A Cursory Look at the Recent History of Nigeria - Part 2 of 4
Since inception, Nigeria has had four regimes, each with its own characteristics and impact on the peoples of Nigeria.
A cursory look at the recent history of Nigeria will show how this downward spiral started.
Since inception, Nigeria has had four regimes, each with its own characteristics and impact on the peoples of Nigeria.
The Colonial Regime c 1900 - 1960
TRADE AND COMMERCE brought the British to our shores. In the spirit of the age, they colonized the area now know as Nigeria, enclosing many ethnic nationalities, and imposed their will and ways of doing things on them. They enslaved our fore-fathers on their own land and imposed an autocratic form of governance on everybody. They introduced a divide-and-rule strategy of administering and managing the colonial estate in order to keep the various ethnic nationalities from coming together. The system they set up was intended to help them achieve the maximum profit for the mother country, not to create a united country out of the many ethnic nationalities in the colonial plantation.
As the saying goes, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. So, as time went on, a younger generation of Nigerians ( incidentally, in their 30’s and 40’s) arose and demanded independence and self government for Nigeria from the British. They all agitated for the overthrow of British imperialism , and to regain the independence and right to rule themselves in the interest of the peoples of Nigeria. After series of negotiations between the British on the one hand and leaders of the various ethnic nationalities on the other, the British agreed to withdraw their imperial rule in 1960. What bothered the local elite at the time was not how accommodate the multiplicity of ethnic nationalities but first to get the British out and then worry about how to live together in peace once the British law and order was withdrawn. However,
three principles of politics and government were canvassed and adopted as the basis for living together as a people, namely:
i) DEMOCRACY embodying the principles of Freedom, Equity, and Justice for all.
ii) Operationally, they also adopted a FEDERAL Structure to accommodate the diversity of peoples and cultures, and
iii) thirdly a PARLIAMENTARY (REPRESENTATIVE) form of Government to cater for inclusiveness; All these were embodied in a CONSTITUTION implying Rule of Law as the guiding principle, to provide the parameters or boundaries for social/political action. On our Coat of Arms was emblazoned with the words “UNITY in Diversity”
Nationalist Regime: 1960 - 1966
Between 1954 and 1960, the British supervised the establishment of democratic governance structures based on the above principles. The ethnic nationalities were regrouped into three regions based on geographical contiguity. Thus we had Western Group of Provinces, Eastern Group of Province and the Northern group of provinces, now designated as Western, Eastern and Northern Regions respectively. Each of these regions formed the federating units of the federal structure. However, each of these regions still had its own diversity of ethnicity, diverse tongues, cultures and religion. The nationalist leaders accepted to live with that , if only to hasten the Independence day. In their hurry to attain “independence” the leaders did not agree as to what Unity in diversity implied . ***
. There is the oft quoted conversation between Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik) and Sir Ahmadu Bello (the Sarduna of Sokoto) in which Zik told the Sardauna,” let us forget our differences and work together as brother Africans” to which the Sardauna replied, “No, instead let us understand our differences first, to see if we can work together.”
Twelve days after Independence day, the Sardauna in an interview with the BBC, said that Nigeria was an estate bequeathed to them (Northerners), by their grandfather, and that the British only interrupted their match to the ocean. , and it was only a matter of time before they can dip the Koran in the Atlantic.
That was quite an ominous statement, and indeed, it was only a matter of time when that idea began to play out as the ideology of a section of the Northerners on the Nigerian political scene.
