Nigeria is a beautiful edifice built with bricks of contradictions. Somewhere between the idea and the reality hovers a huge geographical abstraction that beguiles the imagination. Situated at the Eastern end of the Gulf of Guinea, between the 4th and the 14th Parallels, Nigeria occupies a total area of 923,768 square kilometres, slightly more than the combined areas of France and Germany. From Lagos in the South-west to Maiduguri in the North-east is the distance between London and Warsaw. Its population estimated at about 200 million, exceeds the combined population of all other countries in the West African sub-region of the Sahara.
Endowed with enormous wealth, a dynamic population and an enviable talent for political compromise, Nigeria stood out in the 1960s as the potential leader of Africa, a continent in dire need of guidance. For, it was widely thought that Nigeria was immune from the wasteful diseases of tribalism, disunity and instability that remorselessly attacked so many other new African states. But when bursts of machine gunfire shattered the pre-dawn calm of Lagos its erstwhile Federal Capital in January 1966, it was now clear that Nigeria was no exception to Africa’s common post-independence experience.
During the following four years (1966-1970), the giant (and ‘hope’) of Africa measured her full length in the dust. Two bloody military coups, a series of appalling massacres and a protracted and savage civil war, which claimed more than two million lives threatened to plunge the entire country into a limitless chaos. It also deprived black Africa, already weakened and disillusioned, of a crucial element of strength and leadership in the growing confrontation with white Africa along the Zambezi. This shows that Nigeria has always been at war with itself. Yet, Nigeria is in some ways a concept as well as a country.
For the colonialists who concocted this vast space of about 250 ethnic nations with more than 400 languages in the interior coast of West Africa into one country, Nigeria was a state of mind of Flora Shaw, Frederick Lugard’s girlfriend, as well as a nation-state. There are a good many things about this Nigeria which most analysts do not understand. One hundred and four years after its creation and 59 years after flag independence, Nigeria still appears a sunny enigma wrapped in the shadow of a consuming paradox.
A nation steeped in history, a nation behind history; a culture rich in arts and music, a culture poor in mass education and formal learning. A humane, ebullient and kind people, an inferior, indolent and debauched people. A society essentially catholic and spiritual, a social life unblushingly sensual and epicurean; a system of cool Machiavellian realism, a system of grandiose dreams, tainted visions and disastrous extremisms; a country of geniuses and greatness, a country of tragedy and catastrophe. These cliche-ridden contradictions serve to remind us that we have yet to unravel the ponderous mystery of Nigeria, which is ultimately her enduring essence. Historical interpretations on Nigeria inevitably gravitate toward great men theories. Even the most studiously counterpoised approaches to the country’s past must acknowledge the steady sequence of powerful individuals who have successfully dominated the political scene. The powerful imagery surrounding these figures has turned persistently to federal symbolism. A ferocious menagerie roams the political landscape.
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