By Edwin Madunagu
I set out on August 30 with the announcement of the three books - on “changing the world” - which I wished to appreciate: How to change the world: Tales of Marx and Marxism by Eric Hobsbawn; Africa must be modern: The contemporary imperative in Africa (A Manifesto) by Olufemi Taiwo; and The world we see to wish: Revolutionary objectives in the 21st Century, by Samir Amin. The first of these books was appreciated in a six-part essay titled: “Endless debate on changing the world”. Eric Hobsbawn, the inspirer of that essay, died on October 1, 2012, at the age of 95, three days before the final part appeared. The second book was appreciated in a four-part essay with the caption: Notes on the “modernity perspective”.
The third book, authored by Samir Amin,
has been appreciated in this column over a long period. The present essay, the
third step of the trilogy I planned, is inspired by that book. Ancient
philosophers advised that if you are confused as to where to go, you may need
to recall exactly where you are coming from, and then, try as hard as you can
to reconstruct the way you got to where you are, how you got to the point of
your confusion. I have decided to benefit from the philosophers’ advice and
begin with these twin-tasks. What follows is consequently a reconstruction of
the trajectory of Nigeria’s history - a revised, updated and condensed version
of the 10-part article that I wrote in this column between October 25 and
December 27, 1990 titled: “A refutation of official history”. The present
edition will be built around the ethnic nationality question.
The first step in the creation of “The
country called Nigeria” was taken on January 1,1900, by the British conquerors.
On that day, they named and confirmed the establishment of three colonial
territories: the Colony of Lagos, roughly co-extensive with the present Lagos
State and parts of the present Ogun State; the Protectorate of Southern
Nigeria, (roughly corresponding to the present South-West geo-political zone
minus the Colony of Lagos plus the present South-South geopolitical zone, plus the
present South-East geo-political zone); and the Protectorate of Northern
Nigeria (roughly corresponding to the present North-Central plus North-Eastern
plus North-West geopolitical zones).
The three British colonial territories
had Lagos Island, Calabar and Lokoja, respectively, as capitals. The second
step in what I may call “colonial geo-political engineering” was taken in 1906,
or thereabout, with the merger the Colony of Lagos and the Protectorate of
Southern Nigeria to produce the colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria,
with Lagos as capital. Calabar “lost out”.
The so-called Berlin Conference had
taken place in 1885. It was a conference between the European colonial powers
in Africa. That gathering did not “carve out” territories for the various
powers as such; it only resulted, at least in West Africa, in mutual
recognition of the territories they had claimed as their respective areas and
spheres of authority. It was after this conference that the powers rushed to
take physical control and began their “colonial geo-political
engineering”. When Germany lost the First World War in 1918, its colonial
territory to the east of Nigeria, called Kamerun, was divided between its two
rivals, Britain and France. Britain took the western part (a narrow stretch of
territory stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the south to Lake Chad in the
north) and France took the eastern part.
Britain split its own share of divided
Cameroun (or Kamerun - as it was then called) into two: south and north.
The southern part was merged with the Colony and Protectorate of Southern
Nigeria and the northern part merged with the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria.
All this “cut-and-join” was done purely for the interests and convenience of
the British colonial administration - influenced, perhaps, by the aspects of
their “anthropological studies” of the natives that were consistent with these
interests and convenience. In 1914, the year the First World War began, the
Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was merged with the Colony and Protectorate of
Southern Nigeria. The new amalgamated entity was called the Colony of Nigeria.
Sometime between the end of the First
World War (1918) and the beginning of the Second World War, in 1939, the Colony
and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria was split into two administrative parts:
Western Provinces (with Ibadan as capital) and Eastern Provinces (with Enugu as
capital). The Protectorate of Northern Nigeria became Northern Provinces, with
Kaduna as capital. Lokoja “lost out”. Lagos became, or rather, was confirmed
as, the capital of the British Colony of Nigeria. Although the North and the
South were “amalgamated” in 1914, it was only after the Second World War in
1945 that the two parts were brought together administratively. Between these
two dates - 1914 and 1945 - the two parts of Nigeria were treated as if they
were still separate colonies.
