IMPLICIT in the title of this article are two inescapable deductions which require to be made clear or explicit even as their truism is by no means self-evident or obvious. The first is that there is a corpus of affairs, events, activities, knowledge, beliefs, etc. conducing to Nigeria’s history which rendition may be categorised as true or untrue. It is respectively deemed coherent or incoherent, true or false depending on the purpose or intended effect of its narrator.

The second is that there is the probable joyful possibility that the heart of Nigeria’s history has not been polluted or seared such that it cannot take in new in-dwelling mores. Put plainly, the narrations or commentaries have tended to sweep dirt under the carpet thereby unfairly denying their readers or listeners the profundity or depth of their otherwise productive imagination or scholarship.

Nigeria is a country of hundreds of groups of people each living in a world of its own; with its own peculiar worldview garnered together to form respective coherent thought forms or systems. Before 1914, these groups lived as disparate communities. Their respective traditional political systems manifested differing levels of sophistication depending on the size of the states, the history and the dominant political thought or ethic that informed the emergent political forms or systems.

One of the many myths inhibiting our national progress that we must deflate is the untruth regarding the official presumption that the British amalgamation of the diverse parts of Nigeria or of the aftermath resultant effect is sacrosanct and, therefore, not negotiable as it was presumably informed or induced by the requirement to establish a large, viable state across ethnic or tribal frontiers; and that it is in the interest of the people. Further, it is held that its end product or consequent contrivance is immutable or unchangeable.

It was in the interest of mercantilist Britain to enlarge her market sphere for finished products which were rapidly emerging from her booming factories and for her to receive agricultural and forest produce from the acquired territories under a regime of law which harnessed and vested all factors of production, distribution and exchange in the imperial authority or suzerainty of the British monarch.

Needless to say, agricultural and forest produce were required as raw materials for feeding the British manufacturing industry. The earlier frenzied scramble for territories in Africa properly situates the psychology and economic and social policy imperatives of the European nations vis-à-vis their quest to enlarge their areas of influence and authority and also the surface area of a projected metropolitan material prosperity from the fortunes of the lands of the “acquired” or partitioned territory. The “Niger-area”, among other areas, thus fittingly met the criteria for the ravaging of her land and the ravishing of her peoples’ values or mores.

Rather than officially celebrate the anniversary of the despoliation of the Nigerian peoples’ land, and the rupturing of their native innocence and piety, 1914 should be viewed in retrospect, as the date officially signaling the rape of the native peoples’ pristine values and the introduction of vermins or pollutants into the body politic of their land. We have, however, been celebrating, literally dancing open in the nude and expending enormous financial and material resources to mark an otherwise rude denial of our natural right guarantees for the self-determination of our direction, destiny or goal.

We, in fact, invited in 2014 the whole world to come and observe our up-turned sense of history. The British, in their ploy to keep us perpetually suspicious of each other or of one another, wittingly created a schism between the conjoined parts or the so-called federation by making the Northern part enjoy an informal hegemony and internal self-government based upon the Islamic religion and on an unfair or oppressive native authority system even as the Southern protectorate groaned under a so-called “Direct Rule” kind of governance.

A serious troubling or nagging issue which non-resolution has continued to undermine the economic planning and social services thrust or delivery capability of the Nigerian nation is the repeatedly flawed national population census exercises. The 1951, 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, 2003 and 2010 population census figures have been widely disputed as untrue or, in fact, fictive. They are alleged to be projected to achieve certain curious political ends.

So long as the ordinarily formal requirement to know how many people inhabit the Nigerian land space or sphere is impishly tied to selfish political considerations which unfairly permit the allocation of national resources under spurious criteria or standards, so long will un-scientific or un-empirical inputs get factored into the exercise. The announcement of population census results have always been received with or attended by alarm, derision or, in some cases, fractious temper. The establishment of the basis for a corruption-free census exercise regime is compelling for a proper economic and social services planning panoply.

Nigeria’s population census dialectics is palpably at embarrassing variance with all known or proven scientific parameters regarding the assessment or ascertainment of demographic mobility, human settlement index predilections, spatial distribution, climatic factors, geography, economic history, etc. The quagmire is compounded by an impenitent insouciance which repeatedly produces the same embarrassing result to the utter consternation of a bewildered global community. The world is astounded at the abysmal lack of a profound sense of history on the part of successive Nigerian leaders manifesting itself in a trajectory for continual shenanigan particularly respecting the observance of time-honoured scientific rules of practice of governance.

The misnomer inherent in the untrue reference to Nigeria as the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been a subject of learned inquiries and of vigorous disputation. The truth of the matter is that Nigeria is neither a federation nor a republic. A federation may be loosely defined as a country consisting of a group of individual states that have control over their own affairs but are controlled by a central government with respect to national decisions or settled values.

The major indices of a federal state are, however, largely missing in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999. Subjects such as derivation, resource control, mining, minerals, oil fields, local government establishment and control, policing, etc. – all of them shared or devolved responsibilities in typical federal democracies – are curiously listed as exclusive federal matters. The Federal Government of Nigeria has whimsically turned itself into the nation’s paymaster doling hand-outs or “bail-outs” to states which perennially look up to the centre with beggarly entreaties or schoolboy blandishments. The power, purview, authority and opportunities available to the government at the centre are so awesome that the states have become insignificant in the scheme of governance respecting their covenant responsibilities or duties.

The Federal Republic of Nigeria curiously accommodates the existence and operation of kingdoms, chiefdoms, fiefdoms, etc. within her sovereignty. One is alarmed regarding the existence side by side the Nigerian republican “status” of such misnomers as the Sokoto Caliphate, Benin Kingdom, Bonny Kingdom, etc.

The palpable absence of kings, of royalty or their pomp, pageantry, gaiety and accoutrement is a distinguishing feature of a true republic. Quite naturally, feudalism sits in uneasy juxtaposition with the ideals of federalism or, even, of a republican mandate. Our present objective conditions lead us inexorably to conclude that feudalism is largely irrelevant and may not be considered as an option respecting our search for proper guides or platforms in our state-society relations. Any attempt to co-mingle federalism or republicanism with feudalism is sure to produce an initial illusory strength, as it has fortuitously done since 1914, but begets in its trail unspeakable catastrophe or a looming doom.

In the 2014 conference report is contained a workable agenda for the resolution of the troubling or vexed issue of the requirement to firmly ground the basis of Nigeria’s corporate existence and of the sustenance of peace and progress. We submit that it is in the supreme interest of our continuing peaceful relations and of our quest for a peacefully restructured country that the report of the pan-Nigeria 2014 National Conference which exhaustively discussed and resolved some of the fundamental terms of our co-existence be given effectual implementation or promulgation without delay. A further postponement of the requirement to do the needful in this direction is dangerous; a stitch in time, we conclude, saves nine.
Rotimi-John, a lawyer and commentator on public affairs, contributed this piece from Abuja