Political formations during the colonial regime were not really what political scientists would call political parties. They were either ethnically based associations or an agglomeration of interest groups ranging from labour unions to tribal/community based associations. Each of the leaders of the three regions was supported by a major party ; Action Group (AG) led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the dominant party in the Western Region with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) led by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe a close second The NCNC was the dominant party in the Eastern Region. The Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) led by the Sardauna of Sokoto was the dominant part in the north with minor parties like the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) under the leadership of Alhaji Aminu Kano a close second. There was also in the North a splinter of the NEPU and AG in the middle- belt area of Nigeria , the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) under the leadership of Joseph Tarka. In fact, on the run up to Independence, the leaders of these groups could not agree on anything except the date of independence. As a matter of fact, the NPC did not even want independence unless on their own terms, which delayed our freedom until October 1960. That was problem no. 1
To work a federal structure of government requires statesmanship on the part of the leadership of the federating units. It requires leadership with unity of purpose, who can bargain in a spirit of give-and-take while keeping the overall purpose in mind. It required leadership who at least had the same values, like simple keeping of a gentleman’s agreement We did not have that in 1960 .
Add to this the disagreement over issues of the structure of the federation which some groups still did not accept. The smaller ethnic nationalities that found themselves grouped into one or the other of the three regions expressed their fears of domination by the larger ethnic nationalities. Most of the smaller ethnic groups living in contiguous areas organized themselves into political interest groups to demand regions of their own before the departure of the British. (For example, three provinces -Calabar, Ogoja, and Rivers provinces formed what they called C O R State Movement and wanted to be carved out of the Eastern Region. Similarly the Igbo Speaking Provinces In the Western Region wanted to be carved out of the predominantly Yoruba/Edo speaking peoples of the Western Region and be made a region of their own, the Northern Region had even more of such movements: the United Middle Belt Congress, the Kanuri Progressive Association to name a few. These fears were expressed so vociferously that the British administration set up a “Commission of Inquiry into the fears of Minorities , and means of allaying them under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Willink.. The Willink Commission did not buy their arguments and so did not recommend the creation of any more regions or states. Instead it was argued that with the coming of democracy and responsible governance, good governance and good policies these problems would just go away. So in October 1960 , power was handed over to the leaders of fractious regions.
1960 to 1966: Crises and Conflict
Times of crises have a way of testing the leadership qualities of people in power.
One such crises was the 1961 census. The census was to be taken before the federal election of 1959 so that we can have accurate figures for the delimitation of constituencies, but for reasons best known to them, the British agreed with the Northern leaders to leave the matter of census till after independence. So in 1961 a census was conducted under the supervision of a British Administrative officer. Somehow the result leaked before the official announcement, and this caused such an uproar that the premiers of the three regions agreed to have a rerun. The result too was disputed by the leaders. Till date, we really have not had a reliable census,. Everything is guess work.
The second crisis started with attempt to reconfigure the constituencies ahead of the 1964 elections. The two southern regions felt that allowing the north to have a preponderance of seats in the House of Representatives had no basis in fact since as they claimed, the 1961 census proved that more people lived in the two southern regions than in the north. The leaders of NPC resisted the move and the country nearly went to war. This also caused shifting alliances among the parties. So the countries went into the 1964 elections campaign, knowing fully well that they were toying with a tinder box. Before then, there was the Election in the Western Region 1963.
The elections into the Western Regional House of Assembly did not produce a clear winner, each side claiming they won and ought to form the government. Attempt to hold a meeting of the Assembly led to a free for all fight in the House. It lit a conflagration that was consuming the whole of western region, since neither party could concede defeat to the other. The fight in the House spilt into the streets of Ibadan, Oyo, Oshogbo, everywhere people were being killed or burnt alive.(operation wetie). The so called political parties were splitting and reforming under new names only to split again and create new alliances. Under the shadow of what was going on in the Western Region, the Federal Elections of 1964 was held with inconclusive results. By the end of 1965,everybody was disgusted with politics and politicians, who in their own selfish interests could not care what happened to the country. It was under this tense climate of disillusionment that the January 1966 coup d’etat took place. Some young army majors in their late 20s and early thirties thought they could change the world by sacking all the politicians. So the coup of the young majors came in and sacked the politicians and took over power. Initially, people everywhere heaved a sigh of relief. The Army has taken over. Will the young majors do better?
