The founding fathers of Nigeria had a fantastic dream about the country, hence motivated their fight for independence and self rule from the British. As Nigeria turns 48, would you say these founding fathers will be pleased in their grave about the country’s spate of progress and difficulties? Are we measuring up with the rest of the world? As for me, we still have many rivers to cross as people, what about you?
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Cheers! Sandra. R.
I agree with you, “… we still have many rivers to cross as people.” We must appreciate their struggles and travails for independence, but their actions after independence do not convince me that they had any dream for a great and free Nigeria. Each of them fought for independence for personal aggrandizement as this could be seen historically from their rivalries and lack of concession and policy formulation for governing the nation. For example, when in the first regional parliamentary elections in the fifties, it was obvious that Nnamdi Azikiwe was going to be the first premier of western region, Obafemi Awolowo lobbied NCNC Yoruba members of that parliament to decamped to AG and this forced Azikiwe to lost majority of votes needed to lead the parliament. So, Zik moved to Enugu to oust Eyo Eta a Calabar minority who was going to be the premier of that region. This was the beginning of tribalism in Nigeria. On the other hand, the Sardauna of Sokoto was not in a hurry for Nigeria independence since the north did not have the manpower and personnel to govern. With series of political annihilation in the western region of perceived political opponents in 1963 “operation wetie” and the 1983 election mass killing of several non-UPN supporters, Awolowo simply proved that he was merely interested in power regardless of who was hurt. This is because of his failure to call for non-violence. I do not see any difference between these men and politicians of today. If there is any difference, they would have worked together for the common good of Nigerians: there would have not been the 1966 military coup and the civil war which consumed so many lives, and Awolowo and Azik inspite of their philosophical believes of freedom accepted military government appointment either as minister for finance or Chancellor of university of Lagos respectively. This was a show of lack of principle of the concept of freedom. They were more of regional leaders than nationalists as their efforts to develop Nigeria was geared toward their regions. Recent events in America show that leaders of any nation regardless of political differences must learn to come together to solve a common problem.