grown a little above what we used to be before the advent of October 1, 1960 rather, we should celebrate the day because we are alive to witness the fiftieth anniversary of ‘local colonialism purported by our political gladiators which is characterized by the tendencies of British colonialism that have kept us as unidentified. Weak, effortless and corrupt entity which negate our God given fortune, destiny and life as a sovereign state.
Sadly, every celebration of our acclaimed Independence Day is often more like celebrating Christmas (the Birth of Jesus Christ) without knowing why the day was or is let alone believing the story of the day. So long as the day turns out to be a public holiday and there are monetary allocations and drums rolled out to mark the celebration, so be it; happy Independence Day!’
Importantly, the series of events that mark our Independence Day celebration if actually Nigeria is a sovereign state should include some tribute to our freedom fighters like the people of the historical era of Zik, Macaulay, Awo, Bello, Enahoro, Balewa and Eyo-Ita e.t.c who fought gallantly against the tenacious hold of the colonial masters, the British. These men mentioned above had their motivations and objectives at heart. They fought for the sovereignty of Nigeria; they fought against repressive policies and selfish leadership decisions that were unpopular and were neither in the interest of our people nor for the good of the people, the land and posterity. They fought to protect basic identity and principles of our people against foreign erosion and bastardization. These aforesaid history makers under the then British imperialism became determined and earnestly seek the general good of their people in line with their genetic concepts, without undue individualism.
More so, they spent their time, effort, spirits and material, still, they maintained a strong hope for success. They story is history; most times they lost their lives in the struggle even when they knew of the possibility. They pre-dedicated their struggle to posterity. Indeed, it is a fight as the Briton will not just leave. They have spent a long time of their inhabitation to establish political, social and economic strongholds, and their system to perpetuate them in their colony. There must be a lot for them to lose if they just left. More than the habit of oppressing and lording over their subjects, they will lose politically, economically and socially as far as the colony is concerned. They will find it boring to account for their actions and decisions even in the service of the people. And their access to the resources of the people is unquestionable. It is dreadful for a habitual bully to have a reason to negotiate at par with or be in the position to solicit for help from his former subjects. This oppressor will therefore do everything within his reach to restrain and restrict his subject from having or knowing anything about himself that might engender their freedom. This was the fight!
Interestingly, before 1960, there was concerted effort for the independence of Nigeria. The independence fighters had their motivations which were not far from the fact that they needed a more people-oriented leadership that would be indigenous in practice and otherwise with full identity and character of their people. They wanted a more sensitive and responsive system that would account for the people’s resources and efforts. They wanted a system that would out rightly guarantee the protection of the rights, aspirations and interests of their people while promoting the collective fortune of their people and the land. Even though they inherited a political arrangement from their colonial masters, the basic things they negotiated for, they got. They got our sovereignty, social, economic and political independence from the Britons. Thanks to them.
It is a crying-shame that Nigeria is fifty years and two days today after our independence negotiators applied for our freedom as we have, brashly consider ourselves as very unfortunate. In fact, we still exhibit the attributes of the colonial subjects. Little wonder some schools of reasoning are of the view that our misfortune is that we skewed off from the dreams and aspirations of the freedom fighters. While others believe that we benefited more from our colonial masters and we would have had more development had they stayed a bit longer. I am of the strongest view that we are incapable and immature to conduct a suitable leadership for our collective good, to sustain or even build on the dreams, ideals and aspirations of our freedom fighters even though they themselves mis- managed leadership in their hand by given into slave trade but they laid a genuine model for true leadership which is our national anthem.
Fifty years is indeed golden, yet the ordinary man has no real reason to celebrate our seemingly self rule.
The common suggestion now is that when next we want to celebrate our assumed independence, we should mark it by debating or creative conference after all, all the past years, our political gladiators have always led us into senseless and purposeless anniversaries. It was asked recently that who are the celebrants and how many Nigerians are happy? What has changed? And what really is better and positively different from the bad past? The questionnaire went further to say that “just like our fore fathers, our colonial masters are not accountable to us. Their activities and decisions are to serve them alone even at the detriment of their people and the image of the entity they are identified with whose protection are entrusted to them”. Our rulers in the past years have grossly abused us and have done to us evil beyond what foreigners would not do to us.
How can we explain; even in the name of corruption, regular heartless trade of our rights and development, and constant exploitation and abuse of our resources and collective identity?
It is a bone drilling to imagine the kind of oppression and stagnation forced on Nigerians by these black colonial masters we now referred to lately as ‘cabal’. We celebrate and give national recognition to people who have criminally loot the nations vital resources from our economy only for these treasure looters to build estates, mansions and business empires all over the world – in UK, Israel, Dubai, America etc. they have perpetually ruined our economy and national status to that of third world while promoting other people’s economy. The incidence of their escapades gives credit to foreign health care service and foreign education amongst others at the disadvantage of ours. They wickedly take out jobs and economy to foreign countries while we remain unemployed and in rare occasion underemployed. Whenever you have the best of services anywhere in the globe, our politicians are widely acclaimed chief patrons yet, beyond four hundred metres radius of their country home lays poverty in stark nakedness all over the place.
Furthermore, why should we celebrate our half gotten freedom knowing too well that we are still driven politically by colonial master, though black masters this time? What has happen to our education sector developmentally? Shamefully, our politicians or political drivers would preferred to fund foreign universities rather than patronizing our own and the end result is thus their wards are sent abroad for educational training. Imagine, how many of our political actors have their children in our schools?
Again, our black colonial masters prefer to run abroad for catarrh treatment than putting our health sector in workable state. Our refineries cannot be said to be working because they have chains of inter-related business in the energy sector. Nothing seems to be working in Nigeria as the cabal has tied us down. Still we celebrate and give them national award.
According to Dr. Leonard Jeffries, Professor of Africana studies at the City University of New York and Vice President of the World Afrikan diaspora Union, he said “The British specifically created this artificial entity (Nigeria) knowing it could not sustain itself”. In harmony with this school of thought, UN correspondent, Addullahi Shuaibu, insisted that Nigeria is progressively heading towards being a failed state because government mechanisms are not working. This reminded us of failed late President Musa Yar’Adua’s 7-point agenda which was lately inherited by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan which of the points have we meant? What happen to Federal Government’ promise that come December 31, 2009 at least, our power sector will witness a boost of 6000 Mega Watts. What about the proposed re-branding policy propounded by Prof Dora? What happened to the Billions of naira allocated. For these failed adventures? In fact, the list is inexhaustive. This complement the assertions of the duo of Dr. Jeffries and Alh. Shuaibu that Nigeria as a political entity is not far form being a failed nation.
Ironically, our Western brother came into power screaming, ‘the cabal’ Later left Office Creating Fresh and much more oppressive bread of cabal members. A careful study of our political history had revealed that these cabals emanated from the Barracks. The IBB era was the period of rigorous recruitment and implantation of cabal members in our bureaucracy. Our Wealthiest bureaucrats and administrator were constituted then and they keep the trend alive.
However, how else can we come out of this? This describes the difficulty we have in making headway as a sovereign state. We cannot talk of fighting mal-administration without dealing with the cabal. We must fight them by ensuring a free and fair election, stopping irrational importations, achieving self sufficiency in petroleum products and power supply, providing basic amenities, uplifting agriculture and education, reviving our industries and creating jobs, boosting our health sector, strengthening our security and judiciary system and above all, we must sagaciously learn how to recite our National Anthem objectively, this the cabal will not want!
It is after these political cleansing that we can boldly say to our Nigerian brothers and sisters come let’s celebrate our independence. Nigeria has been in the hands of local colonial masters, for long and we should wake up!