Respect is a very big thing for us in Africa, though you wouldn't
know it by a cursory appraisal of the issues as they stand in the house
that those titans attempted to build, but that is an issue for another
day or the private discussions and lamentations of my personal
acquaintances, when we will sit back each with a cold bottle of star,
and a hot bowl of pepper-soup, and bemoan the fate of our society. Ahhh,
star! Sorry where was I? Anyway, in this case it goes beyond pure
respect, such that Zik and Awo evoke in succeeding generations, equal
doses of reverence and awe-inspired deference, to the point that I can
remember an anecdote from an elderly relative in my village that was
offered on one of the many trips that I took there as a child. It was
offered with such convincing diktat that I bought it hook line and
sinker until I was old enough to question and understand and appreciate
the temperament that might have prompted the elder to offer it. I won't
go into the details of the anecdote, suffice to say that amongst
allegations of interacting and operating on both the natural and
supernatural planes, both gentlemen were believed to evoke the same fear
and reverence in our world as in the "otherworld", you know the one to
which I am referring.
Given the stature and towering profiles of both men, who are we to
question the logic and passion that such reverence conveys? Or even
question the veracity of such a belief? I sometimes catch myself paying
dues to both men that totally overcome my dispassionate thinking cap in
analyzing their legacies. But while I am willing to give each man his
due, even after paying them such due respect, I feel that those two
learned gentlemen still owe me some change. It is that "debt" that I
will attempt to explain here. A young radical like me takes such
unspoken rules of unconditional "respect" with no room for 20/20
hindsight analysis, as a red flag, waiting and deserving of being bored
into.
Perhaps we are insane to make such prognostications; perhaps we are
the myopic ones in expecting more out of those old warhorses; but the
fact that I know that each possessed within him a boundless sense of
optimism and pragmatism (you can accord the latter and former to both of
them in degrees that match your estimations and opinions) and a seasoned
intellectual temperament to boot, causes me to look back and somewhat
rebuke them for what they couldn't accomplish, instead of worshiping
what they were able to accomplish. Perhaps their own achievements set
the bar of expectation so high, that we would rebuke them no matter what
they were able to achieve. I really honestly do not know. But I do know
that ultimately, Nigeria would have been better off if those two could
have seen the strategic picture, rather than excelled at the tactical
nuances of their hotly contested rivalry. We impartial observers of
Eventus Nigeriana, from the esteemed land of the dancing spirits, owe
ourselves and our progeny the double indemnity of demanding the balance
of our dues payment from both Zik and Awo. If I err in the process,
please believe that it is human, and that to forgive me is divine. I
reproduce below the entire text, albeit modified, of my response to the
piece that sparked it all off. Enjoy the thoughts.
Oga Osita,
Ndewo,
I have been following your discussions on the Zik-Awo
issue, albeit with a somewhat lukewarm disposition, because I
realize that both sides will stick to their guns no matter what
arguments are ultimately posited. The nature of the issue itself -
as it relates to a discussion of Zik vs. Awo - is such that very few
people will be able to look at it dispassionately and without any
sense of bias. The question then becomes whether the argument is
necessary in the first place, given its penchant for divisiveness,
which is further exacerbated by the sometimes ethnically polarized
nature of Eventus Nigeriana, especially on this forum. But in
responding to one of your postings, I must beg to differ on one
particular point, and in so doing move the topic slightly away from
a sheer Popularity (or otherwise) Contest of Zik vs. Awo, to
elaborate on the question of the monumental failings of both Zik and
Awo. And the effect of those failings, even unhealthy rivalry and
downright animosity, on Nigerian politics since then.
I personally hate jumping into discussions that are so
patently ethnic if not in coloration, then in perception, because at
the end of it all, we sometimes fail to see the bigger picture
vis-à-vis our role or lack thereof in the international arena. But I
will make this exception simply because the debate is going round in
circles, unless of course, the issues that I am about to raise have
been dealt with in previous posts that I might have overlooked. If
that is the case, I apologize in advance even though I have combed
through the archives, but failed to see a decisive treatment of the
issue in question. I am making the exception because in responding
to an earlier post you said:
"4) The role Zik played during the first Republic; was it
not consistent with that of Gandhi and Nehru? The problem with
Nigerians is that once they believe in some thing they cannot change
even in the face of abundance of evidence. Zik had at the time taken
the position as the father of the country. It is hard to get a
Nigerian to see the global power equation in certain occurrence.
