Restructuring by forward integration

By Majeed Dahiru

Nigerians across diverse backgrounds appear to be united on the new slogan of ‘’restructuring’’. Th is term is not new to the political lexicon of Nigeria but is now increasingly used as a once and for all solution to our numerous problems as a nation. Aspirations for restructuring, like other similar aspirations before it appears to be the new utopia of the Nigerian people. Th e problem with this renewed and heightened call for a tinkering with Nigeria’s current federal confi guration is the lack of unanimity among its proponents about the proper defi nition of the concept of ‘’restructuring’’.

Th e concept of restructuring as currently being canvassed raises more questions than solutions to Nigeria’s deep rooted socio-economic misfortunes by the loud voices of lamentations of the various stages of the country’s journey to nationhood beginning with the British colonisation. Some historians have blamed the current dysfunction of our nation state on the colonial experiment of amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorates of all British territories around the River Niger area, between Dahomey from the west stretching across the Benue river to the east just before the Cameroun Mountains and from the lower belt of the Sahara desert in the north, through the confl uence valley through the Niger Delta to the shores of the Atlantic ocean, in the process bringing together hundreds of distinct ethnic groups, city states and ancient African kingdoms into a single geographic space known today as Nigeria.

It is generally believed that a process, in which the people concerned, had no input by being consulted on the nature and form of the emergent modern state of Nigeria, within whose boundaries they are bound to live in, has continued to create socio-political tension that is straining the very foundation of our national unity and purposeful cohesion.

Th erefore, it is the belief of many that there is an urgent need to renegotiate the terms and conditions for oneness of the Nigerian people and not in Berlin by European colonisers this time but by Nigerians drawn from all sections of the country with the aim of coming up with a more acceptable solution to all sociopolitical structure of the state to ensure a more equitable and just distribution of resources. However, the clamour for restructuring along ethnic lines is not only retrogressive but a recipe for an infi nite smothering of the Nigerian state out of existence. No nation on earth has a perfect structure of state as every case is a work in progress. Nigeria’s current structure is not an exception. However, Nigeria’s problem is not so much that of structure but the operation of the structure by various operators of state aff airs at all tiers and arms of government.

Nigerians yearn for ‘’true federalism’’ in the mould of the First Republic semi-autonomous federating units. Th e Romaniticization of the fi rst republic obscures the fact that the 1963 constitution didn’t quite work out because it created a wedge between national citizenship and regional indigenship.

Th e inability to resolve the confl ict of citizenship and indigenship by the First Republic leaders led to the eventual collapse of that structure. So long as Nigerians allow their diversity to be a fault line, no structure will work positively for the nation. No nation was divinely decreed into existence. Nation states evolve as a result of the resolve of the constituent peoples to make it so. In the process of evolving into nation states, colonialism plays and continues to play a critical role through trade, diplomacy and in some cases, conquest by warfare.

Th ese interactions have its pains as well as gains. Th e emphasis on the pains of colonialism by pan-African historians has obscured its enormous gains. Great Britain, Nigeria’s colonial master was fi rst conquered by the Normans and was subsequently colonised by the Romans. Th e name, Britain is believed to be the anglicised form of the Roman and Britannia. Th e lessons not learnt from our colonial experience is the strength in unity of the British people, which made a small Island nation of about 18 million people to colonise a country of 50 million people at the time. Th e systematic conquest of the various kingdoms and city states that make up Nigeria by the British was possible because the native peoples did not present a united front against external aggression. Th e British engaged on individual basis each native kingdom and city state in diplomacy, trade and

warfare to ease the process of colonisation for its own benefi t otherwise no nation on earth could have conquered a united Nigeria in its current form. However, one unintended benefi t of colonialism was a coalescence of the various native peoples into larger ethnic groupings by way of backward integration of sub-ethnic groups into larger tribes that led to a new identity for the natives, which roughly corresponded to the administrative federating units that were the regions of the First Republic. British social scientists and anthropologists, who carried out extensive exploration of the British sphere of infl uence around the Niger area, successfully isolated and identifi ed similar norms, culture, tradition and language of otherwise distinct peoples leading to the current ethnic groupings by which Nigerians are identifi ed.

