I had written and debated enough in the past on why Nigeria has not fulfilled the dreams of the founding fathers. The reasons are as varied as the tribes and tongues in Nigeria. Like many have come to realise, Nigeria is not where it is supposed to be. Everyone keep quoting from Prof Chinua Achebe’s “The Trouble With Nigeria” (1983) where he said “the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership”. This is the summation to which I subscribe for if sermons were better, the congregation would be better! But Achebe did not go further as he did not disaggregate the leadership he indicted. If that book were to be written today, forty-one years later, I am sure he would have attempted to tell his readers which segment of the leadership that did not only fail the country but slowed and indeed impeded her growth. This is why I have decided to put the saddle on the right horse here without apologies.
Without going into history which is in the public domain, Nigeria was doing comparatively well before the first coup of January 1966. Using all measurable parameters, the regions were doing well in their areas of comparative advantage. There was healthy competition among the regional leaders who were all nationalists to better the lives of their people. They approached development using different strategies based on the peculiarity and sensibilities of their people. Even though the south had higher formal education, the northern leaders were not left out in their efforts to provide quality education for their citizens too. In agriculture, the regions identified their priorities very well and utilised their geographical location and weather to grow cash crops. The West grew cocoa, the East palm, South rubber and north groundnuts and other cereals. The citizens had work to do and not many were as hungry as we have today. All the leaders were doing very well!
There is the argument that the founding fathers didn’t really know what to do with independence after attaining it. That is not true. What would they have done? Many of them were in their thirties and forties when they took the reins of leadership from the British and did their best. Whether their best was good enough is subjective. There is also the argument that the politics they played laid the background for the problems we have today. I do not know how this argument holds water. Did they import the presidential system of government and threw away the parliamentary? They followed the footsteps of the colonial masters and it worked well. There is yet another argument that there was massive corruption in government then giving the excuse for the military to takeover government. There was corruption yet they built universities, stadia, television stations in all the regions. Yet others are of the opinion that they did not possess the experience to manage the acrimonious politics of the time culminating in “operation wetie” and other problems. Where were they to get the experience, was there any market where it was sold and they did not go to buy? All of those issues would have been resolved one way or the other had they not been driven away by the military. Is our politics better today?
This was the setting before the military in their misadventure staged their first coup in January 1966 and set Nigeria, a promising nation that held so much prospect for the black race, a nation that established a television station same year with India in 1959, two years after China, only seven years after Canada, and before many countries in Europe on reverse gear. For fourteen years, they rolled back all the gains. They halfheartedly and grudgingly left and came back only after four years and remained on stage for another sixteen years. When I challenge some to show what the military did in the governance of this country, they point to the bridges in Lagos as if the civilians did not build any. The military imposed a unitary system of government, abolished regional economic autonomy and institutionalised corruption. They destroyed the educational system and the economy. They were not trained for any of these. It was in this country that a military head of state reportedly said Nigeria’s problem was not about money but how to spend it. Their coups and counter coups decimated the best among them. The fact that people are agitating for return to regional autonomy and parliamentary democracy is an epitaph on the tombstone of the military destruction of the country.
One would have thought that with the long years of military rule, Nigeria would have been a regional military power by now. But that is not to be! Apart from the military destroying Nigeria’s democracy, it also engaged in self destruct so much so that Nigeria neither manufactures modern hunting gun nor military hardwares. Meanwhile, Embraer Defence and Security company of Brazil, a country of Nigeria’s equivalent population and endowments invented the Super Tucano and tested it’s first flight as far back as August 1980. That is the fighter jet on which our survival was going to be depended in the fight against terrorism and banditry in strict compliance with the U.S Leahy law. Its acquisition by Nigeria was celebrated to the high heavens recently. The situation is so bad that neighbouring less endowed countries now poke their insulting military fingers onto Nigeria’s eyes without consequences.
Two countries in comparative studies of what democracy on the one hand offers and the destruction wrought by serial military interventions in governance on the opposite end of the spectrum are India and Pakistan. Two countries, two systems with geographical congruity and cultural affinities, one is coup resistant and the other coup prone. Today, considering all parameters and using developmental milestones, the difference between the two is like that between day and night. While one is preparing to send men to the moon, the other is unable to procure vaccines to fight childhood diseases.
Coincidentally (deliberately?), Nigeria had dubious relationship with the Pakistani military establishment at a time. While the Pakistani military staged their first in 1958, Nigeria debuted in 1966. Anytime Nigerian soldiers went there for military training, they learnt other things. Discerning Nigerians knew that their return almost always heralded new waves of coups and counter coups. Little wonder that the two countries have similar trajectory of underdevelopment, insecurity and poverty just like their military interruption of democracy?
At sixty-four, Nigeria would have made more progress if the military had not disrupted her democratic journey. The military was like a milestone on Nigeria’s Democratic neck and shackled her feet. They came, empowered themselves and are still largely in charge in different guises. When some Nigerians in their forties who had their formative years rooted in the military era argue in favour of the military, they fail to imagine where Nigeria would have been without the multiple military interregna in her political process. Democracy is a journey not a dash and anytime it is disrupted, the journey starts afresh again. Besides, that we don’t have any democractic culture today is because of the military mentality of some politicians.
Although Nigeria has had twenty-four years of unbroken civil rule it would take her a considerable length of time to regain lost grounds. Whether the military has totally let her off the hook would be seen in years to come.
