By Denis Worrall
Last month, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, supplanted SA as the continent’s biggest economy. Just as this posed challenges to Nigeria, it poses challenges also for SA, which is experiencing an indifferent economic performance.
The result is that the South African media have been full of analysts’ views of what Nigeria’s new status means for South Africa, and what SA should be doing about it.
But what has to be factored into any such discussion is the series of violent events in Nigeria since the announcement.
Nigerians’ pride and pleasure was cut short by three violent incursions in four days — one on the outskirts of the capital, Abuja, which left 75 people dead and the horrific and cruel abduction of almost 300 girls from their boarding school in the northeast of the country. These actions are the work of the Boko Haram extreme Islamist organisation, which has been around since 2000 but which has become much bolder in its terrorist actions over the past 18 months.
These events caused me more concern than they should because I have an immense fondness for Nigeria and its people for reasons I should explain.
I know the country well, having spent the better part of an academic year there shortly after independence in the early 1960s.
The purpose then was to complete research for a PhD at a US university on Nigeria’s federal constitution. I was based at the University of Ibadan, but also travelled extensively in the north.
As a young man, footloose and fancy free, it was a marvelous and very enjoyable experience. In fact, I have very happy memories of the country and, over the years, I have maintained strong connections with Nigerians.
My graduate student days in the country also featured in an amusing way much later in my career.
I was the South African ambassador in London at the time of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, a prominent member of which was then
Nigerian president OlusegunObasanjo. And at the first meeting of the group, under the chairmanship of Commonwealth secretary-general Sonny Ramphal, Obasanjo suddenly said, looking directly at me: “Ambassador, I understand that you were at the University of Ibadan? I also understand that you were the Nigerian one-mile champion?”
He was of course correct on the first point but not on the second: I was Nigerian universities’ one-mile champion. But George Dove-Edwin, my Nigerian counterpart in London, had done his homework.
During a recent visit, which was at the invitation of a Nigerian company that had participated in our Euro-African investment activities and wished to see these extended in a joint venture arrangement, the question arose: did we want to invest in Nigeria and encourage investors into the country? We weighed this up very carefully and the balance sheet pointed to a resounding “yes”.
But no doubt in the wake of recent events there will be people and companies that wonder about Nigeria’s future because, even by African standards, it is an extraordinarily diverse country with more than 250 ethnic and cultural groups — something which in other situations could prove to be enormously problematic.
But it has been managed in Nigeria, and I do not believe Boko Haram or any other malcontent will destabilise the country. I say this for a number of reasons.
First, Nigeria’s cultural and ethnic diversity is mitigated by the fact that the biggest ethnic groups — the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo — constitute 70% of the population.
Second, Nigerians choose to define their identity in terms of religion rather than nationality, with the result that there are an equal number of Christians and Muslims in the country. The Muslims, incidentally, are mainly Sunni.
Moreover, while Christians tend to predominate in the south and Muslims in the north, adherents of both faiths are spread across the country. This is what makes Nigeria so very important to the world.
Racial, ethnic, linguistic and religious differences present challenges to countries all over the globe. Nigeria, a country literally shared between Muslims and Christians, therefore has a unique example to set.
Third, a major factor is Nigeria’s federalism. When Nigeria became independent, it had three regions — the northern, western, and eastern regions.
This is what the British wanted.
The north had the numbers in terms of population. But it proved to be an unwieldy and dysfunctional arrangement, with the north heavily traditional and the two southern regions more modern, economically savvy and politically pushier.
One consequence of this, aside from arguments over censuses and other sensitive issues, was the Biafra Civil War.
The difference between then and now is that Nigeria is a federation of 36 states — each of them with governors, parliaments and supreme courts.
While an unbelievably expensive arrangement, it did not happen overnight but is the result of the assertion of ethnic and cultural identities, and the discovery of oil, which lubricates the process and pays the administrative costs of the federation and the states. (Sadly, little of the oil revenue goes into schools and hospitals and oil has had a negative effect on other economic sectors, especially agriculture. Nigeria used to be the breadbasket of West Africa, however, today it’s a food importer.)
A fourth reason for believing in Nigeria’s long-term stability is that the political party system reinforces the general political integration that these other factors provide. There are 25 registered political parties in Nigeria, but only two really count.
The result is that the enormous ethnic and cultural diversity of Nigeria is neutralised by layers of religion, state membership, and an essentially consensual political system.
But what Nigeria really needs right now is the kind of leadership former president Nelson Mandela gave South Africa.
To illustrate, President Goodluck Jonathan, who comes from the south and who is a Christian, is thinking of seeking another term of office in February next year, which would contravene an understanding that the presidency should alternate between the south and the north.
On my last visit to Nigeria, I spent an hour-and-a-half talking to Father Matthew Kukah, the Nigerian equivalent of South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
He impressed me enormously. And I know that there are individuals within that community who can have the same sort of effect.
Nigeria, for the reasons that I have given and no doubt others, will not fail. But it needs to get its act together. And, as with SA, it needs to get its leadership right.
Worrall is chairman of Omega Investment Research, a former South African ambassador to Australia and the UK, and co-leader of the Democratic Party.
