By Kayode Fayemi
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Dr.
Kayode Fayemi, Executive Governor of Ekiti State
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The
anticipated centenary of Nigeria as a ‘country’ on January 1, 2014 speaks to
the amalgamation and yoked co-existence of the constituent units of the
Northern and Southern Protectorates of the territory bound on its northern
fringe by the Sahara, its southern rim by the Bight of Benin and the Gulf of
Guinea, and its western and eastern extents by Benin and the Cameroons.
This
was carried out through a ‘proclamation’ of the colonial Governor, Sir Fredrick
Lugard in 1914 to ease the administrative convenience of managing this
sprawling territory that was increasingly becoming of economic importance to
British imperial interests.
The
various scholarly and general literature of this willful act over the decades
is replete with accounts of how a vast number of otherwise distinct and
heterogeneous peoples, ways of life, worldviews and kingdoms – from the Oyo and
Ife Empires, the Fulani Emirates, the Benin and Jukun sovereignties, etc. –
were forcibly bonded and strewn together in a manner that continues to be a
volatile admixture.
Hence,
the territory marked as Nigeria is a composite of territories and people who,
even a hundred years after, are yet to perfect their union and is more of a
geographical expression that has not attained the rank of a cultural
expression. As such the act of the colonial Governor and his Secretary of State
in the United Kingdom is still considered in a number of quarters as the
“mistake of 1914”.
This
line of thought or argument might appear persuasive when considered within the
purview of the ethnic, religious and cultural tensions that have defined
Nigeria’s faltering nationhood through the greater part of the twentieth
century and into the twenty-first century.
We
have witnessed the rise and resurgence of ethnic and religious militia,
communities and groups who have taken up arms against each other and the
state, the privatization and erosion of the state towards narrow gains and
selfish interests, the lack of subscription of diverse people and groups to a common
mythology or purpose, the desertion of the state, and host of other indices
that reveal the essentially problematic nature of citizenship in the country.
All of these, and more, have tended to seek the implosion of the British
experiment in binding different people into a common destiny without their
consent.
That
Nigeria has trundled along in the past 100 years despite its explosive
composition is without doubt, but the testimonies of the last couple of decades
have revealed its essential need for re-invention or re-creation, as the centre
and structure cannot hold for much longer without fundamentally damaging
consequences.
These
have been what have inspired and instigated the national and nationalities
question with its attendant upheavals, blood-letting and internecine conflicts;
the redounding calls for a national conference, whether this be ‘sovereign’ or
‘ordinary’; the agitations for a truer form of federalism and its immanent
fiscal manifestations; and other forms of concern pertaining to the character
of the Nigerian state.
The
case for a Nigerian Centenary celebration, as made by the Federal Government,
is premised on its perception of the country as not evolving from some sort of
‘historical accident’ but a ‘pre-ordination’, which is “the product of a long
and mature consideration.” The federal position observes that, “the social
tensions of our national evolution only made us more united as a people, with
the aggregation of human and material resources that has enabled us play
historically significant roles in world affairs.” Also, “our unity symbolizes
our common destiny, continued existence and development”, which serves as the
basis for a rising global profile.
Hence,
the Nigerian centenary celebration is anchored on the theme of the Great Promise
of Nigeria’s federation, its unity, indivisibility, virility progress, and its
potential for being one of the leaders in world affairs and the world economy.
It signposts 100 years of a cohesive nation with an uncommon biodiversity, rich
human resources, and a cultural diversity and economic opportunities that very
few countries can lay claims to.
In
support of this fairly romantic notion of nation-hood, the federal government
intends to keep rolling out the drums over the period of a year, from the original
instance of February 14, 2013, and engage in arts expos and literary festivals,
photo exhibitions, film festivals and carnivals, unity rallies, music,
entertainment, sports and fashion shows, alongside the creation of legacy
projects including the new Abuja City Gate, the Abuja Centenary City, etc. All
these smack of what has been described across a few quarters as the engagement
in an extensive ‘jamboree.’
The
Man for Whom the Bells Toll
Chief
Abdul-Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi, who unfortunately passed on to eternity on the
5th of September 2009 at the age of 71, was well-known for his disdain for
frivolity, as his essence was driven by what Professor Oluwole Soyinka aptly
described as the quest for justice being the first condition under humanity. An
author, publisher, social conscience/critic, civil and human rights advocate,
he was the quintessential crusader for fairness and freedom.
He
was the colossus that straddled those bizarre moments in the history of our
country when darkness came crashing in from the precincts of power, and held
out a beacon of light, life and hope. He never flinched at every opportunity to
speak truth to power, even when his comfort was compromised and his life
threatened.
Fawehinmi
was extremely passionate and tireless in his struggles against oppression,
misrule and corruption, over a span of three decades from 1969, which saw him
incarcerated in some of the most dehumanizing circumstances about two dozen
times. He was harassed, tortured and detained, while his property and international
passport was confiscated severally, and he was shot at in his legal chambers in
Anthony Village, Lagos. The weight of these travails through numerous years was
crucial to what ultimately impaired his health and led to his untimely demise.
If
Gani Fawehinmi’s vision was to see a Nigeria in which everyone thrived under
the conditions of justice, freedom and equity, his mission was in deploying his
inimitable courage and the tools of his legal profession to create a country
free from the distortions and avarice of power; a truly federal space devoid of
ethnic or group rancor, and in which nationalities, groups and communities can
enjoy their naturally endowed resources, whilst developing at their own pace.
