05/04/2023
NEO-COLONIALISM AND THE QUEST FOR POWER IN NIGERIA
Ideally a country called Nigeria should be among the developed nation of the world in all ramifications putting her per capital income, GDP, IGR and all other economy measures in consideration. It is a known fact that the country is blessed with abundant resources ranging from human capital, fertility of the land for huge agricultural activities for both subsistent and commercial measures, enabling environment for grazing to mineral resources and lots more.
Our people are physically energetic, highly skilled, knowledgeably competent and intelligent. We have series of advantages to develop at our own space, the opportunities are very real that if utilized effectively, our state of economy should be comparable to most countries in Europe(south America, Asia, North America and beyond).
The questions now however are what is then wrong with Nigeria that close to 63 years we are still struggling to compete with countries in Africa in terms of development in all facets? Aren’t we supposed to be the head and the tail of the whole Africa? Aren’t we the “giant of Africa”? Aren’t we supposed to be high on top in Africa in all ramifications?
From the casual interview conducted years back, lots of people from other parts of the world actually think that Nigeria is the entire Africa and when you mention Africa the first thing that will come to their minds is Nigeria.
Now, where do we get it wrong that our children prefer seeking for quality education abroad; our leaders choose to run abroad for medical care and plenty other basic amenities?
Before the coming of the colonial “masters” Nigeria had already had a well formed administrative structure according to Walter Roodney in his famous and widely read book, “How Europe underdeveloped Africa”. He argued that, Africans had already developed their ways of dealings and that the administrative structures that well worked for them were in place and that was what made it very easy for them to pe*****te to exploit and milk dry Africa before granting them partial independence.
These sets of people came into Africa with the orientation extracted from Edward Barney’s statement I guess, the statement states that; people are naturally foolish and stupid that they have to be taught how to talk, walk, eat, dress and even think. They actually came to teach us all these at our own very detriment. It was a well calculated effort to achieve their selfish aims.
This however formed the basis for their principles and paved ways to carry out their intent of exploitation. Like i said earlier, it was a well calculated effort because, during the industrial revolution of 1917 that gave birth to huge developmental ideals and philosophies, the quests for development arise in the major countries of Europe such as Russia, England, France, and Germany and others. And considering the readily available resources at their disposal, they can’t achieve their goals and that best explain the reason why their faces and the likes were seen in Africa. As the systematically and gradually troop in; in different shapes and colors pretending to be tourists, missionaries and business people, their plans were gradually unleashed in due time as each one of them struggling to be the world power.
When they (British) came to Nigeria, like I said before, they met already built structure and by their pretence and a strong manipulated plot were able to settle in the heart of Nigerians. Nigerians felt relaxed and they pe*****ted deeper and finally got a strong hold on Nigerians and their treasures. As days pass by, they now realized that all the activities of the British were all deceits, full of empty promises.
Though, many would think the “indirect rule” of the British administrative system in Nigeria was much better than the “direct rule” of their French counterpart in other parts of Africa. But my opinion suggests that it was only a “string and needle theoretical approach” that was devised to tactically, clinically and technically empty Nigeria treasuring.
By so doing, they came up with a drafted copy of sentences as a binding principle/
document and termed it “CONSTITUTION” thereby subjecting every Nigerians activity to the provisions in such documents. Nigerians are strictly forced to adhere to the provisions. These provisions were only formulated to suit their own ways and the benefits are wholly on their side.
Arguably, no Nigerians were part of the critical point of those formulations and at a relatively high extent, they ignore our established ethics, norms and values which we cherished so much and were the basis for our peaceful co-existence. These however became a different way of life for the citizen and as time pass by; some educated Nigerians see virtually everything wrong with such arrangement and as such tried to revolt against the system and begged for freedom and self dependence which took the colonial “masters” long time to consider.
Lots of history and development communication scholars can go and on to list the developmental impacts of the west and their comparative advantages can as well be evaluated. But on a critical observation one will be left with no choice than to think that most of the policies, programmes and projects of the west were all to their own advantage. Let’s have a breakdown of some of their activities and how they relates to their selfish interest; Education system for instance was obviously western and their curriculum was only designed to teach and portray the good sides of the western cultures and thereby destroying the good culture of Nigeria, regarding as obsolete, barbaric, vague and all that. To a larger extent we agreed with them and followed their footsteps there on forgetting our roots.
However, the negative impact of this is the translation of these western values by our own generation into indecency in dressing, immorality in words/
expressions, act and thoughts, indiscipline in behavioral exhibitions such as lies, corner cutting, deceits, corruption, stealing e.t.c as established by prof. Umar Pate in his contribution in Public Relations journal Vol7 No.1, 2011, and lost of creativity as a result of over dependent on western ideologies and thoughts.
Secondly, they unarguably built roads for free movements of goods and services within the country. But an objective assessment of such projects, one will find out that such projects only were aimed at facilitating their movement within the region. The roads were built to enable them freely transport the exploited solid and mineral resources to their country. Most of the roads that were built then have direct connections to either sea port, air ports or railway stations.
Thirdly, they made sure that there were airports through which all of their commercial activities were easily carried out. They were to come from England within a twinkle of an eye and go back as well. They filled the communication gap with such measures and that, arguably paved way for a smooth running of the administration between the representatives in Nigeria and England. One can not compare the shabby arrangement they made here which they called airport with what they had back home (England).
Worthy of being note and of altmost relevance was the building of the sea ports and rail ways. Obviously, these were built in order to be able to transport heavy and bulky goods from Nigeria to their country as observed by Walter Roodney.
