According to Joanne Rowling” We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.” Gwendolyn Brooks went further pointing out that, ” We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” There is a great unseen bond that binds the people of Nigeria together that is beyond human awareness and understanding. We are different superficially by our languages, cultures and religions but we are same fundamentally.
Then, Nigeria were communities of people with different ideologies, religions, cultural practices and languages. They were also known to have an organized system of government which controls their social, spiritual and economic affairs. From the 12th century till the colonial era, Nigeria consisted of kingdoms, empires and states. The prominent among them are: the Ife kingdom, the Oyo empire, the Kanem-Borno empire, the Igbo kingdom and the Benin Kingdom. These groups were self-reliant and pilot the affairs of ther people without the interference of another.
In the 15th century, the Europeans ventured into Africa for trade and missionary purposes. Their relationship continued up until the 19th century when there was a rise in the industrial revolution and the British started to push into the hinterlands but they faced great resistance from the denizens. Great Britain was not the only European country that had eyes on Africa’s natural and human resources. Therefore there was a struggle for control of Africa among the European countries. This led to the 1884-1885 Berlin conference, an initiative of Portugal, Otto Von Bismarck the chancellor of Germany, and involves thirteen(13) nations in Europe with the inclusion of the United States of America to discuss how they can colonize Africa. No African state was involved in this conference.
After the Berlin conference, the British gained control of Nigeria. Lagos became the first British colony in 1861, afterwards other parts of today Nigeria was gained through, treatise or conquest until all that is Nigeria was under British colonization. During the first of British colonial rule, Lord Fredrick Lugard was appointed to conquer the northern part of Nigeria which comprises people from Sokoto and Kano. They put up resistance against the colonialist but were conquered. The Southern colony was conquered from 1850-1897 while the Northern protectorates were conquereded from 1900-1914.
Following the subduing of the colonies under British rule, on 1st January 1941, Lord Fredrick Lugard amalgamated the Southern colonies and the Northern protectorate to have complete political and economic control of the country. Lord Lugard put in place the indirect rule. That is governing Nigeria through their Local Authority. This system of government worked best in the Northern part of Nigeria but proved impossible in the southern part, as the people did not fully acknowledge the power of the ‘chiefs’. He successfully amalgamated the land areas but not the people, as they have different histories, cultures, beliefs and systems of governing. This gave rise to tribalism in Nigeria.
On October 1st 1960, Nigeria gained independence from its colonial master and became an independent state. Although Nigeria won her independence, its political system after independence began to make pronounced ethnic and regional disparities; this led to internal conflict such as; The Biafran civil war, Niger Delta militant rebellion, Boko Haram insurgency, and terrorism in its territory. The most calamitous of them all is the Biafran civil war of 1967-1970, which led to the death of about a million Nigerians. After the killing of the Igbo people in the North, the Igbo strive to secede from Nigeria and become a sovereign state. But they lost the war to Nigeria military might and they were retained as part of the country.
Over the years and to date, the people of Nigeria had struggled through their differences and had tried to unite. They have the manpower, they have the resources but the minds of the people are still blindfolded and are unable to see the beauty in each other’s differences. The British colonialist may have amalgamated these different people to satisfy their own selfish desires, but if we make our minds one, we can be more than the ‘Gaint of Africa.