There is no way Zik or Awolowo would have become Nigerian Prime
Minister at the time. These things were happening under British rule
and they wanted to hand power over to the North. If Zik had
resisted, Governor General and Presidential positions would have
gone to another person."
Most people (on both sides of the debate) have made valid
arguments, backed up in instances with credible facts and unwavering
scholastic temperament, though emotions have sometimes taken over. I
won't go into the details or belabor the point, suffice to say that
this has occurred on both sides of the aisle. I must warn you that
my tirade is not directed at you personally, but at the memory of
our so-called titans of the First Republic, Zik and Awo. From time
to time, I might veer tangentially off course, but please, bear with
me. At the end of it all, I hope to make my point. I am just sick
and tired of all the pretentious competition and scheming amongst
the Tripod (Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo) dating from the colonial
era politics just before independence and right up till now. And the
crocodile tears shed especially by the Southern Axis of that Tripod
whenever they loose out (normally by subterfuge between themselves)
to the more politically astute partner in that cursed trilateral
relationship, which was given life and fanned for dubious reasons.
Now back to the issue at hand. The truth of the matter is
that we Southerners (everybody south of our imaginary Mason-Dixon
Line, in other words everybody in the Western, Eastern, and later,
the Mid-Western, Regions of the First Republic) like to think that
we are too smart. The facts are self-evident to any serious student
of history and realpolitik. The issue is not who was smarter or more
accomplished as a political operator between Zik and Awo, but rather
how both so-called educated intellectuals with their chains of
degrees were thoroughly outplayed, outmaneuvered, outclassed,
outsmarted, out-schemed, out-manipulated, out-dribbled, outflanked,
outwitted, outfoxed, out… You get the picture. They were schooled by
an individual whom they kept on underestimating (to their own peril
I might add), such that by 1979, 13 years after he was murdered by
those irresponsible hoodlums led by Nzeogwu, they were jostling for
power with one of his Lieutenants in the person of Shehu Shagari.
We Southerners should pull our heads from out of our
derrières; we should desist from our "Ostrichian" tomfoolery and
denial. Generations of our so-called leaders have at every turn and
at every juncture, betrayed our trust and interests for their own
selfish reasons and egos. This is not to state that Northern leaders
are without blame or blemish, but in fairness to them, in reacting
to the ethnically politicized terrain in the lead up to independence
from Nigeria, they played the best hand that they were dealt,
whether or not the British colluded in dealing it to them or not.
And this is more than I can say for their Southern counterparts,
judging from both their actions in orchestrating counterstrokes and
reactions to events (fluid and static) that were occurring on the
scene. I will start by tracing this propensity for selfish political
hara-kiri predominant in the South.
All this burnishing of folklore by debating their
respective legacies, in juxtaposition with their achievements, after
their deaths, while fulfilling to our sentiments and sense of
endearment, is pointless. The fact remains that by acts of omission
or commission, both men failed the present generation of Nigerian
patriots by their inability to see beyond the parochial periphery of
their respective visions for and ambitions in Nigeria, by failing to
realize that united, they were a formidable juggernaut to confront,
but individually, they amounted to little else but tribal warlords.
A tad bit more sophisticated and intelligent and a lot more
benevolent than the characters that parade the length and breadth of
our experience today. And may have indeed contributed considerably
(by their dogged opposition to each other) to the unraveling of the
First Republic and the attendant implications of that misadventure
for the Nigerian Federation.