This was what led to his becoming a defence counsel during the ‘inquisition’ of
the environmental rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, during the regime of the
military despot, General Sani Abacha in 1995.
A
1993 recipient of the prestigious Bruno Kreisky Prize and the 1998 International
Bar Association’s Bernard Simmons Award, due to his lifelong commitment to the
fight for human rights, a Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM) for ages, before
being elevated to the rank of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), the highest
honour in the Nigerian legal profession, Fawehinmi was regarded as the “scourge
of irresponsible governments.”
He was equally, “a sphygmomanometer with which
the blood pressure of dictators is gauged, the veritable conscience of the
nation and the champion of the interests and causes of the masses”. Also, if
Nigeria’s great century, since the fiat of Lugard in 1914, has been about the
search for community and a commonality of values across its diverse
nationalities and groupings, Gani Fawehinmi was the moral beacon and oft-times
lonely crusader for justice, whose work, life and times holds up the standards
of equity and justice that makes community possible within a sea of diversity.
The
Faltering Journey Towards Community
The
original instance for the journey towards ‘community’ in what came to be known
as the political entity, ‘Nigeria’ was, no doubt, located within the
self-seeking act of the colonial amalgamation of the Northern and Southern
Protectorates in 1914. Without that fusion of culturally diverse people,
Nigeria would never have emerged as the country that it presently is.
Yet,
the fault-lines that have led to the numerous dissensions and crises in
post-colonial Nigeria and forestalled the attainment of community have been due
to the character of the State that was constructed and handed down to Nigerians
by the colonialists from 1914. This state was both foreign in its conception
and organisation, and derived its logic from the colonial state.
The British
brought together ethnic nationalities that were autonomous political,
cultural and economic units – even when they shared certain affinities – and
governed them without attempting to blur or ameliorate the divisive religious,
social and class fissures that existed among them. It was these fault-lines or
discordant fissures that fossilized in the colonial and post- colonial periods
that made the elite classes of the different groups to engage in competition
for political and economic advantages in the attempt to govern and control the
resources of the state.
Hence,
many of the issues and concerns that have prevented the attainment of community
across Nigeria’s plural and multi-ethnic societies, and which have been couched
and framed as the National Question – dealing with exclusion and
marginalization – arose from the structural deficits and imbalances evolving
from the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria to
form a unified colony by the colonial Governor-General, Lord Lugard in 1914.
These
imbalances have deepened and enabled a skewed ontology allowing certain groups
within the emergent state to persistently thrive and incur benefits from what
ought to be a national communion to the exclusion of others, even when these
groups do not necessarily possess the material base to justify such privileged
advantage. The fallout of this has been an heightened state of intolerance,
insecurity and strife, routinely assuming religious and ethnic expression, as
actors within different groups struggle to access the privileges of the State
at the expense of others.
As
such, the occasion of Nigeria’s centenary affords the opportunity to revisit
our sense of community in the country and to retrace its fault-lines in the
effort to address the National Question and its embedded concerns around citizenship,
exclusion and marginalization, which have the capability to move the country
from a geographical into a cultural expression.
Rather
than revel in celebrations or a jamboree, this presents the chance for a very
sober reflection and re-contemplation of all the structural and institutional
warts that are hindering our attainment of community in the country, as a way
of re-inventing a truly national identity.
Also, this necessitates the
evaluation of the character of the Nigerian State in terms of its federalism,
the need for better regimes of the devolution of state powers, fiscal
responsibility and responsiveness, etc. This could take the form of
conferences, symposia, national re-orientation programmes, etc.
Besides,
how worthy is a sense of celebration that re-enacts an insidious imperialism,
the problems of which persist till date in such a crucial issue of identity as
in the Language Question, whereby English has successfully displaced our local
languages as authentic vehicles of national communication and identity, and
maintains an hierarchical relationship to them?
Hence
English has constituted an attritive medium of power, through which foreign
values and ideas are ingrained into our consciousness and are made to occupy
our cultural imagination. Thereby, celebrating amalgamation could be seen as a
way of commemorating the genius of British colonialism, as it has come to
upturn our ethos and value systems.
It
is Still the Structure!
Essentially,
the nature and character of the Nigerian state needs to be engaged,
interrogated and restructured before the major factors and tendencies
overheating the polity and restraining the attainment of a sense of communal
identity can be resolved. The question of the national structure is the central
issue that will not go away in Nigeria’s quest for community across its
different nationalities and groups.
The
questions that need to be answered in all its attendant ramifications include:
what is this nation called Nigeria? What does it mean to be Nigerian? What is
the relationship between the citizens, communities/groups and the State? Can
the State survive in its present unitary and over-centralized form? What is the
nature of inter-governmental relations and how does this impact upon or affect
diverse communities/groups?
These
contentious questions will need to be decided through a national dialogue,
before Nigeria can attain real democratic consolidation, effective governance,
and an enduring sense of community.
These
are essential concerns that need to be contemplated and addressed at this very
critical juncture of our history in order to make the Nigerian centenary
worth its advent.
Dr.
Kayode Fayemi, Executive Governor of Ekiti State, read the remarks at the 4th
Gani Fawehinmi Memorial Lecture, in Lagos, Thursday, in remembrance of
the passage of the radical lawyer, and justice sector reformer who died of
throat cancer in 2009.
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