It's by no way wrong for any couple to celebrate their 100th year of peaceful coexistence with excellent history and fruitful union. The 1st of January 2014, marks the 100th year of forceful merger between the Northern and Southern protectorates and the birth of Nigeria. Ours is simply a celebration of a failed nation. Nigerian Government is preparing to throw up a huge rascality and a jamboree to celebrate a century of misfortunes and accidental union. An act which translates the silent meaning of transformation agenda, looting. The feast amounts to a celebration of mediocrity. It is therefore unnecessary and a waste of resources, it has no significance in the amelioration of the challenges of Nigeria's nationhood.
In 100 hundred years, we have become an example of the ruination of a nation with a bright prospect. At amalgamation and even at independence, Nigeria had bright prospects for the black race and for Africa but 100 years down the line because of the mismanagement and misrule of our past leaders, the country today is a shame. We are lagging behind in every sphere and all global indices now. The country is being robbed by insecurity – today 70 per cent of our people live below poverty line; all our infrastructures have collapsed at 100.
We are a divided people; and the government is using divide and rule to govern the country. We are besieged by all manner of crises and the life expectancy is 51 years. In every sphere of human live, we have lagged behind and corruption has become our grand commander in chief at 100. The ruling elite have lost the sense of shame; they are totally bereft of any sense of responsibility that they will think the next line is to celebrate.
What are we celebrating? We are celebrating the failure of a nation, it is a big shame that even at 100, we are bogged down by leadership that cannot appreciate the situation of things on ground. They cannot realize that what we need is a sober reflection of how we have lived and lost our chances. We are now rolling out the drums and it shows that there is no redemption for the country. The way forward is for Nigerians to take their destiny into their hands, they must reclaim their country and to know that our salvation is not in the hands of the ruling elite. They must take their destiny in their hands because the ruling class does not have any vision for the country.
There is nothing to celebrate as far as centenary is concerned, government just wants to waste billions of Naira for nothing.
Many are poor while the few are getting richer by the day; many billion of Naira being stolen by the day by public office holders. A nation cannot be built in this manner. You cannot talk of a nation when you don’t create opportunity for your citizens to excel; you cannot talk of a nation when many Nigerians are living poorly and in a bad condition.
I feel the Nigeria government should just forget about this celebration because a slave cannot be celebrating in it slavery.
The legality of the amalgamation is even a subject of questions. Based on a research conducted through the UK parliamentary archives by Tayo Oke Ph,D, it reveals that Lord Lugard presented a series of “reports”, one of which was published in May 1913 in which “the secretary of state has decided that the combined territories of Northern and Southern Nigeria, divided into two or more subsidiary administrations, shall be placed under the control of a single Governor-General...” . Lugard had simply prevailed on the secretary of state to rubber stamp his wish to rule over a vast swathe of land which he had Christened Nigeria. The next occasion of historical significance that took place in relation to this was when Lugard actually delivered the “amalgamation speech” on the “amalgamation day of January 1st 1914”. He boldly announced to the world, based on his agreement with the secretary of state the previous year, his ‘desire therefore as briefly as possible to describe to his audience, and through them to the official and unofficial community of Nigeria the basis on which this Amalgamation is to be carried out..’ The basis, of course, was to facilitate the continued exploitation of the people and their natural resources. Let’s not forget, this was done as World War 1 was just breaking out, Parliamentary process was thus dispensed with. It is my submission, therefore, that a Nigerian court of competent jurisdiction can and should be given the opportunity to rule on the said Amalgamation. Committed eminent Nigerian lawyers could, if they choose to, seek a judicial review of the decision to amalgamate as soon as it is practicable to do so. A declaration that the decision is null and void should usher in an immediate convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) to give Nigerians the long awaited say on this most vexed of all issues.
Having said that, I can hear discordant voices saying: ‘leave well alone; let it be; the fraud was perpetrated long time ago; it’s an Act of God; it’s our destiny to be together, etc. These voices are well meaning, but wrong in a fundamental respect. In 1707, the previously disagreeable Kingdoms of Scotland and England were merged together by King James (1), a Scottish Monarch, and was later ratified by Scottish and English Parliaments when they both met for the first time in October 1707. There lies the basis of the United Kingdom as we know it today.
Why was this precedent not applied to the Amalgamation of Nigeria over two hundred years later? Nonetheless, Parliamentary legitimacy notwithstanding, the “Act of Union” between Scotland and England has been a running sore in the hearts of many Scots for a long time. With its population of just over five million compared to England’s fifty three million (or 84% of total UK population), Scottish nationalist leaders have long felt ‘sub-merged’ and ‘marginalised’ within the UK although, this may be more apparent than real to an outside observer.
Nonetheless, because this feeling runs deep, it was given political expression by the formation of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) in 1934. Why can’t, for instance, Boko Haram be allowed to express their political grievances through a legitimate political party with the sole aim of establishing a Sharia state in the Northern region? Why not? Once you have feelings of ‘injustice’ running so deep, and being so visceral, it needs to be given democratic expression or, the people will resort to violence.
Anyway, back to Scotland. The SNP was berated and shunned for much of its early existence, until it gradually began to win the hearts and minds of the Scottish people. It won its first Parliamentary seat in 1945, then, substantially increased its representation in 1974 with eleven Members of Parliament, before finally becoming the majority in Scottish Parliament in 2007. The party’s mantra since formation has remained full independence for Scotland and a break away from the UK. Guess what? The UK Parliament has now agreed a referendum of the Scottish people to take place in 2014 to determine whether Scotland should opt out of the UK and re-start life as an independent entity. The campaign has already started between pro and anti independence camps. It promises to be lively and enlightening. My haunch is that there will be a narrow victory for those who wish to remain in the UK and the nationalist fervour would have been extinguished for the foreseeable future. The question for us in Nigeria is why are we afraid of an open democratic debate about the terms of our existence as a state? Why is this type of debate encouraged in Western countries as a mark of political maturity and it is discouraged in our society as heresy? Why do we want to spend a trillion naira bringing out dance troupes and masquerades next year to celebrate the centenary of an amalgamation, which to all intent and purposes is a legal infamy? Our leaders appear to have taken leave of their senses with this one. Let’s hope common sense will eventually prevail.
We have not been happy in this country; we have not had a happy relationship with one another in this country, particularly between the north and the south. So, I don’t think it is a moment ordained for celebration. But it should not go unmarked because a major event, political, of great significance, occurred. I believe that what we should do at this stage, since the very future of this country is now in contention, is that instead of celebrating it, we should use it to reflect, to retrace and then, chart a way forward. That is what we should do.
The celebration is another illustration of foolishness of this country which does not know how to react in a particular situation. Instead of sitting down in a sober manner, appointing various groups and having various seminars to have various discussions on the way forward as a united country, we are celebrating. Celebrating what?
There is nothing to celebrate because Nigeria is almost a failed state right now. There is crises, there is Boko Haram, there is kidnapping, there is insecurity, infrastructural breakdown, everything is bad. So, there is nothing to celebrate. Those in government who are fueling arrangements for this celebrations are just trying to establish another avenue to loot our nation's wealth. They will embezzle our wealth, the masses will be paid to dance on the streets as part of the celebrations. They will simply be celebrating fools at 100 while their bank accounts will be turning to billions in 100ths. Thieves
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