The Military Regime 1 : 1966 to 1979
With the coup of the Five Majors, Nigeria was ushered into the ranks of Military Dictatorships. The class of January ’66, that staged the first coup did not have the grit to carry it to its logical conclusion due to internal squabbles and conflicting values. They were conned into handing over power to their Senior Officers, who were in league with the Higher Civil Service, the British High Commission and the rump of Balewa’s government to upstaged the coup plotters and take over power (but not the objectives of the coup) . Self preservation and self interest superseded the altruistic motives, and the public interest arguments of the young majors who staged the coup. So the first coup failed and people once again`` went into that limbo of hopelessness and wait and see attitude.
Power fell into the hands of senior officers who were ill-prepared to shoulder the burden of statecraft. Major General J T U Aguiyi Ironsi, on whose shoulder leadership fell could not handle the dynamics of military/civilian relationship. He mis-read the mood of the times and the seething anger within the barracks and in the Northern and Western Regions whose leaders had been killed in the first coup. In the meantime politicians from the north who felt aggrieved by the death of their leaders (Sir Ahmadu Bello and Sir A. Tafawa Balewa in particular ) regrouped and were able to convince the Northern officers to stage a revenge coup to avenge the death of their leaders.
Within weeks, because the Major who led the coup was named Kaduna Nzeogwu, an insidious ethnic profiling started making the rounds. “Igbo Domination”. Igbos are taking over the country” etc. How ? It was easy for them to point to Major Kaduna Nzeogwu (Igbo). And Maj General Aguiyi Ironsi (Igbo) to conclude that the coup was an Igbo coup to take over Nigeria. . There was no social media then. The Igbos were busy selling their wares in markets around the Northern Nigeria, oblivious of the ethnic profiling, while the authors of the ethnic profiling were busy plotting to remove all Igbos from Nigeria. . Before we knew what was happening, there was another coup, in which over 3000 Igbo officers and men lost their lives in one weekend of killings and orgies of blood-letting
From May to July, 1966, there were sporadic killings of non- northerners in many parts of the northern region. Ironsi met them with appeasement which did not work, and on July 29, 1966, the country witnessed a more horrendous coup in which the Head of State, Major Gen Aguiyi Ironsi and Brigadier Fajuyi, and a host of other senior officers mainly of eastern region extraction ( over 300 senior officers from the Eastern Region) were murdered in one night . The leaders of the revenge coup chose Lt Col Yakubu Gowon, as new Head of State. He was then 32.
Two months later another round took place all over the North. Over 50,000 Easterners lost their lives and livelihood through looting to the extent that the then Head of State, Lt Col Yakubu Gowon ordered every Igbo man, woman and Children to leave the North.
Ethnic Profiling!!
For the next six moths there was really no government in Nigeria. The Constitution had been suspended by the first coup. The country went into an era of government by decree. Leadership of the country fell into the hands of the soldiers and the civil servants, with coopted old politicians and later some academics. From about September 1966 through to April 1967, the country was just wobbling rudderless as the top brass of the military fought over power, leading to dividing up of the country into fiefdoms called states in order to isolate and carve up the Eastern Region. It back fired and created its own problems which culminated into the fratricidal war when the Eastern Region broke away under the name Republic of Biafra in May 1967. . Lt Col Gowon mounted a “police Action” to remove Lt Col Ojukwu, then the Ironsi appointed Governor of Eastern Region; the police action turned into open warfare between the East and the rest of Nigeria. As long as the war lasted, every other aspects of governance and development lay in abeyance until the guns were silenced in January 1970, with the unconditional surrender of the “Biafrans”
(For a more detailed treatment of this period , see my “Nigeria As I see it : Reflections on the problem of leadership in Nigeria”. Green and Cherished publishers, Lagos 2020)
Leadership under the Military: 1970 to 1979
Military rule, anywhere, is an aberration. The soldiers knew it, the retired politicians knew it, the upper echelon of the Civil Service knew it. Not long after the war, the top brass ( young men who arrived at the top of their military career as Brigadiers and Generals in a matter of months (by fighting and killing their “brothers” In the name of keeping Nigeria one) undertook to remake Nigeria in their own image.
