66 Years or 112 years?
The Amalgamation of Northern Protectorate and Southern Protectorate of Nigeria happened in 1914. At the time, Lord Lugard famously or infamously said—-depending on who’s looking at the matter that he was putting together a forced marriage between a “Poor husband—-Northern Nigeria with a Rich wife—-Southern Nigeria” with no prospect of divorce.
His thoughts and declaration have largely held firm in spite of agitations by ethnic nationalities and a Civil War that raged from 1967 to 1970—when brother warred against brother until 3m people lay dead.
1914 was step number one.
Further attempts to cement this marriage happened with the Clifford Constitution—1922;
the Richards Constitution—-1946;
the Macpherson Constitution—1951;
and the Lyttleton Constitution—1954.
In 1960, we had the Independence Constitution followed closely by the Republican Constitution of 1963 which made the country into a Republic.
Whereas by implication, a republic speaks to a phenomenon of “No Kings,” Nigeria is unique in this regard as we have about 9,000 Kings while the most prominent ones are the Oba of Benin, the Sultan of Sokoto, the Ooni of Ife, the Emir of Kano and the Obi of Onitsha in no particular order of significance.
So, for Nigeria as a country, one can make the argument that the country is 112 years old or 66 years old depending on when you want to begin your count.
Whichever number you want to choose—-
God bless Nigeria—
will always be appropriate.
The process of nation building is arduous and painstaking.
It’s gonna take people of wisdom, knowledge, experience, empathy and courage to continue working together to build a strong foundation to forge a country that works for everyone despite the fault lines represented by religion, language, tribal groupings and 9,000 kings or as some scholars say—-ethnic nationalities.
In our march to greatness, we have had good leaders, average leaders, above average leaders, and almost great leaders as we continue our search for that Philosopher King who will emerge in the toga of Otto Von Bismarck of Germany—-“German unification.”
Chairman Mao Zedong of China—“The great leap.”
Abraham Lincoln of the United States of America—— “Emancipation declaration.”
or lately,
Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore—-“From Third World to First World.”
It may therefore be safely argued that one great hallmark of greatness can be encapsulated in one word—-Transformation.
Over the next few short essays that will come in Parts, this writer will be taking the reader on a journey. The reader may then form their own opinion about the quality of leaders that we have been fortunate or unfortunate to have, and how much they individually contributed towards the nation of our dreams or otherwise as the case may be.
