NIGERIA: STILL A MAN – CHILD AT 57
The diverse disparate ethnic groups that make up the geographical space called Nigeria had existed and practised their peculiar types of pre-colonial governments long before the advent of western imperialism. History textbooks deal with the rise and fall of empires on the African continent. During my post- primary school day(s), I read about the Mali and Songhai Empires and the pure and impure Hausa – states. Sadly, now, history as a subject/course has been expunged from schools’ curricula. Expunging history from schools’ curricula is an unconscionable and condemnable act. It is an irrefutable proof that our leaders desperately want to hide our past from young Nigerians in order that they can achieve their selfish and unpatriotic objectives. Their removal of the subject from school syllabuses is an indictment of Nigeria’s egregious and bumbling political leadership.
However, Nigerian writers of note, such as Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Adichie and others have produced works, which fictionalised our past. Achebe’s Magnus opus, and best – seller, Things Fall Apart, is an excursion into the Igbo people’s anthropology, sociology and ethnology. It, also, treats the issue of the clash of culture in the Igboland of 19th century, which resulted from the white people’s colonisation of Africa.
Other ethnic groups in Nigeria suffered and experienced the same colonialism as the Igbo people did. Then, disparate ethnic nationalities, which are very dissimilar in many areas, were welded together. And the northern and southern protectorates were amalgamated for administrative convenience by Lord Frederick Lugard. And his mistress christened the country Nigeria. The unification of the diverse entities that make up the country was done without our colonial masters’ securing of the peoples’ consent. Today, many Nigerians attribute Nigeria’s disunity to its heterogeneity and the lumping of disparate ethnic groups together.
Our founding fathers and freedom fighters fought relentlessly and fiercely for the political emancipation of African states. In the late 1950s and 1960s, a wave of political emancipation swept across Africa leading to the political liberation of many African states.
Nigeria’s gaining of political independence in 1960 was greeted with jubilation and merry- making as the leadership of Nigeria would be entrusted in the care of Nigerians. Fifty seven years down the line, the story of Nigeria is one of high expectations, unrealised dreams, and dashed hopes. Chiedu Uche Okoye, Awka.