THE ARTIFICIAL AMALGAMATION

1. The British declared a Southern Nigeria State.

That was an artificial creation. It created a Lagos colony. That was also an artificial creation. It merged the two into a Southern Nigeria. That was artificial.

The British then merged a Southern Nigeria with a Northern Nigeria. That was artificial.

I do not believe that the amalgamation of Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria was any more artificial than that the British grouping together of various groups into a Southern Nigeria.

2. There is a common misconception that there is a such a thing as a Natural Nation as opposed to an Artificial Nation.

There is no such thing as a Natural Nation in my mind. Differences and commonalities are selected and  defined and heightened by elites and leaders in virtually every nation.

If you look at virtually any country you will see a history of differences and commonalities. Nigeria is no different.

Good Leaders bring together people by stressing commonalities and uniting with a vision. 

Italy was, for centuries, a collection of 30 plus fiercely antagonistic City States.

Germany was a collection of Kingdoms, merged by the Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck.

India was created by the British  by uniting  many Moghul Empires , under fiercely independent and antagonistic Moghul Rulers.

Spain arose after the marriage of two people heading  different kingdoms.

The only country in the world that had a single tribe  and a single religion was Somalia. It was the worst example of State failure. 

Somali leaders found new differences. They stressed clans within the common tribe and that became the dividing line.

3. I believe that the search for a natural basis for the division of a country based on a common identity is a doomed exercise. Because identities are socially constructed. You can continue to subdivide yourself at infinitum.

Agitation for State Creation has shown this to be true, that no matter how many divisions, there will always be agitations for further divisions.

4. My father used to tell me that when he grew up he was told that he was a Bini man. He later on arrival at Kings College became a Westerner. (Western Region).

He then became a Mid Westerner  in 1963. He was later renamed a Bendelite. His son Keem started as a Bendelite and then later became an Edo man. And now in his old age he is a South South man.

All these identities are fluid and made by men and women. They are social constructs by elites for their benefits. I have decided to be a Nigerian and an African.

5. My father used to tell me that even the words Ibo and Yoruba are relatively recent terms. He told me that when he was in Kings college, a man told you he was from Onitsha or Aba and referred to himself as an Easterner. He hardly referred to himself as Iboman.

Other friends would refer to themselves as Egbas or Ijebus not as Yorubas. If we had a leader like Nkrumah or Nyerere or Nehru who stressed national commonalities we would have made progress.

Instead we had leaders who united Ijebus and Egbas into Sons of Oduduwa, which is also a mythical construct.

We had leaders who united the competing kingdoms of Bornu, Katsina, Zaria and Kano into a North.

These separate and independent Kingdoms had competed against each other for centuries. In the East, the villages and towns of Onitsha and Aba were turned into an Ibo nation by the elites and politicians.

6. Our leaders in the 1940s and 1950s made choices. There was nothing natural about the decisions they took. The divisions they met were no greater than in Ghana, China, India, Tanzania and Uganda.

They simply lacked a national or continental vision. We must not repeat their mistakes.

7. The failure of Nigeria is for me not so much about the failure of structure but more of values and vision. The study of businesses and political systems confirms that values always outweigh structures as the determinant of success.

My time in the University over the last few years has led me to this conclusion. That is why I am skeptical of the current rush for restructuring along lines of identity. Or rather, a supposed common identity, which is a mirage.

8. We should be able to have multiple identities and a common  Nigerian identity. I do not think it is too late.

In fact I think that heading anywhere else is the beginning of a never ending set of subdivisions birthed and accompanied by violence until we become 20 or 30 Benin or Togo republics, tiny, irrelevant and still badly governed."

What we should be working hard to achieve is the Devolution of Powers to the Sub-National entities of States and Local Governments, but with the strengthening of the two pillars of stability and Rule of Law which are The Police and the Judiciary.

Any country that has a weak and ineffectual Police Force and Judiciary is doomed.

By HAKEEM BELO -OSAGIE