The 1954 colonial Constitution of
Nigeria confirmed the federal and regional structure of the country: West
(capital, Ibadan), East (capital, Enugu), North (capital, Kaduna) and Federal
Capital (Lagos). As British colonial Nigeria and French colonial Cameroun both
approached independence, a decision had to be taken by the British whether the
part of colonial Cameroun “awarded” to them after the First World War and which
they merged with Nigeria would remain part of Nigeria or would re-unite with
their relations “awarded” to the French. In the event the people of
northern part of the “awarded” territory voted to remain with Nigeria (and
consequently became part of Northern Nigeria), but the people of southern part
of the awarded territory voted to join their relations (and consequently became
part of Cameroun).
The merger of British northern Cameroun
with Northern Nigeria and separation of British Southern Cameroun from Eastern
Nigeria took place in February 1961, four months after Nigeria’s independence
on October 1, 1960. One of the results of these events - the 1885 Berlin
Conference, the adjustments and re-adjustments of borders between British
colonial Nigeria and German colonial Cameroun, the division of the latter
colonial territory between Britain and France, the merger of British Cameroun
with British Nigeria and then partial separation from Nigeria - is today’s
crisis over the Bakassi Peninsula.
In 1963, the Midwest region (covering
the current Edo and Delta states) was carved out of the West. Four years
later, in 1967, Nigeria, now under military regime, and close to Civil War, was
re-divided into 12 states with Lagos now becoming a state. The number of states
rose to 19 in 1976; 21 in 1987; 30 in 1991; and 36 in 1996. The dual status of
Lagos - a state and the federal capital - was broken in 1976 with the
designation of Abuja as the new federal capital territory. In 1995, politicians
meeting under General Sani Abacha’s Constitutional Conference unofficially
re-organised the states into six geopolitical zones: three in the
pre-independence North, and three in the pre-independence South.
Today, 19 of the 36 constituent states
are in the pre-1960 North, and 17 in the pre-1960 South; and of the six
unofficial geopolitical zones, two are constituted by the well-known pre-1960
minority areas: the Mid-West and the Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers (COR) areas
constituting one zone in the South; and the Middle-Belt constituting one zone
in the North.
What I have given is a rough sketch of
the trajectory of geopolitical structuring of Nigeria from 1900, through 1906,
through 1914, through 1963, through 1967, 1976, 1987, 1991, 1996, up to the
present. With, perhaps, minor corrections in dates and names; this is what I
expect to find in every truthful historical record - official or unofficial.
But that is not all the story. For history is not simply the records of deeds,
acts, ideas and pronouncements of authorities. In particular, the history of
Nigeria is not the records of acts of the Nigerian state - from colonial to
post-colonial (in the various forms it has assumed: civilian and military).
As I have also said several times in
this column, Nigeria is not the arithmetical sum of its ethnic or geopolitical
components. There are, today, significant elements in the composition of
Nigeria that are simply Nigerian and, therefore, cannot be resolved into ethnic
and geo-political segments. I can also affirm that the political history of Nigeria
is not, at any point in that history, simply the record of ethnic nationality
struggles led by ethnic nationality leaders. The assertions above should not,
however, be construed to mean that this country, Nigeria, cannot break up
allegedly along ethnic nationality lines. But it would be “allegedly” and an
imposition based falsehood. Please, propose a viable geopolitical structure for
Nigeria and, in it, point at a component that will not embrace significant
ethnic minorities that will fight for their “autonomy” or “independence” in the
event of another ethnic or ethno-religious tragedy. Remember Biafra.
Remember Bosnia (Yugoslavia). These four propositions will be elaborated in the
succeeding segments.
• To be continued.
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