Before this backward integration, there was no ethnic group known as Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa-Fulani. In the western region, it was Oyo, Ijebu, Egba, Owu, Ijesha, Ife etc. In the eastern region, it was Aro, Bende, Onitsha Ado, Wawa, Ala Owerri etc. Hausa was never a tribe but a language widely spoken by a commonwealth of ethnic groups that share commonalities in geography, culture and tradition. Th e Hausa language was thus enriched greatly by the original vocabularies of the various adoptive ethnic groups that congregate under the cultural commonwealth of Northern Nigeria.

Th is backward integration was so successful that the various warring ethnic groups that now identify as Yoruba of the southwest region of Nigeria fostered a common socio-political identity with which they negotiate a fair share of national resources. Interestingly, the man who is often credited by historians with working hard on the political unity of the Yoruba in the modern era, Obafemi Awolowo, was Ijebu; an ethnic group that does share with the rest of the Yoruba, the Oduduwa ancestry. He was greatly aided by no less a person than Sir Adeyemo Alakija, a Saro (descendant of returnee ex-slaves from Brazil).

Th e Yoruba Identity was further enhanced by the traditional sanction of the Ooni of Ife, who some historians admit is not a bloodline descendant of Oduduwa, the patriarch of the seven original ruling dynasties of Yoruba land, as the supreme leader of the Yoruba tribe. Similarly, the Igbo tribe was united under the political leadership of Nnamdi Azikiwe, whose origin is traced to Onitsha Ado; a distinct group among the larger Igbo ethnic groupings that traces its roots to the ancient Kingdom of Benin. Th e political leader of the North was Ahmadu Bello, a descendant of migrant Fulani from Futa Djalon. His administrative genius was deployed to build a very cohesive northern region by assimilating and integrating the various diverse ethnic groups in the North in an Arewa identity.

Th e high point of this eff ort was when Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a son of the servant of the Madaki of Bauchi, whose origin was traced to the Jarawa, a small ethnic group in then Bauchi province became Prime Minister of Nigeria on the strength of the majority seats won by the NPC in the fi rst Republic Federal parliament.

Th e success of the backward integration of the Nigerian peoples and culture is a clear indicator, that we were not really diff erent as a people. We simply didn’t realize how intricately linked we were. If the Oyo, Ife, Ijesha and Ijebu resolved to unite under the Yoruba identity, the Aro, Wawa and Bende came together under the leadership of a descendant of Benin Kingdom through Onitsha Ado and the confederation of various ethnic groups in the north assumed a new, unifi ed, Arewa identity, then they all can come together and adopt a Nigerian identity by way of forward integration.

All it will take is a resolve to be Nigerians and not physical restructuring because we are who we decide to be. Th erefore, the rigidity with which Nigerians currently hold on to their ethnic identities, which are largely colonial creations that was further deepened by political expediency by our founding fathers and has led to the clamour for restructuring along ethnic lines is a sad narrative that should have no place in a modern nation. Th e diversity of Nigeria is simply the beautiful plumages of one big bird and should not be allowed to degenerate into deep fault lines that are largely based on a superfi cial ethnic grouping.

We need to let go of the rigidity with which we hold on to this superfi cial ethnic identity. Unfortunately, the desired forward integration of the current ethnic groupings into a Nigerian identity has been hampered by the failure of African social scientists and anthropologists to further the studies in isolating and identifying the common similarities among Nigerian peoples and culture. Th e unfortunate practice of some leading intellectuals in Nigeria, to reduce public discourse to promoting ethnic supremacy of one group over another has drastically rolled back the existing backward integration that was achieved over fi ve decades ago making restructuring along ethnic lines a recipe for disintegration.

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