Think million times and you will still come to a conclusion that the reason for locating the federal capital in Lagos before the giant stride by Gen. IBB, was to stay close to the sea to make transportation easier for tthem. The issue of constitutional formulations is the bulk of Nigeria problems as we fail to realize the dangers of its provisions and its havoc on Nigeria development. This constitution was drafted without the direct participation of the indigenous Nigerians and most of the provisions were only at the safety consideration of the Europeans and not the Nigeria citizen. The effects of which we feel till this moment without remedy and a re-think. The provisions were to protect the colonial “masters” from people’s rejection of their policies and programmes; it was also to stop the angry people from harming them in whichever way possible. The logic is that, while all these provisions are in play, they can steal in public or private places without the power of the people to question such acts.
They surround the British officials with lots and lots of unreasonable and un-seemingly salaries, allowances and benefits. This was done to systematically exploit the country from what they have left in the country after transporting amazing large volume of goods to their country for refining and come back with peanuts.
The logic is that all these allowances and salaries were unified and directly wired to their country’s account for further development. In other words, this money the individual officer collected was not for their individual use or consumption.
Now after series of movements, preasures and plead by the Nationalist, the colonial “masters" started thinking of granting them partial independence so that the act of exploitation will continue without much complains form the masses. Hence they systematically dropped the hint of letting Nigerians go even when the likes of Anthony Enahoro claimed it was alright for us to have the independence in 1957 which was countered by the Northerners as they were not politically ready then.
Year in year out, the deliberation and cries persisted until first October 1960 when the “partial” “test run” independence was granted. The colonial “masters” made sure that nothing changed in the structural foundation of the nation as laid by them. This will enable them to enjoy generation in generation out sort of exploitative relationship with Nigerians.
Our leaders then were simply overwhelmed by the sight of dependence granted and saw it as a favour from the white-men. They hardy foresee through the lines of events the intent of the colonial “masters” that the battle has not been won, rather a bigger challenge to fight through the darkest period to have a strong hold to formidably build a nation that they can proudly and truly call their own. They failed to realize that they need to destroy the existing structure and come up with peoples’ oriented structure that will serve the interest of the people. Hmmmm…..how time flies, before they could realize the needle/dagger of the western world has pe*****ted through the heart of Nigeria and the quest for power among the indigenous Nigerians was born.
The need to change your government and the need for you to change my government emerged. With this thought, there be no time to start thinking of how to change the existing and rotten structure and all that remain in our minds is how to get there and not what to do to help the situation. Hence we relied on the colonial postulated, selfishly designed and laid structure.
Nevertheless, but one can only think that all this are not for nothing but a carefully plotted evils of the west against the prosperity of Nigeria. They devised a means of changing our mentalities, orientations, and mindset and thinking lines. In so doing, they divided us along ethnic, religious and political line so that we will know no peace as we experience crisis, unrest and chaos in the country, it creates avenue for them to exploit us more in one way or the other. Being in these, we will not have any time to think of the structure and what is best for the nation.
Perfectly executed, we had almost forgotten about the national interest, most people don’t care about what happen to the nation rather they are much more concerned about themselves and immediate family members.
Nigerians are now experiencing a new phase of colonialism (NEO-colonialism). Here, the indigenous people are now the one exploiting Nigeria on the laid down structure of the colonial “masters”. They refused to agree that something is wrong with the system and there is need to be changed. This is because they are enjoying everything therein at the detriment of the masses.
If it is really the time to change something in this country, I un-reluctantly stand to say we should go back to the root. And what is the root? Cheaply answered, the “constitution”.
This can never take us anywhere, as the root cause of problems in this country is in the constitution. Greedy leaders use it to exploit Nigerians as it was seen during the direct colonial reigns. When you dare talk, you will be overshadow by “ it has a constitutional back-up”. Of what developmental ideological lane is a document set to give massive and unreasonable protection and wealth to some group of ill-mannered and greedy few individuals at the detriment of the generality of the masses? Whatever we do as a nation to correct and curtail the excesses as seen in Nigeria political affairs without re-directing our operative measures will eventually fall back on us.
If our leaders are sincere and are ready for us, we should have a re-look into our constitutional provisions and all other laws that compliment it and see if we can give it a people oriented and economy driven direction let’s see if we can have what we termed “ serve her or leave it” style.
By so doing, the National Assembly and all other public office holders will have their salaries unified reasonably and meaningfully. This is somewhat “Labour for the Nation” approach.
All public office holders should not in any way or by any means for whatever reason (s) send their children or any of their family members abroad in seek for quality education or medical attention. And that even in Nigeria, non shall be enroll in private schools or go to private hospitals for medical care, all must be in public enterprises and government owned.
Their foods, cloths, drinks, wears, cars and everything they use must be Nigerian made. Cut down the allowances of political office holder starting from the presidency through to the NASS down to the local government councilors by 75% and gear towards developmental projects for the benefit of all. It should be do it or leave affairs, if you can’t do it without exploitation, pave way for the millions who are ready to stake their energy for the growth of the nation.
I conclusively opined that without the above measures in Nigeria, we will only be deceiving each other and continue wasting our time talking about the same thing year in year out without any meaningful development to depend on. If the state is readily committed as they want us to believe, let them show courage and step up to destroy the political structure of the west laid for us. The time is now and there are no two way to this.
M.A ABUBAKAR
Concerned citizen
