Paradigm shift: Nigeria needs a bottom-up approach to progress. Break the country into bits

Paradigm shift: Nigeria needs a bottom-up approach to progress. Break the country into bits

“Nigeria is a colonial experiment that has continued to run in circle of deception and corruption, thereby producing similar results from year to year. For there to be a positive a change, there must be a paradigm shift based on a bottom-up approach that would split the country into its natural indivisible units.”

Nigeria is faced with myriad of problems, which has stunted its growth and progress, and impoverished bulk of the people living in it. This is a point every “Nigeria” have accepted to be fact. Despite unfounded hopes, championed by corrupt government officials, suggesting a better future, there is no shred of evidence supporting that meaningful progress would be made if Nigeria continues to function the way it currently does. A quick review of Nigeria’s recent and past will clearly show that the country has continued to slide into the abyss with time, with corruption skyrocketing and the masses getting impoverished by the day.

Nigeria is imbued with inherent problem that has continued to militate against is existence. At the root of the fundamental problems of Nigeria is the fact that it was based on illegality. Illegality that has been sustained by the ruling class as it serves the purposes on stupendously enriching. Disparate ethnic nationalities were forcefully brought together by the British colonialists for their economic and political benefits. No consideration was given whatsoever to the interests of the people or to the willingness of the people to cohabit. The British forcefully held the nationalities together and the bind collapsed as soon as the British left, because oil and water cannot mix. It was illegal for an outsider to change the way of life of people who have already existed under different and well grounded identity and political systems. It was illegal for Europeans to redraw the map of Africa, and force people with different cultural backgrounds to live in one country, while Europe itself is split along well defined cultural and ethnic lines.

It is however very foolish for Africans to accept such European-imposed definitions such as those of the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, which robbed them of their identity and nationalities. The realisation of this core fact is the beginning of wisdom.

The foundations of Nigeria are based on lies that have been perpetuated with additional lies. The deliberate “failure” of the British to recognise the differences in the various ethnic nationalities making up the geographic expression called Nigeria laid the foundations of the current problems facing Nigerians. It was the height of wickedness to lump people who speak differently, eat differently, view issues differently and worship God differently into one country. The ethnic nationalities had differing political, economic, religious and legal systems that were functioning very well, before colonialist came to impose systems very alien to them. 

Expectation of a better Nigeria under this present arrangement as propagated by corrupt Nigerian officials is thoroughly foolish.

Various efforts to integrate the disparate ethnic nationalities, such as the National Youth Service Corps, or those aimed at accommodating the varying interests of the nationalities such as the federal character system, operation of two legal systems, etc have at best failed to achieve their goals but mostly exacerbated the multiplicity of Nigeria. The poor state of Nigeria today shows that every effort made to integrate “Nigerians” have failed to achieve its goal, because it is based on falsehood. The differences are rather widening even among the youths who are the leaders of tomorrow. The efforts failed woefully to achieve the intended goals because they were cosmetic solutions tackling superficial problems, which resulted from the fundamental problems that people are too scared to touch.

This has made Nigeria a false country based on deceit and as a result, the people are not patriotic. This is clearly demonstrated among the ruling class, who only see Nigeria as a vehicle for the acquisition of wealth. 

The main positive argument going for the continuation of Nigeria as a country are based on the following: 

(i)  large country and vast population makes Nigeria a marketing hotspot, and 

(ii) resources from various parts of the country could be used to power the rest of the country.

However these points are fundamentally flawed as due to the high level of impoverishment, many Nigerians are not financially empowered to sustain a vibrant marketing environment. 

Secondly, the culture of sharing proceeds from crude oil have turned Nigerian leaders into lazy and moronic administrators, whose sole survival depends on oil. This is clearly demonstrated by the inability of governors to create other means of generating revenue for the states, and whenever there is a drop in oil revenue, the governors will begin to cry wolf. The share-the-money-principle is the oil that fuels the Nigeria political vehicle.

At the national level, Nigeria is a no man’s land and anything goes. Agreed every section of the country has got its fair share of corrupt individuals at positions of authority, the inability of the people to overcome their differences (which is understandable as the differences are enormous), have resulted in their not coming together to uproot the corrupt leaders out of office. Every issue in Nigeria is first viewed through the ethnicity lens and then scrutinised through the religious microscope. Therefore, an average Yoruba man will never come together with an Igbo man or Hausa man to fight for the removal of a corrupt Yoruba politician, because he believes, his ‘brother’ is being persecuted because of his ethnicity and vice versa.

To solve Nigeria’s problems, a bottom-up approach must be adopted, whereby the country would be broken down into the various ethnic nationalities and each would take care of its problems. It is very much easier for an Igbo to criticise and go against another corrupt Igbo man, than for same to go after a corrupt Hausa-Fulani corrupt official. Agreed that not every ethnic nationality may be able to stand firmly on its own as a country, but of course there is nothing stopping such nationalities to enter into fresh arrangements with other ethnic nationalities sharing same interest with it to map out their future.

Advocates of continuation of Nigeria as it is currently run could be likened to a chemist mixing the same reagents (say chlorine and sodium) and expecting bromine chloride, despite the fact that the reagents continue to produce sodium chloride. Any truthful “Nigeria” should have come to the conclusion that it is time to break up the Nigeria colossus.