Some believe that Nigeria experienced its greatest progress between 1960 and 1966 when it practiced regionalism through the parliamentary system of government. They argue that regionalism then engendered competition among the three regions – Western, Eastern and Northern regions. They also argue that with the nation’s reliance on mere cash crops, it was able to develop better and more evenly with the resources that came from the regions than now that oil is the mainstay of the nation’s resources. However, all that changed with the coup and counter-coup of 1966, which later led to the balkanization of the regions into states and eventually to the civil war of 1967 to 1970. Since then, Nigeria has abandoned the idea of regionalism and dwelled more in the multiplicity of states that have now reached 36. The country has also settled for federalism and the presidential system of government, all of which have concentrated a larger chunk of political powers at the centre. With that came an argument that the country is not evenly developed, as the level of development solely depends on the whim of the man at the centre. That, by extension, accounts for the widespread agitations for better development and deafening cries of marginalization from the various sections of the country. Thus, the lecturer, the Governor of Enugu State, had the mandate to argue on the viability of the current system and a possible return to the seemingly viable regionalism.

The lecture, which was titled, “Regionalism and the challenges of national integration,” was organized as part of the one-year anniversary of the Westerner Newspaper. The hall was filled with dignitaries drawn from the political class and the academia. There were also students, journalists and other members of the public. Some of the dignitaries that attended the event included the Governor of Ogun State, Otumba Gbenga Daniel; the Minister of Agriculture, Otunba Bamidele Dada; Chief Dejo Raimi and Prof. Ayo Farounbi.

The lot, therefore, fell on the governor to convince them on the viability or otherwise of the regional idea. When he berthed after the one and a half hours lecture, he concluded that “I am not in any way stating that our emerging nation state should halt its integrative development. Nor am I canvassing the immediate imposition of such a high voltage competition that goes with globalization. What is clear to me, as I maintained in one of my previous lectures, is that in more ways than imagined, the traditional loyalty of a people, especially such anchored on shifty territorial grounds, would soon become as flimsy as such preachment with ignored the development of man for action to have basic things of life readily on his table.

“But then, it is our hope that our great nation state, made of various groupings, but ready to be fully wieldy into the most striking economic force, via the running of democracy of our time, would be on a steady rise.”

By that, the governor concluded that the race for the future is that of a stronger entity that is moving towards the globally held view of integration. Nigeria, as a country in the world, cannot tilt to the opposite direction when the whole world is looking towards integration. Indeed, the organizers of the event had premised the lecture on the need to deplore the various differences in the country with a view to working for the greater interest of the majority.

The Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, Mr. Akinyemi Onigbinde, captured it clearly, when he recounted the now fabled arguments of the late Zik and Alhaji Ahmadu Bello while the struggle for nation building raged at the infancy of the Nigerian nation. While Bello argued that it would be better for Nigerians not to forget their differences as they would lead to better understanding, Zik had argued that it was better to forget the differences and view Nigeria as one entity. But Onigbinde said, “It is my belief that remembering our differences and projecting our respective world views and associated values need not threaten our common membership of a united country. Rather, different perspectives from different primordial instincts that are brought to bear on our relationship can enrich the polity and lead to mutual respect among fellow Nigerians.

“Our founding fathers were right after all and more realistic in their appreciation of our natural instincts when they gave us our first national anthem to wit, ‘though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand.”

His view was strengthened by that of Governor of Oyo State, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, who said that Nigerians must understand the basic differences existing among them to be able to live together, he, however, cautioned that the differences should not be overblown so as not to cause unnecessary rift in the society. Alao-Akkala also warned the media against sensationalism as the country prepares for the 2007 general election.

The Chairman of the day, Prof. J.F. Ade-Ajayi, cautioned against the misinterpretation of the regionalism concept, as was in the era of the National Council for Nigerian Citizens and the Action Group, when it was viewed as tribalism. He stated that there was the need to articulate the view in such a way as to strengthen the polity for development.

But Nnamani argued that past efforts to create a nationalist feeling among Nigerians had at best been short-lived. Citing different instances, he pointed out that it was in that light that one Umoru Altine from Sokoto was elected the first mayor of Enugu while another Dr. Balogun was elected the Mayor of Port Harcourt. This, he stated, was due to the efforts of Zik, who never operated an ethnocentric principle. He said that it was in the same spirit of espousing nationalist tendencies that the late Adeniran Ogunsanya made efforts to re-integrate the Igbo in the post-Nigeria-Biafra civil war Lagos.

“ But the success resulted in tragically undermining the birth of a truly national political contiguity. It brought about achieving the competitive regional governments that we had just before the disintegration of our entire national system, between 1964 and 1966. in fact, riding on the crest of distinctive inclusion in an emerging national order, the regions embarked on programmes which propelled Nigeria into the fast developing club.”

As reported, the cocoa plantations of the West, the groundnut pyramids of the North, the palm oil and kernel in the East emerged as a stimulus for erstwhile docile economies and the stage which was set had promised good results in bountiful political harvest, if only the emerging post-colonial elite had the right idea of how a competitive federal state should be run. It was, of course, on account of the failure to build on the competitive gains of this kind of regional structure that deliberate actions in negation emerged on the hints of the earlier values of divisive ethnicism.”

He blamed the chicanery of the expatriates whose desperation at getting jobs and other perks from the regions divided the ranks. This, he said, was seen in the conflict between creating a wholly Nigerian situation in the country, after the independence and the need to retain the expatriates in positions that could not be easily filled by Nigerians at that time.

He said, “There was this practice in which regions maintained recruitment outposts in London and these unfortunately offered the Europeans the field to fully manipulate Nigerians. A European seeking employment in the Northern Regional Service but got repudiated could easily get the same employment in the Western Region London Recruitment office. On arrival in Nigeria, this European had his mind made up against the North. It could be in a case with the East or West, or even against the Federal Civil Service. So, there was a beehive of European manipulative activities, such that they were so manipulative of the era of the first military government and added to the precipitation of the civil war.”

He pointed out that what was expected of the elite in Nigeria at that time was to fill in the missing link in the process. But many of them were carried away by opportunism and hypocrisy. For this, he said, whatever would have been the gains of regionalism was quickly eroded. According to him, rather than rely on the mistakes to revive the national consciousness on the need for collective building, which was frittered away by the political class through reading of ethnic meaning to all political moves, the subsequent military regimes only paid lip service to the issue of federalism.

For Nnamani, therefore, the journey to nationhood is more with the eyes on nation building through the harnessing of the regional goals. But how far his preaching will go remains a matter of conjecture in a country where ethnicity, sectionalism and regional self-consciousness have been elevated to a national art.

Culled from Daily Punch, Sept., 2006.