The Fall-out of a Poisoned Relationship: 1951
With all their book knowledge and intellectual stature,
both Zik and Awo were equally culpable in one of the greatest
foul-ups in Nigerian political history. Regardless of what
transpired in 1951 in the Western House of Assembly, vis-à-vis
carpet-crossing or no carpet-crossing, the fact is that by the 1959
elections both Zik and Awo were in a position to become both
President and Prime-Minister in whatever permutation that they might
have wanted. Whatever beefs (legitimate or bastardly) that existed
between the two men as a result of the 1951 fiasco (some might say
it was a hand-of-god, others will say it was a luck-of-the-draw, yet
others will term it shrewd-local-politics), it was incumbent upon
them to squash that beef in order for both of them to attempt to
realize or reconcile even a fraction of the respective visions that
they had for Nigeria beyond their respective regions.
The direct fall-out of their inability to resolve the
suspicion and distrust (on both sides) of 1951, resulted as you must
be willing to recognize, in their inability to work together in
1959. I have had certain accounts divulged in confidence to me that
Awo made even more frantic efforts in 1979 and again in 1983 to
reconcile (politically at least) with Zik. I cannot attest to the
"veracity" of these affirmations, even though they purport to be
from "someone in-the-know". In any case, 1979 and 1983 were not
1959, the dynamics had changed. In my view it was too late, there
were more or less grand old men, taking the political wheels out for
a last spin and a last hurrah. Their "Diem" was in 1959 and they
failed to "Carpe" it. And this leads me to the excerpt that I
included from your recent posting on the issue. You made a statement
in the quote that I included that neither Zik nor Awo were in a
position to be Prime Minister of Nigeria at the time. Oga Osita, I
beg to differ, and I will tell you why.
Case In Point: 1959 Federal Elections
The recent postings of accusations by an ex-colonial
officer, of British electioneering gerrymandering notwithstanding,
by the end of the 1959 Federal Elections, the status was thus:
"Zik's second mistake was that he declined to form a
coalition government with the AG after the election. The actual
results were: NPC 134 seats; NCNC 81; AG 73; NEPU 8; Mabolaje Grand
Alliance (Ibadan party) 6; Igala Union 4; Igbira Tribal Union 1;
Niger Delta Congress 1; Independents 4. If the NCNC's (81 seats)
accepted to coalesce with the Action Group's (73 seats), surely,
other parties would have joined to put the NPC in the Opposition.
Nigeria's retarded socio-economic and political development which
Chief Enahoro attributed to Zik's and Awo's decision to come to the
Centre would not have occurred today. However, it was argued in some
circles that the AG made a two-pronged offer to the NCNC leadership
and the NPC, by Awo on the one hand and Akintola and Ayo Rosiji on
the other hand, respectively. The NCNC interpreted this to be
hypocritical. The Action Group, therefore countered back that the
approach by the AG leadership was more credible, because the party
did not authorize Akintola/Rosiji to approach the NPC for coalition;
it was their own making, and that was an instance of anti-party
activities by Chief Akintola." (http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/
warticles/zik_awo_enahoro_and_nigerian_pol.htm)
The mathematics is clear; 81 + 73 = 154 (and if you include
a permutation of the smaller parties, say NEPU and Mabolaje Grand
Alliance, then the NPC is forced into opposition). For reasons best
known to them, Zik and Awo could not find sufficient ground to put
aside their differences and unite to form the government at the
center. There have been accusations put forth that the British
further revealed their dubiousness when they asked Balewa, prior to
when the results had been released, to start forming the government
at the center, being the party with the "single" largest number of
votes. My emphasis on single underscores the reality that a
coalition between AG and NCNC would have rendered such dubiousness
moot. So the lie that the British conspired to hand the nation over
to their "servants" and "errand-boys", the Sokoto Caliphate, must be
put to rest once and for all. Or at the very least a caveat must
also be inserted when it is quoted by "conspiracy theorists of the
Nigerian kind" that both Zik's and Awo's lack of foresight, and
their inability to put aside their differences to do anything short
of murder, to form the "progressive" government of their dreams at
the center, aided and abetted that British chicanery.
Regardless of the personal bad blood between the two men,
attributed by some to the "Miracle on 51st Street" (the maneuverings
that trailed the 1951 elections in the Western Region), sheer
Politics 101 should have told both men that they had more to gain
for themselves, and for posterity, by putting aside their
differences and working together in the government at the center.
