THE GEOGRAPHY OF DIVIDED NIGERIA(1)

After reading Femi Fani-Kayode’s recent treatise entitled : “A Time To Ponder About Nigeria” with the opening sentence that reads thus: “Is it not time for us to have a confederation of nationalities in Nigeria and to restructure the country drastically to give maximum autonomy to the various regions and nationalities? Or indeed is it not time to just breakup and go our separate ways?” I decided to add my voice on the vexed issue of disintegration of Nigeria as being clamoured for by some few but very vocal Nigerians.  There are many that share the sentiment espoused by Fani-Kayode especially if one is to believe the sentiments on the social media, but who have not taken time to examine what the geography of a divided Nigeria may look like. In this article I will not only dissect the possible geography of a divided Nigeria and perhaps the economic geography of the new entities if Nigeria is to divide whether peacefully or violently as we near the 2015 election year and the year the Americans have “prophesied” our end as a nation. The treatise by Fani-Kayode is the motivational force behind this article where I would prove that division may not the FINAL SOLUTION.

Let me start by making it obvious that I am a firm believer in united Nigeria. I am one of those who believe that Nigeria’s inability to become a successful and peaceful nation where mutually owned resources are shared equitably without rancour was not because of our “large population” or our diverse ethnic origin (Nigeria has over 350 languages) or our different religions. The reason why Nigeria has failed to fulfil its potential as a prosperous nation rests squarely on CORRUPTION.

In terms of population, our population put at about 120million ( that is if you believe the National Population Commission(NPC)), is small when compared with Indonesia’s 600million, India’s 1.2 billion or China’s 1.6billion. In terms of diversity we are not as diverse as India which remains a united country and even far more successful economically and technologically that Pakistan and Bangladesh that broke away to form separate countries. In fact the case of Pakistan should be studied carefully by those who are beating drums of war and hoping that if they carve out their own ethnic and religious fiefdom where everyone speaks the same language and worship the same god they would find peace and prosperity that have eluded them in Nigeria. On the eave of India’s independence, Muslims of India fearing domination by the Hindus opted for their own country. Being Muslims they argued that their prosperity would be better assured if they have the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Today Pakistan where the population is about 99 per cent Muslims has been anything but prosperous. India on other hand is a world leader on technological innovation and a power house of global economy.

Back to Nigeria. In our various states where the governor and the state assemblies and the local government chairmen, most of the times speak the same language,  worship the same way and share the same cultural affinity, are they better run than Nigeria? Which state can we say is a model of prosperity, equity and fairness? Perhaps non. The truth of the matter is that the bane of emerging African countries like Nigeria is corruption especially the primitive accumulation of wealth by leaders of the society. Like Achebe rightly noted there is nothing wrong with the people of Nigeria, there is nothing wrong with the water and climate of Nigeria, Nigeria’s problem is the failure of the leaders to rise to the challenges of leadership. Our problem is also because our leaders have failed to rise above the challenges of corruption.