Come October 1st, it would be 58 years since Nigeria’s independence. That our democracy is still nascent despite having 58 years in our independence pool is a case not worthy enough to stomach. With as many as 5 coup d’état since independence, Nigeria appears to have broken the record of the most for any post-independence nation. Even a needless civil war worsened what was on ground with so many ethnic divisions being created and suspicions being rife.
It would be rather pre-investigative to suppose that all the actors who either led or participated in the coups were not led in the belief of the nobility of trying to steer the country in the right course again. But whatever their reasons were, it truncated the flow of governance. Some quarters also believe that Nigeria is too big to be centrally governed.
As a verse in our National Anthem charges us;
“…The labour of our heroes past Shall never be in vain…”
We are immediately reminded in nostalgia how some of our past leaders (Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Anthony Enahoro, among others) frantically fought for Nigeria’s political autonomy thinking it was the best for the nation and the citizenry. They became heroes, so to say; but their legacy would be as short-lived as the military took over just 6 years after the 1960 independence. Or could it be said that they too truncated what they fought for with a little selfishness on their side? A series of staggering attempts which led to the 4th republic starting from the 1999 democratic era is a little too late. Have we been any better for it as a country and as a people?
Countries such as South Africa which shed apartheid rather very late seem to fare better than most countries in Africa which came from under the heavy cross of colonialism. Morocco, which is effectively still more or less a monarchy has it better in prosperity terms than a lot of African governments celebrating over 50 years of independence and transition into democracy. Only Ghana, of all the post-colonial nations in Africa, is very much ahead (as the fastest growing economy in the world) when calibrated in economic terms. What did they do right?
But for Nigeria, as much as it has been a rollercoaster ride of a couple of national tragedies and a few moments of joy, whether in strife or in prosperity, a nation has much to be grateful for in celebrating a whole 58 years of independence. Only those who lived in pre-independence Nigeria could tell how frustrating it was to have their agency removed in matters of governance and self-determination. Only those who lived in Nigeria over 58 years ago could fathom how frustrating it was to watch the national wealth being plundered endlessly and shipped abroad under the supervision and ownership of an English monarch. Many of us in this generation may not be able to feel first-hand how sickening it is to live under the guidance and imposition of a culture different from our old traditional institutions. We can only imagine the shift that happened from the colonial years to its demise in 1960.
Perhaps the confusion caused by the cultural conflict and the mental chaos the leaders who championed independence dealt with did not allow them to prepare enough for the reality of the dire times which would come soon after independence. Our work at real nation-building might just have begun roughly 20 years after the current democratic dispensation.
As a people, brought together from our diverse cultural complexities under a common banner, we have the most painstaking work at hand bettering our nation, if we are to ever reach that peak which our founding fathers dreamt – the one Lord Lugard amalgamated in 1914 and that which many more heroes liberated in 1960.