Rather than letting the NPC take the lead, thus producing the
country's Prime Minister, whom they both regarded as too
"conservative" and Pro-Status-Quo to effect the radical and
"progressive" steps that Nigeria needed to take at that time in her
lifecycle. The what-ifs in history are the most painful evidence of
political blunders and myopic shortcomings that cost us our dream
nation as it were. All the whining of the North pulling the country
back to her level will not wash with this very embittered Nigerian
radical. Zik and Awo betrayed me and my generation, and that
poisonous relationship, has seeped into subsequent generations such
that today, Igbo and Yoruba can never effectively consummate that
famed handshake across the Niger. If there is one place where I
would love to be placed in history outside of the present, then it
would be in the thick of things in 1959, such that my counsel to
either Zik or Awo would be to please put aside whatever differences
or rivalries that they had, and form the Federal Government, leaving
the North to "develop" according to its wishes. Some might accuse me
of sensationalism, but that is just my opinion.
And so ultimately, between the three titans, the Sarduana
in my estimation had the last laugh, because his protégé's protégés
are still in business politically and relevantly at that, today in
Nigeria. My beef, as it were, my grouse with them is that they
should have known better. Perhaps at the time in 1959, with so much
life left in them and so much verve flowing in their respective
bodies, they didn't feel the sense of urgency or the do-or-die
nature of their charge and their dalliance on history's stage. They
might have felt that they would get another chance, in fact, many
more chances, if they played their cards right. Perhaps they might
have, but the military intervention put paid to all those what-ifs.
Our hindsight here is definitely 20/20, and we have the benefit of
observing what men of "timber and caliber" (apologies of course to
K.O. Mbadiwe) did some 45 odd years ago, and are making conjectures
on what could have been, but that is called historical what-if
analysis.
I take the liberty to extrapolate in such historical
analysis. But I am dealing with the context of their relationships
as at 1959, and as such must situate such efforts within that
construct. I still do not see enough evidence to make me believe
that they tried enough. Indeed, their attempts could be interpreted
by another school of thought as political grandstanding, and
insincere "feelers", instead of the sincere efforts of titans aware
of their charge to today's patriots.
Case In Point: Lagos and Southern Cameroon
In the lead up to independence, there was heavy animosity
between the Eastern Nigerian Government and the peoples or
leadership, or both, of the territory then apportioned by the Treaty
of Versailles (London Declarations 1919?) and later upheld by League
of Nations Mandate (and later reinforced by UN Trusteeships in 1946)
as the southern part of the British Cameroons. The resultant effect
of that animosity was that:
"On February 11th and 12th 1961, a plebiscite was held to
"clarify the wishes of the people living in Northern and Southern
Cameroons". The population of Northern Cameroons had earlier - in
1959 - "decided to achieve independence by joining the independent
Federation of Nigeria", while the population of Southern Cameroons,
whose plebiscite could not be done in 1959 for security reasons, now
"decided to achieve independence by joining the independent Republic
of Cameroon" (General Assembly resolution 1608 (XV) of 21 April
1961). Note that there were 21 polling stations on the Bakassi
peninsula itself and that 73% of the people living there voted to
"achieve independence by joining the independent Republic of
Cameroon"." (See: http://www.dawodu.com/bakassi2.htm)
The implication of this turn of events can be clearly
measured by the net loss of seats in the Federal Parliament that the
Eastern Region suffered as a result of the "defection" as it were of
the Southern British Cameroonians, and the net gain added to the
Northern Region by its successful courting (led by that astute, but
comparatively "uneducated" doyen of political calculations from the
Sokoto Caliphate) of the Northern Cameroons. Thus by 1964, the North
had an even greater "advantage" than our Southern idols, with the AG
and the NCNC led if not in reality, then in spirit by persons loyal
to Zik and Awo, notwithstanding the spoiler role played by
Akintola's faction and the fact that Awo was in prison at the time.
Indeed the NCNC underwent a name change to reflect the events that
marred this epoch, probably as a result of hostilities preceding or
stemming from this divorce, from National Council of Nigeria and the
Cameroons to the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens in 1960.
