By Anthony Akinwale

In the 19th century, when colonisers from Western Europe invaded the African continent, they imposed themselves on the peoples as supreme authority. Consistent with the logic of colonialism, western colonisers came, not for humanitarian, but for exploitative objectives.

In 1851, the pretext of coming to put an end to the tragedy of intra-African slave trade involving Oba Kosoko of Lagos provided an effective camouflage for exploitation of palm oil. British conquest of Lagos began the conquest of the land around the Niger—Nigeria. Across the African continent, colonisers conquered lands and peoples in other to gain free access to raw materials needed to facilitate “industrial revolution” in western Europe.

From November 15, 1884, to February 26, 1885, at the Berlin Conference, to avoid a military conflict of colonisers scrambling for Africa, colonisers drew arbitrary boundaries of colonised states. Prior to their arrival, internecine wars among Africans had weakened Africans themselves to the point of colonisability. The British conquered Lagos while two princes were disputing the throne. They later conquered Sokoto in similar circumstances.

In 1960, with flags of colonisers lowered, and flags of countries whose boundaries they drew and imposed at the Berlin Conference hoisted, a question arose to which no one seemed to have paid adequate attention. It was the question of sovereignty. Almost seven decades since the change of flags, in virtually all African countries, the question of sovereignty remains either ignored, or untreated, or inadequately treated.

The word “sovereignty” features in the 1979 Constitution of Nigeria, and in its identical twin, the 1999 Constitution. According to the Preamble to the Constitution: “We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, having firmly and solemnly resolved to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God, dedicated to the promotion of inter-African solidarity, world peace, international co-operation and understanding and to provide for a Constitution for the purpose of promoting the good government and welfare of all persons in our country, on the principles of freedom, equality and justice, and for the purpose of consolidating the unity of our people do hereby make, enact and give to ourselves the following Constitution…”

According to Section 2 (1) of the same Constitution, “Nigeria is one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign state to be known by the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

We are confronted here with a collision of constitutional provisions. On the one hand, the Preamble to the Constitution refers to Nigeria as “one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation”. On the other hand, Section 2 refers to Nigeria as “one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign state”. In other words, in the Preamble, it is the nation that is sovereign. But in Section 2, it is the state. Drafters of the Constitution, by accident or by design, collapsed the distinction between nation and state. They gave us, one should say they imposed on us a Constitution that ascribes sovereignty to the nation and to the state at the same time, as if the two provisions were simultaneously sustainable. But in fact, they are not.

A nation is an association of peoples founded on their mutually identified shared core values. On the basis of their identified shared core values, they write and give themselves a constitution. A nation is different from a state. A state is a collection of institutions established by the constitution of the association that a nation is, the constitution that members of the association that a nation is gave to themselves. These institutions are established by the people’s constitution to protect the land members of the association who live on the land—their country—as they go about pursuing those shared core values so that, as members of the association that the nation is, they will be able to flourish.

The notion of sovereignty connotes supreme authority. When the Preamble to the 1999 Constitution ascribed sovereignty to the nation, it placed supreme authority in the hands of the people who constitute the association that the nation is. However, when it turned around in Section 2 and described Nigeria as a sovereign state, it contradicts itself by placing supreme authority in the hands of the state, thus ignoring the distinction between nation and state.

On October 1, 1960, supreme authority in Nigeria was transferred from the hands of foreign colonisers, not to the hands of the people, but to the hands of indigenous colonisers. Now, when the state is supreme, functionaries of the supreme state act like landlords treating the people, members of the association that a nation is, as tenants. This has been our story since October 1, 1960. But we must not fail to admit that, even before the advent of colonialism, sovereignty as supreme authority was not in the hands of the African. It was in the hands of monarchs who could not be questioned, and or in the hands of whoever had the force de frappe, that is, whoever was the strongest man wielding the biggest stick or the most ferocious gun in the land.

Sixty-six years after Nigeria gained independence, we live in a country where sovereignty resides not in the hands of the people, not even in the hands of the state, but in the hands of functionaries of state. We are neither a nation nor sovereign.

We would have been a sovereign nation if we had given ourselves a constitution. But ours is a constitution decreed into existence and imposed on us by the military. We have a country, that is, a land called Nigeria. But we are yet to be a nation. So, we cannot even speak of a sovereign nation. We have a state, a collection of institutions established by the imposed constitution. Functionaries of that state are not accountable to us because their assumption of office does not depend on our sovereign will.

We would have been sovereign if our elections were to have been transparent. A transparent election is one whose outcome is manifestly the will of the people. But the outcome of elections in Nigeria depends on the pact of electoral gladiators, and on the use of instruments of state by powerful functionaries of state to “deliver” their states or constituencies to a candidate.

We would have been a sovereign nation if those declared to have been elected to represent us in government had been consulting with the people, and had been accountable to the people. Democracy is not just about casting and counting votes. It is about having representatives in government who consult with and are accountable to the people they claim to represent. But when last did your senator or governor consult with you? When last did he give you an account of his legislative or executive stewardship? Is it not the case that their press briefings showcase arrogance?

This year’s anniversary of independence comes just a few weeks before the 2027 elections. But what have we made of our independence? Where really is our sovereignty? Will the 2027 elections break the cycle of flawed elections we have been witnessing in Nigeria? Will the outcome of the elections be an expression of the sovereign will of Nigerians or an expression of votes “delivered” by powerful functionaries of state?

These are questions we should be asking ourselves instead of hauling ethnic epithets at each other on social and other media.

Akinwale is the Vice Chancellor of Augustine University.