Apprenticeship is one fundamental method of professional education in the South Eastern Nigeria. Under this system, a lad desirous of joining a trade, especially commercial trading, is expected to serve the master for a certain period of time, after which the master has the obligation to set the lad up as well as nurture and mentor him to maturity. It is a taboo if, at the end of the service period, such a lad that served the master loyally and diligently is let down by the master who refuses to set him up, in the common parlance, “settle” him.
Nigeria, by happenstance, found itself under the colonial mastership of Britain in 1884 after the Berlin Conference where Europe shared Africa. In other words, Nigeria grew under Britain’s tutelage in nation building.
Indeed, history has it that Flora Shaw, said to be a live-in lover of Lord Frederick Lugard, the British representative in Nigeria then, gave Nigeria a name after years of British political leadership of an assemblage of rather diverse and almost non-cohesive ethnic groups. While Britain tapped the natural resources of the country at that time, it gave these people of the Niger area political direction, in addition to religious, economic and social bearing.In 1960, the country gained independence from Britain after much struggle, a fight put up mainly by the people of the south. Since then, there have been several political upheavals in the country, one devastating civil war and several politico-religious insurrections inclusive.
This year, the oil-rich country faced the mother of all protests carried out by the youths and tagged #endSARS. The youth protest, unprecedented in the history of the country, erupted from widespread police brutality meted out mainly to the youths of the country. Like a spiral wave, the endemic corruption plaguing the nation have brought about this and several other woes such as massive unemployment, inequity, inadequate social amenities, warped social values, political instability, among others.
Successive governments have climbed up to the nation’s seat of power using their promise to bring corruption to an end in the country. But the experience is that corruption had gone worse by the day, more so in the present administration which earlier held great promise in that direction because of the credentials of the man at the helm of affairs, President Muhammadu Buhari. The unending woes of the country are an indication that Britain packed out of Nigeria without tidying things up.
The former colonial masters have been variously accused of rigging the first post-independence election in the country in favour of the North. British favouritism for the north, right from the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914, had always left the south in a quandary. Many have wondered why it is so, but, whatever has been the aphrodisiac sustaining this British wedlock with the North at the expense of the South, it must be pointed out that there is a moral burden on Great Britain to do something fast to fix Nigeria and, like the master it was to the country, nurture and mentor it to the path of progress.
It is in this light that one would welcome the recent debate in the British parliament aimed at stamping out corruption in the country. However, whatever steps they might decide to take, if they do not exert adequate pressure on the present administration to agree to a quick restructuring of the country politically, their efforts are likely to come to naught. The quickest way for restructuring would be the implementation of the national conference report of the Goodluck Jonathan era. Hardly would a federal structure be seen to be a true federalism except it is negotiated. Nigeria’s federalism has been based on considerations of oil and who controls it and the constitution written by the military and handed over to the people have been skewed towards this purpose. Natural justice demands that in a federal structure, federating units manage their resources and pay an agreed percentage to the centre.
A true federalism is a symbiotic relationship of federating units and is devoid of elements of parasitism as we have it in the present Nigeria. If we are to mentally take off oil from beneath Nigeria’s soil, we would discover that there will no longer be a one Nigeria. In a perfect federalism, states are never created. They naturally exist as blocs consisting of people of common affinity. Britain needs to work on sworn antagonists of restructuring who appear to be hooked to the sweet taste of crude oil located in the south south, envious that under a true federal arrangement, this region would have full control of the oil wealth to the exclusion of other regions.
Certainly, the answer to our fruitless search for a panacea to corruption lies in this much desired restructuring. The psyche of Nigerian politicians and those in public service is that Nigeria, as presently structured, is a jungle of sorts where only the fittest survives. And so, everyone is focused on grabbing whatever available and running away with it.
The glaring corruption cases of the past that were left uninvestigated, as perpetrators walk the streets free, are sources of encouragement to corruption. Again, the inexplicable inequity in the claim by Jigawa juggernauts that “Bayelsa oil is Jigawa oil” while in practical terms, Jigawa gold is not Bayelsa gold can be seen as another source of worry in our upside-down federation. Because Britain and its allies in the West conspired to put Nigeria in its state of confusion, Nigeria needs their intervention to find its feet flat on the ground as a nation. It is a moral imperative on Britain.
“Successive governments have climbed up to the nation’s seat of power using their promise to bring corruption to an end in the country. But the experience is that corruption had gone worse by the day, more so in the present administration which earlier held great promise in that direction because of the credentials of the man at the helm of affairs, President Muhammadu Buhari. The unending woes of the country are an indication that Britain packed out of Nigeria without tidying things up”