The war years created a lot of social problems. Many people had been recruited into the army with little or no training on both sides. Some became officers by knowing some BIG man out there who knew a General this or Brigadier that. Besides, the federal side under Gowon had been over bloated by ill -equipped, ill -trained soldiers armed with deadly weapons. Following the sudden rise in crude oil production in the period 1968 /69, and a sudden rise in price of crude oil, thanks to OPEC, Gowon was able to decree a rearrangement of the fiscal basis of the federation in favour of the Federal Military Government. Henceforth all oil proceeds accrued to the Federal Military Government to the detriment of the newly created states. In addition to creating more states (12 states on the eve of outbreak of war) and later to 19, one had to find the civil servants to man the various autonomous civil services of each state. Demobilization of the over bloated army became a major problem. One could not tell who was a soldier and who was not. Military uniforms became badge of power and impunity. The so called “bloody civilian” was at the receiving end of military rascality.
The defeated Biafrans were promised Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Reintegration. This was to be built into the Second National Development Plan (1964-68) which was ongoing, but then extended to 1972. Like most things in that era, shortage of manpower and executive capacity stultified any real growth let alone the promised 3Rs of the immediate post war.
Soon the old politicians, now joined by a new cohort of nouveau riches from the war economy, started agitating for a return to civilian rule. People were tired of the men in khaki pushing everybody around. Social anomie and disillusionment of those who found themselves living in poverty in the midst of so much wealth being squandered by the military elite and their friends, joined the agitation. The bureaucrats tried some palliatives – Public Complaints Commission; Reform of the public Service; increase of salaries of public servants etc. Even Gowon was heard saying money was not a problem, but how to spend it.
Unfortunately, they did not know how to spend public money wisely. Since everything was now done by contract, emergency contractors filled in the space and looted the oil boom money. House wives, artisans, titled chiefs, nurses, doctors, even teachers left their normal jobs, to become emergency contractors. The hot cakes were supply contracts.
All the rules for government procurement embodied in the Financial Instruction and Civil Service Rules were routinely sidelined. Before we knew it, a class of briefcase businessmen filled the corridors of power. Along with them grew up a class of influence peddlers , ( as man know man), to shield the almighty bureaucrats who awarded the contracts.
In 1975, the musical chairs began among the Top Brass. Gowon was overthrown and Col Murtala Mohammed took over. Not long after, he was assassinated and overthrown in a bloody coup, and General Olusegun Obasanjo took over as Military Head of State. From 1976 to 1979, his priority was the return of governance to civilians and save his neck. Those who became politicians thereafter, were from the class of emergency contractors, briefcase businessmen, some ex-service men in their forties who had made money during the military regime and became influence paddlers. Gen Obasanjo oversaw the drafting of the 1979 constitution and the election that ushered in a civilian president, Alh. Shehu Shagari, who was sworn in as President on October 1st 1979. **(This writer was a participant observer as Head of the National Policy Development Centre during this Obasanjo’s first coming)
Civilian rule was short lived. Alhaji Shehu Shagari finished only one term in office, and even won the election for his second term, but this was truncated by a coup on December 31st 1983 by no other than General Muhammadu Buhari who governed for 18 months before he too was overthrown in another coup by General Abacha and General Ibrahim Babangida. (IBB). Babangida became the substantive Head of State , and later assumed the title of President (unelected) of Nigeria.