From the earliest British colonial experimentations in
Nigeria, Lagos had always been administered as a Colony distinct
from the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. And thus by the time a
new Lyttleton constitution came into force in 1954 after the
Constitutional Conference in the preceding year in London, during
the lead up to self-rule in Eastern and Western Nigeria (1956), the
country had three regions and a Federal Territory in Lagos. During
that same year, the Western Region threatened to secede from Nigeria
if Lagos was not made a part of that region. This request was never
agreed to and we will see why shortly. (See:
http://www.nigeriannation.com/Explore/Nigeria/Government/govt.asp)
As each of the political parties representing the Tripod at
the time AG, NPC and NCNC each had selfish interests in encouraging
political "disharmony" in each other's "backyards" as a way of
leveraging splinter groups in the seemingly homogeneous holds that
they had. The "backyards" usually existed in areas dominated by the
myriad nationalities which together made up the greater part of the
geographical location referred to as Nigeria, and who for the most
part had been manipulated and lost in the shuffle of politics by the
Tripod. The corresponding backyards were, Mid-West in the Western
Region, COR (Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers) in the Eastern Region, and
Middle-Belt in the Northern Region. Thus AG would support the
agitation by minorities for creation of new states in COR and Middle
Belt areas, NCNC, the same in Mid-West and Middle-Belt, and the NPC
in COR and Mid-West. All these efforts were aimed at establishing a
stronghold in each other's regions by reducing the number of seats
it had, and leveraging this net gain of seats (to the outside
parties) on the federal level in a bid to shore up support and
control the center.
The AG was steadfastly committed to adding Lagos to the
Western Region and in this stance was opposed by the Zik-led NCNC
(I'm not clear about the NPC, although logically, they would be
opposed as well, even if tacitly). The opposition to the inclusion
of Lagos in the Western Region, was attributed to the need to
reserve the designation of Lagos as a "federal territory", free for
all. But it would be naïve not to recognize the political
ramifications of the number of seats in Lagos being added to the
Western Region. Even though some might argue that the politics of
Lagos would seem to give the NCNC an upper hand in light of its
(Lagos) quirky independence from the AG-mould politics of majority
of the Western Region. This status of Lagos persisted as a
hot-button political issue (even after it was made a state of its
own in 1967) until the decision was made to move the federal capital
to its present site in Abuja. It was never resolved by those First
Republic Demigods.
Before the Mid-West won "independence" for itself through
the historical achievements of the mid-west referendum of 1963, this
play for political power in each other's regions by the AG, NCNC,
and NPC was played out in the context of another struggle for
control in the Cameroons. As I mentioned earlier, in the lead-up to
the plebiscite in 1961, the NPC was overwhelming successful in
wooing the Northern portion of the British Cameroons to joining
Nigeria, and consequently, the Northern Region. There was sufficient
distrust between the Eastern Region and the Southern British
Cameroons as to warrant an opting out by the latter from joining the
Nigeria Federation, as this would have meant a subsequent political
"amalgamation" with the Eastern Region. There have been unconfirmed
accusations that the AG opposed a union between Southern Cameroons
on the basis that it would add more seats to (its bitter rival) the
NCNC's power base. Some reports allege that such opposition by the
AG went beyond mere opposition, and that the AG actively discouraged
the Southern Cameroons from joining Nigeria.
Whatever the case may be, the resultant effect of the
failed union meant that the North, which was alleged to have been
given a favorable advantage by British subterfuge, gained even more
power by the deft political maneuverings of Ahmadu Bello and the
NPC. Clearly distinct from the bumbling of the NCNC-led Eastern
Region, hounded "it is alleged" by the machinations of the AG in
opposition to the proposed union. Once again, a seeming
straightforward political gambit was arrested by the clash between
bitter rivals south of our imaginary Mason-Dixon Line.
In fact, there are further accusations that as the
negotiations in London in the run-up to independence heated up, the
North led of course by Ahmadu Bello, gave up its conditional
acceptance of full independence for complete acceptance, when it
exacted a pledge from both Zik and Awo that elections into the
Federal House (and thus Federal Constituencies) would be conducted
by Universal Suffrage. Prior to that, all Regions were deemed equal.
