Nigeria Beyond Divorce: Amalgamation in Perspective

Chapter Two: Pre and Post Independence Governance

C H A PT E R 2 PRE AND POST-INDEPENDENCE GOVERNANCE Pre-Independence Governance The greatest danger that military government poses… lies in its failure to break the vicious cycle of succeeding itself. – Gen Olusegun Obasanjo Obviously, the colonial masters were at their best in administration but when it came to their own selfinterest they were terribly over-enlightened. It was obvious that even a Briton, F Nicholson traced the root causes of Nigeria’s persistent problems to policy decisions by Lugard and he listed some of them as shown below: (a) Conquest of the North by force of arms rather than peaceful penetrations as was predominantly the case in the South where he applied the twin gifts of commerce and christianity. 11 12 Nigeria Beyond Divorce (b) The unnecessary mood swing in the application of military force and laissez faire attitude by Lugard in the North. (c) Preservation of the institution of Fulani rule while others were destroyed. This was a heinous policy of divide and rule. (d) The imposition of direct taxation in the South and indirect taxation in the North. (e) The prolonged insulation of the North from christian missionaries, lawyers, traders and civil administrators. (f) Sir Hugh Clifford committed his own error in that he introduced a Nigerian Constitution in 1920 with forty six members of Council of which only four were Nigerians (three from Lagos and one from Calabar) and none from the North. (g) Even after the amalgamation, the North on social and religious issues acted separately. For instance, Northern Region did not outlaw slavery till 1936. (h) Lord Lugard and his successors failed to practicalise the inner spirit of the amalgamation by not allowing the South to make contact with the North. And so, the two protectorates never really interacted effectively as one country till 1946, with the result that by the time they met they were more like strange bed fellows because the South was unequivocal about independence while the North was in a wait-and-see mood. Also, Sir Arthur Richard at the peak of the protest from the South, (particularly from Herbert Macaluay and 13 Pre and Post-Independence Governance Nnamdi Azikiwe) arbitrarily split the country into three regions (North, East and West) without consultation. Analysts believe that since the agitation for immediate independence from Britain came from the South, the South incurred the wrath of Sir Arthur Richard hence in demarcating boundaries for the regions, instead of doing so naturally using the River Niger and River Benue as advised by some experts, he did the unexpected by drawing the boundary in the midst of nowhere, far below the River Niger and River Benue thereby giving Northern Nigeria 79% of the land mass while the Eastern and Western regions shared the remaining 21% (See Table 2.1). Analysts believe that the imbalance in the Nigerian tripod political equation started with the preponderance (79%) of Nigerian land mass to the Northern Region, and since democracy is a game of numbers, the Northern People Congress must have felt that it can still have majority votes from the North and hence, did not bother to campaign in the South and refused to change the name of the party from Northern Peoples Congress to Nigerian Peoples Congress. Analysts contend that if Middle-Belt Region had been created ab initio, the issue of one region lording it over the rest will not have arisen and Nigeria would have from the beginning started the journey to independence with a good measure of stability. In other words, the imbalance sowed the seed of endemic drift in the Nigerian political equation, which even the subsequent creation of states has not totally solved. 14 Nigeria Beyond Divorce States in Nigeria, their Origins and Land Areas S/N States Years Created Capitals Origin Land Area 1 Abia State 27 Aug. 1991 Umuahia Imo State 6,320 2 Adamawa State 27 Aug. 1991 Yola Gongola State 36,917 3 Akwa Ibom State 23 Sept 1987 Uyo Cross River State 7,081 4 Anambra State 27 Aug 1991 Awka (old) Anambra State 4,844 5 Bauchi State 3 Feb 1976 Bauchi North-Eastern State 45,837 6 Bayelsa State 1 Oct 1996 Yenagoa Rivers State 10,773 7 Benue State 3 Feb 1976 Makurdi Benue-Plateau State 34,059 8 Borno State 3 Feb 1976 Maiduguri North-Eastern State 70,898 9 Cross River State 27 May 1976 Calabar...