Basis of a people’s constitution as the first leg of the tripod stand of freedom
After trashing the fake constitutional reform by Dr Emeka Anyaoku as a poor attempt to respond to the most vital element of systemic overhaul, Dr Oby Ezekwesili restated the age-old concern for Nigeria’s false nationhood. This concern for false national unity has been shared by prominent figures like Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo, Soyinka, Tinubu, Ben Nwabueze and more, even though some of them change tone when they start getting the privilege of the ruling class.
Elements of consented nationhood
The main element that unites a nation is not gun or rules, but a convincing or clearly accepted social belief or ideology. This could be a religious, ethnic or objective ideology. While social ideologies are accepted as the standard, story and direction of a people’s future, the institutions of public regulation (government, religion, academia and mass media) are created to make laws and programs to protect the ideology. For without a common ideology to unite and guide them on their national journey, various groups in a nation will fight and hinder one another, instead of supporting one another to their common destiny. As the various communities in Nigeria have no common religion or ethnicity, it is clear that they can only be united by an objective ideology, just like the objective ideology of individual liberty in America.
America: Model of consented nationhood
Before the American independence from the British colonial monarchy, there were no objective ideologies to unite or justify the formation of a nation or kingdom. Instead, national formations were based one group’s claim to ethnic or religious supremacy over other groups. So, national alliances among dissimilar ethnic or religious groups came from conquest and assimilation of smaller groups by the bigger ones. And after steady interactions and military campaigns over common enemies, the various groups gradually evolve into single nations with unified cultural identities and unions.
However, when the ethnically diverse communities in the 13 British colonies in America got tired of colonial bondage under the British, they needed an ideology beyond religion and ethnicity to justify and unite them. So, they formed the ideology of individual liberty in “the unanimous Declaration of the United States of America” as the belief that God gave all men the undeniable rights to life, equality, liberty and pursuit of happiness. The general acceptance of this belief or ideology guided America to become the model of modern democracy and greatest nation on earth. And if they had not formed this objective ideology to unite and guide them, they would have remained a group of poor and internally fighting colonies of the British.
Misfortune of unconsented nationhood in Nigeria and Africa
Contrary to America’s union, the national unions between the dissimilar groups in most poor nations, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, were decreed from an ideology of colonial conquest at the 1885 Berlin conference, where European colonialists created and shared African countries to themselves as colonies by drawing lines on African map. This is the supremacist ideology, which colonialists painted as a civilizing project and built into the laws and institutions that they passed on to their local assistants in the military, civil service and marketing before leaving at independence, so that colonial assistants can continue their resource-extraction project. This colonial ideology is the belief that “Africans are naturally inferior and will always rely on foreign intervention to survive. And that the most Europeanized Africans must man the four institutions of public control (government, religion, academia and mass media) to sustain the foreign intervention.”
So, the national union in Nigeria is held by colonial decree and guns, and so lacks the core of democratic nationhood, which is the mutual trust and acceptance shown in their chosen ideology. Without an accepted ideology to justify and unite their communities, they may never have an inspiring narrative to manifest their potentials. Instead, they will hinder each other in suspicions and intertribal fights.
The need to dissolve Nigeria’s imposed nationhood
It could be argued that Nigeria’s imposed nationhood must be dissolved for various reasons:
- The foundational laws in Nigeria (source, method and purpose of Nigeria) are only decrees of colonial rule, which are sustained through the neo-colonial actors in the executive, legislative and judiciary
- Nigerians have been made to betray, fight and kill each other and so built an endless mutual suspicion that makes it impossible for them to truly unite
- They do not have a common culture, ethnicity, religion or belief system
- Various ethnic groups in Nigeria are big or small parasites to the Niger-Delta oil communities, who are exploited to get the foreign exchange upon which Nigerians depend
- Some groups hope to do better on their own if they are left alone
For this reasons, it could be said that it is vital to dissolve the imposed nationhood for all to go their way.
Possibilities of a consented nationhood
As the communities in Nigeria have no common religion or ethnicity, it is clear that they can only be united by an objective ideology, just like America’s individual liberty. Humans attain true happiness by using their skills and resources to provide products and services to solve problems and satisfy needs for good of their communities, nations and the world. Yet, when the rules in a society prevents people from owning or using their resources to provide the products and services, it becomes vital to change the rules, except the people are not seen as truly humans. But Africans are as human as all other races. And since the main effect of the colonial imposition of nationhood on various African communities is to deprive their private ownership of their lands and resources for colonial exploitation, Africans can adopt an objective ideology that recognizes the equal humanity in all races to counter the colonial ideology that has held them down since 1885.
The most suitable ideology to enable Africans to exit the effects of colonial rule is the ideology of intercultural liberty, which is the belief that
“there is something great in every community and culture, and so, they all deserve the liberty to own, modify and use their cultural, human and natural resources to prosper and to manifest their greatness to their community, nation, continent and the world. And that the four institutions of public regulation, which are government, religion, academia and mass media are only made to support these communities and their members to manifest their greatness.”
Benefits of the ideology of intercultural liberty for the various communities held together as nations in Nigeria and other African countries include the rights and confidence:
- To look inwards to develop and offer to the world what they can from their cultural, human and natural resources
- To promote and provide functional education for their people as human resources
- To partner with one another in industrial efforts from their natural resources
- To trade their products and services and so, prosper together
- To invest at home and defend their nation from neo-colonial shadow
Restart National Conference for consented nationhood in Nigeria
To activate this ideology of intercultural liberty without bloodshed, the communities in Nigeria must discuss and agree on the ideals of intercultural liberty (the tripod stand of freedom) in a Restart National Conference. This will guide them to reform their constitution for a new source, method and purpose for Nigerian nationhood, instead of the colonial purpose for Nigeria. For without changing the ideology and purpose of its national union in a Restart National Conference, Nigeria remains a colonial project of exploitation, instead of an African or Nigerian project.
Hence, it will be great if Dr Oby Ezekwesili can support in the process of the Restart National Conference for Nigerian and African liberation.