There was no agreed basis upon which any Federal Elections would
occur and this issue was one of the thorny issues that negotiations
were aimed at unraveling. Now, being that the West and the East at
the time believed that the Census Figures were overwhelmingly skewed
by the British to favor the North, why on earth did the two
visionaries not insist on resolving the issue of bogus census
figures, before accepting the noble idea of Universal Suffrage, and
thus independence?
In this again, it seemed that the Sarduana outmaneuvered
them again, because even though both Zik and Awo were avowed liberal
democrats, Ahmadu Bello was able to manipulate their "vulnerability"
for clear-cut political gain. There was no reason why Nigeria should
have rushed into independence with the unresolved issue of those
Census Figures. Since all the evidence suggests that the North was
willing to slow down a British handover, either as a bargaining tool
with the more impatient South (as comprised by the West and the
East) or because it feared Southern Domination, perhaps it is not
too much revisionism to assert that a little more foresight and a
little more insistence on Zik and Awo's part could have swung the
pendulum away from a reliance on the flawed census figures in
apportioning Federal Seats. Nevertheless, all this was overtaken as
of 1959 by the facts on the ground which meant that the NCNC and AG
could still go into a winning coalition to the form the government
at the center. But I just mentioned it here to point out yet another
instance at which Ahmadu Bello schooled both Zik and Awo.
In fact the events in Southern Cameroons go further to
indict the new generation of Nigerian leaders and intelligentsia who
are crying high and nigh about Bakassi. It is yet another instance
where the leadership, principally in the "South", has accused,
tried, and convicted another "Northern" leader, in this case Gowon,
of betraying our interests. By the time Gowon came on the scene in
1967, the plebiscite ceding Bakassi (which was in reality part of
Southern Cameroons) to the "Republic of Cameroon" had already become
law and reality. In my mind, you cannot divorce Bakassi from
Southern Cameroon, unless we want to reverse history by wooing back
the inhabitants of a component part of a neighborly nation into
joining our "Federation". If I were a Southern Cameroonian, I would
laugh uncontrollably at even the thought of such blasphemy, but then
again I would stop laughing and file my machete, because palpable
acts of irredentism are often preceded by serious delusions (see
Hitler in the early 1930s). So let us be honest with ourselves and
desist from propagating falsities in the name of history and facts.
Historiography demands that we tell the "truth/s" as we find them,
not as we see them, backed up with the empirical data to put paid to
delusions, no matter how long in our mental ferment that they have
been.
Case In Point: States Creation and its effect on LGAs
This is not directly related to Zik and Awo, but rather
goes to show the manner via which "Southern Leaders" in general,
have scuttled chances again and again to maintain some parity in
terms of political control with the North. It will explain for
instance the preponderance of "Northerners" in the Federal Civil
Service, the Military, the Police, and the yawning chasm in Local
Government Areas.
When he created new states to preempt Ojukwu's move for
secession, Gowon was advised to create equal number of states in the
North and the South. (See: http://www.dawodu.com/omoigui40.htm). In
order to "restore" the geographical balance of détente in light of
the somewhat misperceived notion of "Northern domination" of Nigeria
via "bogus" census figures, and to ameliorate the domination of the
majority groups over the minority groups in Nigeria, Gowon created
12 states. 6 (West-Central State; North-Western State comprising
Sokoto and Niger Provinces; North-Central State comprising Katsina
and Zaria; Kano State comprising the present Kano Province;
North-Eastern State comprising Bornu, Adamawa, Sarduana and Bauchi
Provinces; Benue/Plateau State comprising Benue and Plateau
Provinces) in the North, and 6 (Lagos State comprising the Colony
Province and the Federal Territory of Lagos; Western State
comprising the present Western Region but excluding the Colony
Province; Mid-Western State comprising the present Mid-Western
State; East-Central State comprising the present Eastern Region
excluding Calabar, Ogoja and Rivers Provinces; South-Eastern State
comprising Calabar and Ogoja Provinces; Rivers State comprising
Ahoada, Brass, Degema, Ogoni and Port Harcourt Divisions) (See:
http://www.dawodu.com/gowon.htm)
This balance was maintained until 1976 when Murtala
Mohammed created an additional 7 States bringing the total to 19.
