If one didn’t know better, you would applaud the author and collaborators of the piece ‘Awo Right Till Date: Nigeria is “A Mere Geographical Expression”’ published as an advertorial in the Nigerian Tribune of Tuesday, August 8.
However, careful analysis reveals that the mischievous effort is a misreading of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
This attempt at misinformation was a convoluted mission. It was all fury and sheer noise, perceived rightly by the careful reader as a failed bid to pitch a grandson-in-law, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, by the grace of God Acting President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with his grandfather-in-law!
Let us ignore the fact that the collaborators of this missive chose the very medium of the Nigerian Tribune, tried and tested oldest surviving private media organisation in the nation, to launch this below-the-belt onslaught. The more important issue now is to expose the shenanigans of the sponsors.
The Acting President’s sin for which such intemperate language and tasteless innuendos were deployed was his alleged dismissal of the clamour for restructuring in some of his recent public speeches.
However, a careful perusal of the tirade reveals the ignorance of the writers, and perhaps mischief.
The recent public speech referred to was Professor Osinbajo’s comments at the Institute for Security Studies seminar themed: ‘Unity in Diversity’ held in Abuja on August 2, 2017.
Nowhere in the speech did the Acting President disparage the great Awo or call advocates of restructuring as those seeking appointments as was distasteful alleged.
Why those behind this tirade would subscribe to hearsay or fake news and rush to the press to trumpet their ignorance beats the imagination. Chief Awolowo’s place in the social and political history of Nigeria is secure, and does not need a whitewash or defence from those who are prone to hasty judgment and condemnation, without critically exerting their intellect. Especially knowing the sage would always insist on such vigorous exertions in matters of public commentary. But these folks cannot even come close to Papa’s level of discipline or rigours of intellect.
For the record, Osinbajo never disparaged the revered Awo and nowhere did the Acting President mention the great avatar’s name at the forum. The Acting President stated, “I want to look at what I describe as false narratives; the first false narrative is that we often say countries formed the way ours was formed are doomed to fail. In other words, countries formed without a deliberate agreement of people to come together are bound to fail. This is what some people have said, that Nigeria is a mere geographical expression and for that reason it is not likely to succeed as a united whole.
“But those who say so do not know that even the expression, mere geographical expression used in relation to a country was not first used in relation to Nigeria. As a matter of fact, it was the German statesman Klemens von Metternich who used this same expression for Italy.
“He simply summed up Italy as a mere geographical expression exactly a century before Nigeria was born. Italy is still a mere geographical expression but still a nation. So we must not be misled by those who in some pseudo-intellectual way suggest to us that the mere fact that we did not deliberately one day hold a conference to come together means that we should not or cannot stay together.
“Indeed we can. Most countries of the world came together by some accident of history, one way or the other, many were put together, many were forced together, but the wise have stayed together, the wise have remained united.”
It is certainly a trait of pseudo-scholars cum political analysts gone awry, to devote tedious paragraphs to the origins of an expression while ignoring the substantial and contextual issues.
Indeed, the great Awo stated that “Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression” in his 1947 publication – Path To Nigeria’s Freedom. Unlike his would-be unsolicited defenders of latter years, Awolowo over time advocated Nigeria’s unity and even aspired to lead a united country, believing in the preference for one Nigeria.
It might be helpful to Odumakin and his ilk to exercise a close reading of the revered Awo’s 1968 publication –‘The Peoples’ Republic’, where he stated unequivocally that “It is incontestable that the British not only made Nigeria, but also handed it to us whole on their surrender of power. But the Nigeria, which they handed over to us, had in it the forces of its own disintegration. It is up to contemporary Nigerian leaders to neutralise these forces, preserve the Nigerian inheritance, and make all our people free, forward-looking and prosperous.”
While the prescient Chief Awolowo, indeed, also called for restructuring – which has been an issue right from Nigeria’s emergence as a country – he recognised that it is not the cure-all for Nigeria’s malaises.