Once Shagari was overthrown, the civilians were dispersed and engaged once again in working for the military regime as contractors, board memberships, or other forms of functionaries. There were lots of money to be made on development projects, some of which were never completed , but the project funding was depleted. These left many white elephant projects dotted all over the country uncompleted. More states were being created at the instigation of civilians who had an eye to have their own fiefdoms. New states provided avenues for contracts to develop new capital cities, bloated public services with civil servants being promoted beyond the level of their incompetence for the simple reason that they are indigenes of the new state, Cronyism in the army and public services was rampant. Those posted as Military Governors to states behaved like demi-gods, with immunity from arrest. Impunity became a style of administration. Public funds were treated as personal /private funds to be dished out according to the whims and caprices of the Governor. Citizens’ lives did not matter and human lives were degraded. Civic virtues like honesty, fairness, equity, even justice became scarce commodity, available only to the highest bidders. (As one distinguished Senator later put it, “what money cannot buy, MORE money can buy.”)
From 1985 , as soon as IBB settled into office, he started dribbling the civilians ‘a little to the right, a little to the left’, for a Return to Civil Rule Program, he decreed two political parties into existence namely, Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention, and invited those who cared, to join any party of their choice. The electoral process to return the country to civil rule was started by fits and starts until finally an election was held that produced a winner (M K O Abiola); and was immediately cancelled by IBB who now stepped aside to allow Gen Sani Abacha to come in and try his hand at ruling . (Was this an agreement between them in 1985? May be, we may never know. ). The military chaps were just trifling with the destiny of millions of citizens whose lives had been truncated by all the maneuvering of the soldiers in their barracks. Gen. Abacha however took over and stayed in power as maximum ruler until he dropped dead one night in 1997. The generals got together and selected General Abdulsalami Abubakar as new Head of State. He in turn quickly knocked together a constitution, (that is how we got the 1999 constitution) ,decreed it into being and called on Nigerians to form parties and return to politics. In the meantime , some of the retired Military Generals had agreed among themselves to allow retired Generals to contest as “civilians”. While we were trying to organize a political party under Ekwueme (the Group of 38), what eventually became PDP , the retired Generals maneuvered Retired General Obasanjo into the PDP, and he won as “Civilian” President. (Some say as compensation to the Yoruba nation in lieu of their son MKO Abiola who was cheated out of an election he had won, and later (“killed”? or) died in detention. Thus the country entered into the era of pseudo civilian regimes run by cabals of retired Army Generals and their cronies made rich by inflated contracts.
Pseudo-military/civilian Regimes
General Olusegun Obasanjo and Major General Shehu Musa Yar’adua were opposed to the high-handedness of the Abacha regime and were loud about it. They were opposed to his perpetuating himself as Maximum ruler forever like Idi Amin of Uganda. Because of that, he clamped both of them into jail so that no bloody civilian will follow their example to dare oppose his ambition. On the eve of Abacha’s death, Obasanjo was released from prison, but unfortunately, Yar’adua died in Prison.
In his second coming as President and Head of State, OBJ surrounded himself with technocrats who helped him to function like a civilian and according to the spirit of the constitution. But there was a problem. The constitution itself was a fraud, declaring that ” We the People” had given ourselves the constitution , when in fact the people of Nigeria had not seen the document, let alone adopting it as an ACT of the people. Agitation for a proper people oriented constitution dogged Obasanjo’s administration until he called for a Reform Conference which achieved nothing because he too wanted to use it to get an extension for four more years. It flopped and he did his eight years and re- retired a rich man.
Had General Yar’adua rtd, not die in Abacha’s Gulag, he too would have been the one to succeed Obasanjo. So the military cabal decided to find somebody close to him to become the next President so as to appease the people of his home state, Katsina, for his death. The lot fell on the brother of the late General, Alhaji Musa Yar’adua. Unfortunately for him and the country, he was not in good health, and did not have the stamina to go through the rigours of an election campaign. So, no sooner was he elected, than he became really sick and died, leaving the ” throne “vacant. The senate invented the doctrine of necessity which allowed his vice president, a little known Dr Goodluck Ashikiwe Ebele Jonathan to become the President. It was during his time that the Governors of states, taking advantage of the president’s naivety .in politics, to grow wings. Having captured their respective states, and with a weak president at the centre, they took advantage of his naivety and formed all sorts of power blocs.(Northern Governors’ Forum; Southern Governors ‘forum ; G7; G22; G8, SW and SE Governors ) and behaving with impunity worse than that of Military Governors. The Constitution grants them immunity from arrest even if they commit crimes while in office. , They turned their immunity into licence to loot their respective treasuries while party functionaries indirectly looted the Central Bank.