"Murtala Muhammad set in motion the stalled machinery of devolution
to civilian rule with a commitment to hand over power to a
democratically elected government by October 1979. The transition,
as outlined by Murtala Muhammad, would take place in successive
stages. In August 1975, he appointed a five-member panel to study
Gowon's plan for a nineteen-state federation that would "help to
erase memories of past political ties and emotional attachments."
The plan, reaffirmed by the panel, assaulted ethnic power by
recommending that the predominantly Yoruba Western State be divided
into three states, the Igbo East Central State into two, and the six
states of the north into nine states, only three of which would be
predominantly Hausa-Fulani. Murtala Muhammad claimed that he wanted
to avoid the "proliferation of states" that would highlight the
problems of minorities and warned petitioners that no further
demands for new states would be tolerated. In the end, seven more
states were created. In 1976 Nigeria came to have nineteen states."
(http://workmall.com/wfb2001/nigeria/
nigeria_history_preparations_for_the_return_to_civilian_rule.html)
In actual fact, at the end of the state creation exercise,
Nigeria had 10 states in the North and 9 states in the South. The
disparity in the South has been attributed to the inability of the
Igbo leaders at the time to agree on a third state (Wawa State?)
which has haunted them since then. Being that recruitment into the
Federal Civil Service, Military and Police, and Revenue Allocation
were on the basis of states (to be more precise the State of Origin
phenomenon), what this meant was an associated increase in the
North's share of the communal pie. (See:
http://www.dawodu.com/omoigui6.htm) Due to that oversight, the Igbo
have lagged behind the Yoruba and the Hausa-Fulani in terms of the
number of states controlled by the Tripod. Subsequent state
creations have brought Nigeria's total state count to 36; 19 in the
North and 17 in the South with an attendant rise in North's access
to the "national cake".
Nowhere is this imbalance more rampant than for example old
Kano State (consisting of Jigawa and Kano) and Lagos State which
were both created by Gowon on the eve of Civil War in May 1967.
Prior to the effort by some governors in Nigeria to create new
councils in Nigeria in this dispensation, Jigawa had 26 LGAs and
Kano had 44 LGAs, while Lagos, probably the most populous state in
the country, had 20 LGAs. What this means is that Old Kano State has
a total of 70 LGAs, while Lagos has 20. Being that federal
"largesse" is "spread" using diverse factors one of which are number
of LGAs, it is amazing how the "South" has yet again been
outmaneuvered by the "North". I'm not sure what the status of the
attempt by the governors is, but I do know that the President froze
funding to the states in question.
(See: http://nigeriaworld.com/focus/constitution/schedules.html)
Postscript: A Dream Interrupted
All in all there has been a pattern of underestimating and
then shedding endless crocodile tears by Southern Politicians in
their dealings with the North. Dating from the Era of the Titans
during which Zik, Awo, and Sarduana waxed strongly, strutting along
our political terra firma like the Titans of old, bestriding our
consciousness as "Colossi", the "Ostrichian" methodology that the
South (Eastern and Western Regions) employed on their dealings with
one another and subsequently with the North, guaranteed that
whatever lofty ideas that both men had could never be replicated on
a national scale. At the end of it all they became regional
strongmen, unable to move decisively beyond the limited periphery of
their strongholds, and unable to meet each other halfway to forge
the Nigeria of their dreams. Politically and philosophically, they
were closer to each other than either was to the NPC led by Ahmadu
Bello, but they lacked either the humility or foresight to reach a
compromise and work together.
For whatever reasons they couldn't coexist in the same
political coalition. The most public break in their relationship
could be traced to the events of 1951. But even before then, when
the NYM broke into two in 1941, with one faction headed by Zik and
the other by Ernest Ikoli (which later linked up in 1948 with the
Egbe Omo Oduduwa founded by Awo in 1945), there seemed to be a
philosophical rupture in their visions for Nigeria. And it seemed
that beyond personal rivalry and distrust, they could never bridge
that rift between them; a rift which however paled in comparison to
the yawning chasm that existed between them and the NPC led by
Sarduana. Subsequent events proved that the two men though "great"
in their individual capacities, could have even been greater and
perhaps eternal in posterity's fondness and estimation, across the
geographical spread in Nigeria.
