By Adedapo Taiwo Emmanuel
Concisely, the history of Nigeria can be traced back to the annexation of Lagos in 1861 by the British government, making it Crown Colony. Sketching the history of colonial rule in Nigeria, it can be concluded that the British governed us for about 100years (1861-1960) before the long-agitated independence was given Nigeria in 1960.
Prior to this, the leaders from the regions making up Nigeria harnessed their efforts to fight for her independence. These leaders are collectively called Nationalists. Worthy of note is that some were more radical than the others in fighting for the independence. For instance, in 1953, Chief Anthony Enahoro, a member of AG in the Federal House of Representatives, moved a “Self-Government in 1956” motion but it did not go down well with some other members of the house.The caucus of the house from the northern part of the country led by Sir Ahmadu Bello contended the motion replacing the phrase “in 1956” with “as soon as practicable”. The contention was so severe that many lives and properties were destroyed. But eventually, they all fought for the Independence in one voice.
Before the independence, what we had was nationalism, but after independence, “ethnonationalism” surged. At independence, the first Head of State (Nnamdi Azikwe) recited a poem by an American author.
They promised to improve education, develop the nation; fight against corruption; end poverty; respect human rights and give dividends of democracy and independence to all citizenry. But the contrary is what we have been seeing over the last sixty years.
When talking about ending poverty in the country, this was just a mere saying by those who said it, because as at today Nigeria is the epicentre of poverty. Nigeria is a state where 90% of her citizens live on less than 2dollars per day. What a great disgrace to the greatness we were clamouring for! When talking about improvement in education, education sector in Nigeria is like an abandoned building. Public Universities are like forest reserves. No good laboratory equipment, no good libraries, teachers’ salaries are not paid regularly, Staff Unions embark on strike actions like long summer holidays, academic calendars are not stable, Nigerian politicians can’t send their children/ward to higher institutions in Nigeria, not even private institutions. They prefer spending their money abroad than improving education sector in the country. The global pandemic occasioned by the Coronavirus has made us know that Nigeria higher institutions are like zoo. Just to mention a few of how poor education is in Nigeria. Is the Nigerian entity, indeed, not a fool at Sixty?
Corruption has been the new normal in Nigeria since independence. It was corruption in the first republic that made the five majors to embark on a revolution referred to as coup in January 15, 1966. It was gathered that the parliamentary government led by Balewa as the Prime Minister and Azikiwe as the Head of State was corrupt to the extent that they had no respect for human rights accompanied by a huge embezzlement of public funds as demonstrated by the ostentatious lifestyle of the then Minister of finance, Prince Festus Okotie-Eboh and other government officials. The names of some officials of government were synonymous to corruption. Corruption is an endemic that Nigeria has been battling with from her inception.
Military government took over from the civilian Government in a bloody coup. The coup led to the death of some leading government officials mostly from the north. The then GOC took power and became the first military Head of State. As at the time he became the Head Of State, the generality of the citizenry were happy because they thought he (Ironsi) would engineer the reformation process and repair the damage caused by the previous administration, but the case was on the contrary. A counter coup was staged that same year which terminated the lives of the top government officials.
The coup was a mutiny staged by Northern military personnels headed by Muritala and Yakubu Gowon. The bloody coup was a successful one and brought in the new military Head Of State. Aguyi-Ironsi, Adekunle Fajuyi and some military leaders died in the process of the coup. Then, Gowon took over power and became the second military Head Of State. The Yakubu Gowon-led administration manifested a lot of corrupt practices. It was during his administration that some part of the country attempted to secede. The eastern part of the country formed a Republic of Biafra and this led to a civil war that led to the death of over 3million people, mostly from the eastern part of the country. The civil war lasted for 3years (1967-1970).
The government of Gowon was terminated in 1975 in a bloodless coup that gave Muritala the power to govern the country. Obasanjo became the new Head of State immediately Muritala was assassinated in a failed coup. We have a huge record of corruption during this administration. There were many programs embarked on by the Obasanjo regime such as construction of new refineries and pipelines, Operation Feed the Nation that was allegedly converted to Ota Farm and host of others. A number of these national projects were conduits to distribute favour and enrich connected politicians. Another corruption recorded during this regime was the scandals involving the international telecommunication firm, ITT, led by Chief MKO Abiola in Nigeria, which Gen Olusegun Obasanjo was associated with.
General Obasanjo handed over to a civilian government on the 1st of October 1979. The election brought the first Executive President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari. It was acclaimed that the election was widely rigged, as alleged by the opposition party. Corruption was deemed pervasive during the administration of Shehu Shagari. A few federal buildings mysteriously caught fire after investigators started to probe the finances of the officials working in the buildings.
Another corruption recorded during this administration was the investigations into the collapse of the defunct Johnson Mathey Bankers in 1984, of which London shed some light on some of the abuses carried on during the second republic. It was alleged that foreign currency was transferred to some party members on the watchfulness of Shagari. Subsequently, the regime seized from existence on the 31st of December, 1983, when the General Buhari took power from him (Shagari) on the claim that there was corruption in the administration.
Under Buhari’s watch, some politicians were apprehended to be corrupt and punished, but the administration itself was only involved in a few instances of lapsed ethical judgment. Then, Ibrahim Babangida took power from Buhari in a palace coup in August, 1985.