By 2014, these groups coalesced into two gangs of like minded state looters namely, Peoples’ Democratic Party and All Progressives’ Congress. Only few governors governed their states as the constitution required. Others just pocketed the funds they got from the federation account, including that allocated to Local Governments. I don’t know of any exception. They raised the entry bar into politics against would be entrants into their looting structures.
In the meantime another retired General, one time military head of state did not see why he too cannot have a second coming like Obasanjo. General Muhammadu Buhari contested for the presidency in 2003, 2007. 2011 and finally got it in 2014 and was sworn in May 2015. During the campaigns, he claimed to be a no- nonsense fighter of corruption. He promised to kill corruption before corruption kills Nigeria. He even promised to stabilize the Naira, so that the exchange rate with the US$ will be 1 : 1. He promised to end all insurgency in Nigeria etc. The population was hoodwinked and they voted him into office in 2015. After inauguration, It took him six months to figure out who to appoint as ministers. In the meantime ,he took off to the UK for medical check up and visited friends in Westminster Abbey and friends in Chatham House, where they helped him to shape up his policy on protection of interest of the West ( UK and USA) in Nigeria and also sharpen his Islamization/Fulanizaton Agenda. By the time he was ready to govern, he became really sick, again, and went awol for months.
Nature abhors vacuum. In the absence of the captain of the ship of state, the country went adrift; people started a free for all fight for survival in Aso Rock. The cabals and “oligarchs” had a field day. It was rumoured that one cabal led by his uncle was really the rulers of the country and another headed by his wife struggled for a share of power, at least for the kitchen cabinet headed by late Abba Kyari.. Unelected, faceless people were running the country while he was going in and out of hospitals. ( His wife in the “ozer room” even testified to the existence of a cabal that wanted to boot her out of her “matrimonial home” in Aso rock.) By the time he woke up, it was time for reelection 2019.
The country was now firmly in the hands of cabals and war lords (read Governors); and roving bands of bandits and gun-totting Fulani herdsmen roaming and terrorizing the country side, killing and maiming innocent citizens at will. We were later to learn that these were fighters imported by the President’s party (thanks to Gov El-Rufai) , when he promised to let monkey and baboon blood to flow, if he did not win the 2015 elections. For him it was a case of either he gets in or he pulls down the whole edifice. But having mounted the tiger and rode the tiger to victory, he could not dismount and send away the tiger hungry . So the insecurity threatening the country now was actually master-minded by the President and his handlers in 2014/15 for their selfish political interest. The surprising thing was that in 2019, in spite of the existential threat to the country that he had created, his co-gangsters managed to have him re- elected again to continue the carnage. That is how the country got so run down that even angels are weeping for Nigerians. Among the leaders, it was not only mismanagement of the Naira, there was also the deficit of character. The erosion of public morality produced men with no character and Leaders without moral principles.
So when this younger generation found just one man who is different, and speaks a different tune from run-of-the- mill Nigerian politicians, they decided he could lead them into a New Nigeria. Where hopefully, they can start the arduous task of building a new political culture. I believe their political ideas are ones whose time has come. When things come to crisis, God will say STOP!
Exodus 3: 7 And God said to Moses, “I have surely SEEN the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and I have HEARD their cry because of their taskmasters, for I KNOW their sorrows; So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up………
God has certainly heard the cries of His people in Nigeria and has “come down to deliver them.” It behoves all peace loving people to cooperate with the Obi/Datti Labour Party Ticket, to bring about a peaceful change.
VOTE LABOUR ALL THE WAY!