In a 1967 speech during his installation as the first Chancellor of the University of Ife (later renamed after him), shortly before the commencement of the Civil War, the sage said: “It is my candid and honest opinion that what we need very badly, in the present circumstances, is a palliative that will tide us over the present critical stage. Thereafter, a curative must be sought and applied. I must warn, however, that an inflexible insistence on a curative, when there is so much sharp disagreement among all the doctors in attendance, may prove fatal to the patient.”
Curiously, the advertorial failed to recognise that restructuring is only a component of the solutions to the challenges facing Nigeria and not the magical cure to all the country’s maladies.
The Acting President, (unlike falsely impressed in the piece that so carelessly attacked him), is in fact a solid advocate of restructuring in words and in deed. He has only insisted that restructuring doesn’t and should not mean dismemberment of Nigeria or a return to ethnic-based governance types.
It is evident that the issue of restructuring is not restricted to mouthing the term at fora and in writing; it entails strategic thinking, planning and nuanced negotiations that are beyond casual comprehension of half-baked public commentators.
There are various aspects to restructuring; state police, fiscal federalism, relevant constitutional amendments and devolution of power and going from Osinbajo’s antecedents, it is clear that the Acting President favours many such reforms.
His actions as the Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in the recent past about fiscal federalism will remain indelible in history. He went to court over and again to assert state rights and now in government, it is public knowledge that both President Muhammadu Buhari and himself have been ensuring state rights.
As a matter of public record, Professor Osinbajo said recently, “I have always been a strong believer in fiscal federalism, that is to say, that the states must have more resources and we went to the Supreme Court. I actually went to the Supreme Court as Attorney-General of Lagos State, no less than 10 times on issues of fiscal federalism.”
He continued during a TV programme he called into from his office as Vice President last year, “as a matter of fact, one of the things we said at that point was that we are trying to structure Nigeria’s federalism by court action. We went to court several times.
“For example, on the issue of whether states have the right to certain degrees of autonomy, we fully supported that and said the states have right of autonomy with (regards) even to their resources. VAT for example: we believe VAT must be a states matter, sales tax ought to be a state matter. I strongly believe in that and we’ve always fought for those issues. I also strongly believe that we must have state police.”
What the Acting President is firmly opposed to is dividing Nigeria and returning to ethnic-based governance. According to him,”dividing Nigeria, going back to regions and all of those kinds of things, I do not believe that at all. I don’t think that we need to go back to regions. So, if there are people who believe that we must structure ourselves again along ethnic lines, I don’t accept that that is the right way to go. I am sure that for many of us, there are certain aspects of this restructuring that you may agree with or that you may not agree with. But as a general position, Nigeria always needs to be re-engineered, we have to keep restructuring, re-engineering.”
Let us conclude here with what Professor Osinbajo had to say in that TV programme as what he believes ought to be the vision to advocate with the Nigerian people and what are the more urgent issues confronting our nation.
According to him: “I very strongly believe that the time will come when we will no longer be emphasising geopolitical zones and that is the kind of Nigeria I will like to see. I like to see a Nigeria where we are all able to work together, where we are able to de-emphasise ethnicity, de-emphasize geopolitical zone. That is the kind of Nigeria that I’ll like to see. I believe that sometimes, you know, we preoccupy ourselves with some of these issues you know, but let’s take a close look at today when we’ve had problems in this country.
“We have serious economic problems. Is it on account of geopolitical arrangement that we have serious economic problems? Corruption for example, which is crippling Nigeria, is corruption a geopolitical problem?
“Because what I have seen, just looking at the case files, what I have seen is that when there is corruption in Nigeria, any case of corruption, you will find federal character, every geopolitical zone is represented.
“If somebody steals today, if you find somebody stealing $200 million or $2 billion as we see, you will find that everybody is represented. You will find Yoruba man, Hausa man, the man from South-South, you find the Igbo man. There is equal representation. I think we must also interrogate our elites, Nigerian elites.”
In the Acting President’s wisdom, the fundamental issue which every member of the public should be supportive of is how to collectively fight against corrupt activities and attendant revenue leakages which is a cog in the wheel of our national development. If we can deal with corruption, work together as one to develop our country’s economy, Nigeria will live up to its potential and we will surmount narratives that could further expose fault lines which no nation on earth is free of.
Peters, a final year student of English Education, writes from the University of Ibadan.