The regime of General Ibrahim Babangida or IBB, has been seen as the body that legalized corruption. His administration refused to give an account of the Gulf War windfall, which has been estimated to be $12.4 billion. He rigged the only successful election in the history of Nigeria on June 12, 1993. He lives in a very exquisite mansion in his home state of Niger. He was forced to resign in 1993 after the annulment of the free and fair election conducted ever in Nigeria and an Interim Government headed by Chief Earnest Sonekan was appointed but was sacked by Sani Abacha weeks after his appointment.
Sani Abacha got to power in November 1993. His administration was filled with multifarious corrupt activities such as massive abuse of human right, and his death revealed the global nature of graft. In 2000, two years after his death, a Swiss banking commission report indicted Swiss banks for failing to follow the compliance process when they allowed Abacha’s family and friends access to his accounts and to deposit amounts totaling 600million US dollars into them. The same year, a total of more than 1billion US dollars was found in various accounts throughout Europe. Till today, Nigeria is still collecting money he looted, embezzled and took abroad. He died in 1998 and General Abdulsalami Abubakar succeeded him. The government of Gen. Abdusalami was short and focused on transiting the country quickly to democracy. Yet, the suspicion remains that a huge amount of wealth was acquired by him and his inner circle in such a short period.
Trasition to Formal Democracy
On the 29th of May, 1999, Nigeria returned to civilian administration after about 30 years of military rule, President Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn in as the new Excutive President alongside Atiku Abubakar as the Vice President.
Since we have returned to democracy, it was believed that all the atrocities by the previous administration would be remedied and our democracy would be regained, but contrary is the case. It has been more than 20years now that we have returned to democracy without interruption by the military.
Instead of Nigerians to be celebrating good governance, real democracy, rule of law and other tenets of democracy, what we are cerebrating is “demon-cracy”, “crazy demo” and other forms of tyrannical government. Insecurity, poverty, corruption and the likes have been the order of the day in our acclaimed democracy.
When Obasanjo came as the President, we believed that the situation of the country would change from bad to good based on his experience. But what we had were kidnaping to the extent that a state governor was kidnapped; a sitting governor was unconstitutionally removed from office; widespread sharing of Nigeria’s wealth among the politicians and other atrocities being committed. It was Obasanjo that wanted to manipulate the constitution to contest for the third term.
In Nigeria, election could not be won by the voice of the majority, until you promise to commit the treasure and the resources of the country to the hands of the godfathers. What we have is political “gangstarism” where categories of persons group to loot and regroup to loot again. Goodluck Jonathan became President after the illness that took the life of the then President Musa Yar’Adua. Prior to his inauguration as the president, it was gathered that some persons known as “Cabal” didn’t want the government to be handed over to the then vice president. “They wanted the dead to continue to rule after his death”, but after series of deliberations and consultation, a doctrine of necessity was pronounced and he was installed as the President.
During his presidency, a lot of atrocities were committed: stealing of government money was the order of the day. 2.2 billion dollars meant for ammunition to fight Boko Haram insurgency was allegedly embezzled by the then National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, and his cabal. There was also mismanagement of funds in the Ministry of Finance, Heath, Petroleum and other ministries in his presidential stint in office. Jonathan was tagged a weak President that allowed his ministers to destroy his administration.
Then came to office the acclaimed Nigeria saviour, corruption fighter, man of integrity, Major General Muhammad Buhari (rtrd). He became the President on the 29th of May 2015, after using deceptive propaganda to defeat the then President. Buhari’s Administration is the most confusing Government Nigerians ever seen. As portrayed by his party men and women as man of integrity, we believed Buhari would end the corruption in Nigeria not knowing that we were moving from bad to worse, then worst. More like from Ebola to Covid-19. The Buhari Administration stopped the fighting of corruption and changed it to fighting of opposition parties.
No matter the gravity of corruption one has committed, once one joins APC, you are saved. You will even be celebrated. Buhari would fight others and leave his men. In 2016, it was reported that Buhari presented an evidence that his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, took N500million bribe from MTN to help it slash the $5Billion fine slammed against it for the violation of Nigeria telecommunications regulations bothering on national security. MTN fired the staff involved in the bribery scandal. But Abba Kyari was left intact in his position as the Chief of Staff to national outrage, forcing Buhari to announce the probe of Kyari.The findings of the investigation was never made public.
Abusive of human rights is paramount in Buhari Administration, the tactics they used (Propaganda) to get to office is now tagged hate speech, harassment of peaceful protesters. Anything except “sai BABA” now is tagged hate speech. Opinion cannot be shared, government cannot be questioned, election rigging everywhere. Security agencies are now Buhari’s errand boys. They have left their primary assignment and turned another terrorist in the country. What they do now is to harass peaceful protesters and rig election for the ruling party as demonstrated in Osun, Kogi and Kano gubernatorial elections.
Another endemic we have been facing in Nigeria since independent, mostly since we have returned to democracy in 1999, is insecurity. We have been battling with Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, banditry and other security challenges. It was Jonathan administration that we thought it was worst not knowing that the worst was yet to come until Buhari became the president. What we were facing was Boko haram but now it has increased. Buhari-led administration had graduated to the level of promoting terrorism while peaceful protesters were being harassed by security agents. Boko Haram were being celebrated and fed in Abuja under Buhari.
Were the aforementioned points the greatness they were clamouring for? Are what Nigerians were clarmoring for achieved? Is Nigeria Entity still a fool at Sixty?
It is on this note that I implore the Stakeholders, well-meaning Nigerians, socio-political groups, unions, elder statesmen, students and the Federal government to try and implement policies that will positively affect our economy, security, education and other sectors for the greatness we have been clamoring since independence to become evident.