On December 7, 2023, this column, wrote about the historicity of the birth, political and constitutional development of Nigeria and the uncanny nature of its mimicry of its mother-country, UK’s own historical development. Skeptics or cynics may retorts, ‘if only Nigeria is taking after its mother-country, England, (Britain) what is wrong in that as a child is naturally expected to resemble its parents not anybody else and to grow on the family traditions and ways to turn out well’.
But redemptive-optimists or messianic prophets would rather the child depart from the crooked path of a cursed ancestry to follow a new path to salvific turnaround and development. To individuals and nations, both prospects are available and readily embraced resulting in different outcomes. In that our essay, ‘Nigeria’s birth pangs of a New Order’, we made comparative reference to England’s tortured history of conquest by a political robber-baron, Duke William of Normandy who invaded, conquered and subjugated the country to an uncommon political and economic enslavement, ruled with uncommon efficiency and at the end reduced England to a ‘slave society’, the effect of which is still writ large on the social outlook of an average Britain who appears as subdued being usually passed off as ‘English gentility’, or humility.
From 1066 when Duke William, a political rogue conquered King Harold of England and turned it into a feudal state and untrammeled autocracy, England plunged into wars of conquests and resulting sybaritic excess of wanton extraction of economic value and consumption which sent the society into spirals of unmitigated multidimensional poverty and crimes and together with the denial of socio-economic, religious and political freedoms forced Englishmen, and others then under constant threats of conquest such as the Irish and Scotts to flee the British Isles for freedom and greener pastures in the New World (America), Australia, New Zealand and later Africa.
From 1066AD, the history of England and later Britain has been a sordid history of wars, conquests and domestic turmoils. British history is not a history worthy of imitation except of course the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that transformed it from Monarchical Autocracy to Parliamentary Democracy. That is the only aspect of British history that is worthy of world recognition and emulation. Anything else is unhelpful.
As we argued in that essay, ‘Nigeria’s Birth pangs of a New order’, every aspect of British history is being replicated in Nigeria. Since 1851 British conquest of Lagos, to the Wars of Pacification of the ethnic nationalities and their formation as Nigeria in 1914, the history of Nige- ria has been defined by wars and conquests and little else. The vile intrigues of British political culture and governance have taken root in Nigeria and Nigeria as a British neocolonial state is cheered on and held out as a great experiment in Africa on this ignominious path.
As a student of history, take your mind back to 1947-1960 and discover that it was Britain that rigged the constitutional framework and political infrastructure against Southern regions in order to leave the North a dominant partner in a supposed federation. In 1966, when troubles broke out, it was Britain and its officials in Nigeria cheered on by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to instigate the Northern politicians to carry out the outrageous pogroms against the Igbo and when these atrocities eventuated into the July 29, 1966 Coup d’état, It was still British High Commissioner, Cummings- Bruce and USA ambassador, Elbert Matthews that prevailed on the ‘Araba’ coupists to perish the thought of seceding to form the Republic of Northern Nigeria.
When Gowon emerged as head of state upon the counsel of Britain and USA and when a constitutional crisis arose as a result, it was still Britain that sabotaged the Aburi Accord that would have tidied Nigeria over her crises to obviate the civil war. In the guise of saving Africa and Nigeria, Britain fought the Biafra War, if not physically militarily but most importantly diplomatically to bludgeon Biafra to submission. Since 1970, Britain has had virtual control of Nigeria that Nigeria under General Obasanjo in 1976 nationalized British Petroleum Corporation to register its grievances over British role in Dimka Coup.
President Jonathan pointedly accused Britain and its western allies of having been responsible for his loss of election in 2015 to General Buhari whom it foisted on Nigerians. When Nigeria youths arose in the 2023 presidential election as the Obidient Movement in support of Mr Peter Obi, Britain grew unease and used every diplomatic channel to discreetly sabotage the movement. Britain will not while being the overseer of Nigeria’s neocolonial status watch while a charismatic leader take charge of Nigeria.
That prospect would be tantamount to undoing its delicate act that created Nigeria as a neocolonial state between 1914 to 1960. So, Nigeria’s salvation lies in Nigerian people and no outside force will be of any help. The birth pangs we have experienced in Nigeria from 1966 coups, the Biafra War, the 1976 Dimka coup, the 1983-1985 coups, the Orkar Coup, the Maitatsine riots, the Sharia Question and the Boko Haram imbroglio, the separatist questions in Eastern and Western regions of Nigeria and the Niger Delta agitations, all these are sufficient portents for any clearheaded political leadership to see and expediently chart a new course in nation building.
Particularly, any clear-headed leadership would not have ignored the October 20, 2020 ENDSARS Movement that deretailed to Obidient Movement but being pigheaded and stubborn class like its progenitor British autocrats, they are presently embroiled in artifices and plans to rubbish that simmering revolutionary fervor that is quaking Nigeria. No lessons learnt. No new ideas to make things new or toe the other paths. We are back to square one of Buharinomic template of authoritarianism and expropriation of the elephantine carcass of the decayed Nigerian state.
Any person conversant with the sociology of the 2023 Presidential election would know that Nigeria has changed drastically from what it used to be. Nobody needs a prophet to tell him that the old system of ethnic and religious politics is tenuously surviving on the artificial oxygen Nigerian decayed political and electoral system has provided largely by the current holders of the power loop. The Tinubu presidency may be the last vestige of this ancien regime and system and like the Stuart Monarchy of Britain before the English 1688 Glorious Revolution or the Russian Tsar Nicholas II or the French Emperors Louis XIV, XV and XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette that luxuriated in humongous indulgence in opulent lifestyle even while the ruling class and the Queen, Marie Antoinette were telling the poor people to eat cake in the absence of bread.
It was still under the difficult conditions of the British, French and Russian societies and the convoluted public debts that French King Louis XIV embarked on the construction of the Versailles Palace the type of which contributed to the three countries’ bankruptcies prior to the revolutions that defined their histories. Nigeria has reached that point of bankruptcy in public finance as shown in the different estimates for financing of public debts, presidential luxuries of renovations of old buildings and building of new ones, buying of exotic cars and even yacht in the 2023 supplementary and 2024 budgets.
