Passing through rough paths can be less torturing, when it is done with friends. As you journey towards the same direction, you plough fruits, tell stories, and inspire one another. If one person gets injured along the way, the others would wait and help him. This is because each person contributes in their journey to their common destination. Without common goals, there may never be peace and unity in the relationship between friends, couples, businessmen, ethnic-communities, tribes, countries and etcetera.
Unity between various people is sustained by the mutual desire to overcome common challenges or achieve common/honourable goals. The more honourable the common goals for unity, the stronger, longer and more productive the unity will be. When two people unite to form a company to provide healthier and cheaper food, drugs, housing or education, their unity has high stability tendencies. Yet, when they only unite to cheat or fight other people, when they do not have a common target to fight or cheat, they cheat or fight each other, thereby jeopardizing their union.
In his broadcast after 105days medical leave in London, President Buhari said that the unity of Nigeria is settled and non-negotiable.[1] He insisted that agitators for disintegration of the ‘UNITED’ Nigeria are political mischief-makers that must be tackled with military force.[2] This re-echoes the stagnant One-Nigeria dogma[3][4] for which many have been killed without a tangible national progress in its defence. After 103years of being held together and 57years of independence, there is almost nothing tangible to show as the product of the unity.[5] This inquires to the purpose for ‘unity’ between the different ethnic communities that were lumped together to become Nigeria.
Nigeria is a country of different ethnic communities who were lumped together by colonialists.[6] The British colonialists, who came for raw materials and foreign territories, seized the ethnic communities’ resources,[7] and formed the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF), that later became the Nigerian Army at independence.[8] The RWAFF was meant to militarily guard the resources for the colonialists, and to enforce cooperation by the natives. Before leaving at independence, the colonialists handed over this exploitative arrangement to their former assistants to continue the extraction and supply of the various communities’ resources. So, the new government sells the ethnic communities’ resources to foreign companies in exchange for finished goods. Then, they created states and local governments to share some of the resource funds, while the ethnic communities are distracted from owning and using their mineral resources for industrial as they struggle to get shares of the resource-revenue. So, the main purpose of Nigeria’s unity is sharing resource-revenue from British colonial exploitation.
A better common goal for peace and unity in Nigeria could be the desire to use their local resources for their wellbeing. Nigeria’s ethnic communities could agree to privately own and use their various resources to develop their lives and society. They could lead the continent out of unproductivity and backwardness, since they all have both human and mineral resources. Nigeria is the most positioned nation to reverse the biblical confusion of human collaboration in the tower of Babel. Globally, Nigerians are doing exceptionally well, even though their heroic acts are underreported while every crime is over-exaggerated. If Nigerians truly unite for productivity and social justice, many developed countries will experience mass-exodus of their keyworkers.
“A successful Nigeria could transform the continent in the twenty-first century… In business, law, science, art, literature, music, sport, Nigeria produces phenomenally talented individuals as if its superheated society throws up brighter, hotter human beings than anywhere else.”[9]
Unfortunately, Nigeria has never been united nor has it ever been in peace since they ‘lack a common conception of nationhood.”[10] “Nigerians have never agreed – or been given the chance to agree – what Nigeria is.”[11]. Silent endurance, hidden pains and muffled grudges in the face of persecution does not translate to peace. The different ethnic communities in Nigeria have been enduring the denial of their rights to their industrial resources. They have been dehumanized below a degree condemned in the noble Quran which insists that “persecution is worse than slaughter.”[12]
Human beings are active and creative beings who derive fulfilment from their ability to manifest the goodness in them. Peace is the harmonious coordination of human productivity and initiatives, and not the suppression of divergent initiatives. Unity becomes the free choice to link with other people for better productivity. Hence, the presence of ‘non-negotiable’ and ‘unity’ in one sentence is a clearly contradictus-in-terminus.
- There cannot be any peace without unity of purpose.
- There cannot be unity of purpose without social justice.
- There cannot be social justice without establishment of the truth about people’s natural rights and obligations in a society.
- There cannot be establishment of the truth about people’s natural rights without sincere engagement of the people and their histories.
The sincere engagement of the people and their heritage can only be obtained by dialogue and never by (military) force.
[1] Muhammadu Buhari, http://saharareporters.com/2017/08/21/transcript-president-buharis-speech-nigeria%E2%80%99s-unity-settled
[2] Cf. Ibid
[3] Attahiru Jega, Indivisibility of Nigeria, The Second Annual Lecture of National Broadcasting Commission On August 24, 2016,
[4] Yakubu Gowon, http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/10/nigerias-unity-negotiable-says-gowon-80th-birthday/
[5] Atiku Abubakar, https://kadunanewsonline.com/reasons-nigeria-is-not-progressing-atiku/April/29/2017
[6] Oladele Fadeiye, European conquest and African resistance, Q24, (Lagos: Murfat Publications, 2011). P89
[7] Cf. Ibid
[8] Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Armed_Forces
[9] Richard Dowden, op. Cit.p 441
[10] Richard Dowden, op. Cit. p3
[11] cf. Richard Dowden, Africa altered states, ordinary miracles. New York: Public Affairs, 2010. p.445
[12] Al Baqarah, 191