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Nigeria-A Marriage That Was Designed To Fail?
By Femi Fani-Kayode
Newsdiaryonline Wed Sep 14,2011
It is very clear that some landmines were placed in our country
by our former colonial masters that were designed to ensure that
we fail as a united and prosperous nation after they left our
shores and granted us independence. This is not only true but it
is not even peculiar to Nigeria. As a matter of fact of the
three major artificial amalgamations that the British
colonialists established and forged into one nation only Nigeria
still remains together as one country and from all indications
it may not remain that way into the distant future.
The other two were the Sudan (which has now broken into the two
countries of Southern and Northern Sudan) and India (which broke
into the three countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh not
too long after independence). Both of them experienced brutal
and prolonged civil wars and periods of ethnic and religious
tensions and strife before they finally agreed to split up,
dissolve the forced marriage and go their separate ways. There
were many other former colonies and nation-states (some British
and others not) that also broke up after their colonial masters
left because they were also incompatible artificial creations
and entities that were bound to fail right from the start.
They were also ''forced marriages'' which eventually ended up in
a divorce. I am talking about Malaysia (which immediately after
independence broke into the two separate countries of Singapore
and Malaysia), Indonesia (which later broke up into the two
countries of Indonesia and East Timor), Czeckoslovakia (which
later broke up into the two countries of the Czeck and Slovak
republics), Yugoslavia (which later broke up into the five
countries of Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo, Monte Negro and Bosnia-
Herzogovina), The Soviet Union (which later broke up into dozens
of separate countries) and so on and so forth. Nations that were
forced together by insincere and devious colonial masters and
empires and that were forged by the whims and caprices of the
imperialists do not often do very well or remain together for
very long. And when they do it is a constant struggle. It is
like being stuck in a bad and abusive marriage. We in Nigeria
have actually done very well when compared with the others and
this says a lot for us as a people and tells a story about our
ability to endure and our natural resilience. We certainly have
strong shock absorbers.
Despite a brutal civil war and despite our many regional, ethnic
and religious differences and bouts of violence we have still
managed to hold things together and not been forced go our
separate ways. We have managed and tolerated each other with a
smile despite our very real tensions, challenges and
differences. However when there are very real and tangible
tensions between the north and the south, when there is an
unprecedented level of resentment between Christians and
Muslims, when there is open disdain and contempt for what is
(rightly or wrongly) perceived as the weakness and incompetence
of a southern Christian President by the majority of those in
the core Muslim north, when a full scale religious war is being
waged in Jos between Christians and Muslims and when bombs are
being dropped all over the place by Islamist terrorists who wish
to establish an Islamic fundamentalist state in the north then
all bets are off and the centre cannot possibly hold for much
longer.
That is my fear. It is either that this matter is contained
quickly and these Islamist terrorists and their backers and
allies are exposed and completely crushed by the Federal
Government or eventually Nigeria will break up. The choice is
ours. I love Nigeria as she is and I do not pray for a break-up
but this is the bitter truth. Finally as regards the term ''Poor
Husband'' and ''Rich Wife'' which some have complained about and
that I used in my last essay on Nigeria titled ''The Poor
Husband, The Rich Wife and Boko Haram'', I can understand the
irritation of those that did not like those labels given the
fact that most of those that complained were from the north.
Nobody likes to be referred to as a ''poor husband'' (or indeed
a ''rich wife'') and I meant no disrespect to anyone by using
such terms. Unfortunately I did not coin these descriptive terms
and so I cannot be held responsible for them and neither can I
alter them. These were the words and terms which Lord Frederick
Lugard himself used to describe the northern and southern
protectorates of Nigeria respectively. He labelled the north the
''poor husband'' and he labelled the south the ''rich wife''.
Please blame him and his fiancée Flora Shaw (who actually gave
Nigeria her name) and not me for these labels, these terms and
these choices of words. Permit me to end this contribution by
pointing out that at the time that Lugard created these two ugly
terms and labels oil had not been discovered in the south (this
was in 1914). His generous description of the south as being the
''rich wife'' was borne out of his acknowledgement of the fact
that the southerners were hard-working, well educated,
industrious and therefore relatively wealthy when compared to
their northern counterparts. They also had far many more human,
natural and mineral resources than the northerners of that day.
Yet despite all this, they were still only to be the ''wife''
and political power was to be preserved for the ''poor husband''
of the north who, though poor, was regarded as being far more
pliant and easy to deal with by the British colonial masters.
Chief Femi Fani-Kayode was the spokesperson to President
Olusegun Obasanjo; he subsequently became Minister of Tourism &
Culture & later served as Aviation Minister for Federal Republic
of Nigeria.
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