2015 is going to be the year Nigeria becomes a strong nation or the year Nigeria seizes to exist. Many experts including the USA CIA hold the later view, and these experts know how to read tea leaves. A few like this writer and Mr. Kassim who writes from Canada hold that the earlier view would prevail. Unfortunately we will not know for sure until around 2018.
Here are my reasons for believing that Nigeria would become a stronger nation come 2015:
1. Mr. Jonathan Ebere Azikiwe Goodluck (JEG). JEG is the most under-estimated man in Nigeria if not the world. Mr. Obasanjo (OBJ) hoisted him (a weak 2ic) and Mr. Yar’ Adua (a sick man) on Nigeria, on the hopes that from his PDP BOT position he would continue to run the country. Unfortunately the sick man died as OBJ thought would happen. The 2nd in command waited for the half-way point of Yar’ Adua’s government to pass before seeking to be the replacement. Now he has the chance to be the longest continuous ruler Nigeria ever had. Meanwhile both JEG and Yar’ Adua outsmarted OBJ.
The next obstacle to JEG’s power was the National Governor’s Council a non-constitutional office that had gained so much power over the presidency and became the training ground for the presidency. JEG quickly learned the threat the NGC presented and broke it into two and defeated both factions – the typical divide and conquer strategy. Many astute observers did not even know when this plan was hatched and executed. Who has heard from NGC recently?
JEG’s growing powers forced the opposition to unite to fight him. The dissolution of NGC forced some governors to join the newly formed APC. The amalgamation of so many different power seekers, who have no ideological bonds, weakened APC instead of making it stronger. The outcome of this week’s APC’s nomination would strengthen JEG’s hands. If Atiku wins he would receive tepid support from Buhari and Tinubu and OBJ would come back firmly to PDP to stop Atiku. If Buhari wins as I expect him to do, the division between North and south and between Christians and Muslims would be acerbated. Most likely Western governments would clandestinely support JEG in the fear that a Buhari government would show a pivot to Mideast. A free JEG would make Nigeria stronger.
2. Nigeria. This is a nation that is always on the brink; never living up to its potential. The expression “failed nation” has been used more than once to describe her. But upon further review the “failed nation” ruling on the field is cancelled. In the past, just before independence, all the nationalities were mostly working together and were seldom fighting. Then things changed and all the ethnic groups started fighting to death resulting in the traumatic civil war and the twenty pound policy to finish off the weakened. Today all the ethnic nationalities are fighting and yet working together as the nation moves towards achieving its potential. This is the result of the minorities realizing their differences and connections with the Big Three. And their connections to other minorities despite the machinations by the Big Three.
While in the past it was only Mr. Soyinka who would be able to defy his Yoruba constituency and side with Easterners (Igbo) and pay a huge personal price for his insurrection, now there are many others doing the same things. Amaechi, Okorocha, Ngige readily come to mind. APC does not have any known office address in SE but it is a matter of time when one will see APC somewhere on Okpara Avenue in Enugu. Nigeria is more united than it looks on the surface. For every Igbo man or Hausa man “deported” by Fashola another 100 “migrate” into Lagos from Anambra and Plateau.
3. I had hinted on politics in the preceding paragraphs but it deserves its own paragraph. We could describe Action Group of yore as a Yoruba Party and NPC as a Northern Party. Only NCNC was a National Party (it is most unfair to the Yoruba to describe NCNC as an Igbo Party). Who would today dare to describe PDP as anything than a national party? Who would do the same to APC? Or even the Liberal Party? Nigerian political parties are becoming national parties if not for any other reason but to be able to meet the 2/3 state qualification for presidency. Nigerian political parties are beginning to form, to norm, and to perform as a national political party.
4. Development. The regions are being developed and linked together much more than ever before. Several airplanes take off from Lagos – Abuja-Enugu-PH and back to Lagos others take off from Enugu-Benin-Calabar-Jos-Asaba. A passenger can take off from Lagos by train to Ibadan-Abuja and by this time next year one could also take off from PH to Aba-Enugu-Makurdi- somewhere. Trunk A roads are crisscrossing the country. Each of these developments ties the country together and making each region or zone interdependent with another. This “we are in it together” phenomenon binds the nation’s wounds. What is happening with transportation is also happening with other economic endeavors, be it oil from exploration to refining and to distribution. The small tick in moving away from only oil exports to exporting agricultural production brings much needed diversification.
My bet is that Nigeria will survive the second hundred years from 1914 amalgamation to 2114 consolidation: stronger, freer, and more developed.
Written by Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba.
