Can Nigeria ever function as a country?

 Stella Azie Esq

The Nigerian people will have to decide this all important question. We have to be honest about our union and respond for the best interest of everyone calling themselves Nigerians. We all know how the name Nigeria was coined from Niger area in a very casual way. It appears that there was no proper consideration, indeed, no serious thought was given of the people being grouped together as one country. Since this injustice, it has been a struggle for the numerous people of Nigeria with their different languages, dialects, cultures, religions and beliefs to co-exist. Wars of different kinds have been fought and are being fought on a regular basis. Millions of lives have been lost and continues to be lost in an effort to piece the people together.

The more the powers that be pretend to be working for the unit called Nigeria, the more apparent it is that they are working for a few people who happen to come from the section of the country in which these leaders originated. Their allegiance is generally to their enclave, “their people” to the detriment of the entire country. In recent times, their allegiance has been further limited to their family, extended families, friends and cronies.

Clearly, there is no common agenda, common goal or a firm commitment to the unit called Nigeria as there is for the separate regions, groups and families. When for instance the story of Cecelia Ibru broke, a friend of mine who comes from the same part of the country as Cecelia Ibru told me that he called his brother to discuss his outrage. He got the shock of his life when his brother did not seem to see anything wrong with the bank executive stealing and looting bank proceeds entrusted to her, nor was he outraged that she invested so much of the money outside Nigeria. Despite the fact that Cecelia Ibru did not use the money to advance the life of any one from her part of the country, this young man’s brother said that the Hausa people from the northern part of Nigeria have been doing worse things. As far as he was concerned, it was perfectly alright for someone from the south to steal as it is not just the birth right of people from the north. You can hardly find people from Lucky Igbinedion’s place  or Ibori’s place accusing them of looting the state’s treasury. They will not deny the looting of their treasury but they will defend it as what the northerners have been doing for years. It does not matter that the looters did not provide employment for the youth by investing the proceeds of the loot within the state.

I truly believe that General Gowon did a great disservice to Nigeria after the civil war when he verbally declared “no victor, no vanquished” but never implemented it in any of his policies. The Igbo people that fought were clearly treated as vanquished by giving them a mere twenty pounds each to start their lives anew. While there was free education in the north, there was no free education in the South Eastern part among the Igbo people forcing a lot of young Igbo children to go into trading. In reality, the war never ended for a lot of Igbo people as they had to find a way to survive in a harsh environment that cared little or nothing about them. A lot of the physically wounded individuals were left to fend for themselves and some were not only physically wounded but psychologically damaged as well. Some of the people lost their properties in what their own government called “abandoned” properties. There were those that lost family members, bread winners. There were those that were orphaned and handicapped but the government failed to help them.

Due to the fact that we have had leaders that are clueless about leadership, selfish, greedy and corrupt and a largely selfish, greedy and corrupt masses, the country has failed to launch. Instead of the Nigerian government and leadership to bring people together by emphasizing what unites the people, they are further dividing the Nigerian people by emphasizing their differences. The leadership pattern adopted by ruling party,(PDP) for instance where the leadership is zoned according to geographic locations of candidates is one such divisive mechanism.  In as much as a quota system is not a bad idea, it should be implemented with some common sense and intelligence. At certain levels of authority, positions should be held by merit irrespective of state of origin. Nigeria deserves competent individuals to run its affairs irrespective of their state of origin.

When one sees what is going on in terms of security, Boko Haram, the alleged involvement of  top leaders of the country in the religious unrest,  the Yoruba/Igbo war in the internet, it will not take a rocket scientist to find that there is no unity among the people of Nigeria and that people have not truly identified themselves as true Nigerians when dealing with people of different cultures, religions and languages within Nigeria. Therefore, if Nigeria is ever to function as a country, there has to be targeted policies by the powers that be to bring the people of Nigeria together  because, divided we fall.