After all is said and done, a lot of what I have rehashed
here is my personal opinion. I don't know it if it is compelling
enough to merit a response, suffice to say that as a politician in
today's Nigeria, I would rather appreciate a Zik or an Awo, with a
fraction of the intellectual stature that they became famed for, but
with a strong and healthy dose of the political dexterity that the
wily Sarduana displayed in handling both titans. He (Sarduana)
proved by his actions (or at the very least by default) to be the
smoothest political operator on the scene; maximizing his advantages
whatever they were, and dividing and conquering his adversaries time
and time again. Both men must have viewed him with consternation,
but as they say, native intelligence and cunning will trounce
philosophical posturing and intellectual elitism any day. It is to
their eternal discredit that neither man could do their best to win
the other over, and were content to play second fiddle in the
affairs of Nigeria at the center.
It is unfortunate because a coalition between those two,
one the President, the other the Prime Minister would have been one
heck of a ride. And one that I would give anything to have
witnessed, even if it was in history books as most of these things
happened before my time. It would have been a wonder to behold,
provided they could squash their egos and get along, and might have
saved a more sustainable and veritable notion of that evasive
Nigerian ideal for us and our children. In all this, I am evidently
speculating and I am afraid I might have stepped out of the bounds
of the latitude permitted for intellectual hypothesizing. But I will
say that I came down hard on both of them, not in terms of who did
more than the other, and who did what to whom, but in the sense that
these guys were children of history. They knew, or at least should
have known, or at least should have surrounded themselves with those
who would have alerted them both, to the stakes. They were playing
for posterity's sake, acting out a pantomime for our progeny's fate,
and not for their times. As it is, we can only look back and wonder
with a shake of the head and sigh of the soul, kai, what could have
been?
It does seem that the new generation of Southern Leaders
has taken up from exactly were the two left off. In our profuse
canonization and eulogizing of both men on either side of the Niger,
we have failed again to learn the lessons of history as taught to us
by the collective trouncing of our "idols" by men some of us regard
as their intellectual inferiors, as if intellectualism is a degree
awarded in a university. Even Abacha in all his naïveté and
"intellectual retardation" thoroughly understood and played the
politics of his era with uncanny aplomb. Notwithstanding his
viciousness, which he exhibited with unparalleled political calculus
(combining the proverbial carrot and big stick, though it was more
big stick than carrot), he displayed that native cunning that to me
is the true asset that the Nigerian politician brings to bear at the
bargaining table of our collective inertia. As we look back fondly
at the "golden" days of yore, and wax lyrically about the labors of
our heroes past, may the lessons that they gave and that they in
turn received (more of the latter than of the former in my view), on
the inner workings of political pragmatism, never be in vain.
In summary, it is this refusal to work together at all
costs that tempers my estimation of both men at the end of the day.
The what-if that arises out of that equation of Zik as President and
Awo as Prime Minister or vice-versa, gives me shivers and much cause
for rue. The heights, to which Nigeria could have risen, prodded and
harried by the exhortations and visions of both men are best
imagined, at least in my view. Now, it is quite possible that theirs
might not have been a match-made-in-heaven, but I am willing to bet
my last kobo, that it would have made for a more rapid and radical
developmental effort. Alas, it was not to be, perhaps, impeded by
the obfuscations of the trickster. The moral of the story to all
children of history is clearly evident; please avoid egotistical
mistakes, let our failings be instead of circumstances beyond our
control, rather than those that we have a hold of. Until a truly
geographically-balanced body politic of radical reformers is
sufficiently fed up with the current equation in Nigeria, such that
it seizes power democratically in a restructured Nigeria, then we
will continue our backwards march into the trash-can of history's
faux pas.
Regards,
Chukwuemeka Uche Onuora
June 16, 2004