Can Nigeria become a nation?

There is obviously a country called Nigeria on the face of the earth; and everybody knows it, whether for good or for bad or evil. That is the reality and a fact on the ground – a legal entity in the Benue and River Niger areas of Africa. But as everybody would know very well, it is not everything called a country that is also a nation. For a country, all you need is a geographical land area that is clearly marked and which subsequently has become legally established as a statutory entity that can be sued or sue anybody else. A nation is quite a different thing; and that Nigeria is far from any such thing is not in controversy among anybody with any modicum of intelligence or knowledge!

It takes an altogether different set of issues for such geographical legal entities, as countries, to develop themselves as a unified people, with commonly shared values, aspirations, mutual respect and the shared pursuit of those; that naturally makes what is usually called a nation. Thus, it is possible for a given geographical area to be a country but not a nation. Of all the countries that I have come to know in the world therefore, Nigeria would seem to me to be the one such country that actually exists but is neither truly a nation nor would those who live in it desire to become such a nation. Nigeria, no doubt, is a country for everybody and every group to organize and exploit to their hearts contents; colonial masters, other foreign and local interests, individually and corporately; the more the merrier!

The facts of this is everywhere for anybody with any eyes or intelligence to see. Thus, as endowed as Nigeria is, it was created by the colonial masters to be as big and entrapping of so many riches as to be deliberately not capable of becoming a true nation but more easily exploitable by just about anybody who may howsoever desires to exploit these her stupendous riches! Thus, even after the colonialists had left, they ensured that it was left as such, to be perpetually available for their (neocolonialist) continuous exploitation – materially, socio-politically, economically and spiritually.

Those whom the colonial masters left to govern us, with the exception of an insignificantly few number of them, have been people hell-bent on these myopic views and other-exploitative orientations that they must continue to be part of the problem, rather than the solution. Thus, as long as these people are those who think in the modes such as those of “I am first and foremost a Muslim, then a Northerner,before I can be anything else, including Nigerian” or “I am first and foremost a Christian, then a Westerner, Easterner, Southerner, Middle-Belt” or any other such ethno-tribal or religious fanatical ways, for that long will Nigeria continue to remain a country but not a nation. Any so-called Nigerian leader who does not realize that ethno-tribal and fanatical religious allegiances are the bane of our lack of nationhood and work on them should be reminded by as many of us as possible that s/he is part of our problem.

If such a person does not learn to criticize the unhealthy aspects of his/her very own ethno-tribal and/or religious constituency as often as need be as well as acknowledge and promote the values, the goods and qualities of the other religious or ethno-tribal groups in Nigeria in the national interest, they should be reminded by as many of us as possible that there will be a day of reckoning, either here or in the hereafter, personally and of the whole human race, of these under-doings! Now, TODAY, is the time to prevent the “had I known” that will be of no use at these end time events.

The sooner we start doing these things, the better it will be for all of us. The achievement of nationhood by such means that are really the only way to do so, as the win-win way – is the task of the moment. Blessed are they who will be found not wanting in their doings when the time comes. May these become our lots in this new year, 2017. Amen.

• Asuzu is Professor of Public Health & Community Medicine at the University of Ibadan