CONCLUSION The Nigerian experience continues to be a rich mine of potential lessons for Africa. Some are lessons of what to avoid, some are about what to emulate, and still others are a declaration that what is relevant in one society is not necessarily pertinent for another. But there are occasions when the wider African experience holds the key towards helping Nigerians to realise some of their own ideals. The giant of petroleum needs to listen to the voices of the powerless.
Out of the interaction between Nigerians and other Africans we hope to understand Global Africa as a whole, including the Diaspora. After all, thanks to Lugard and Gowon, Nigeria is the largest concentration of Black people under one government in the history of the world. Never before in history have 120 million Blacks been under one government.
Yet Nigeria became independent in 1960 as part of a crowd of new states. Over fifteen African countries were admitted to the United Nations that year as new sovereign members. Nigeria was only one of them. And yet population of Nigeria outnumbered the populations of almost all the other new African states added together. That dialectic between being “part of the African crowd” and being unique has continued to be the essence of the Nigerian predicament ever since. It is the challenge of Nigeria’s exceptionalism, on one side, and Nigeria as a mirror of the African condition on the other. The legacy of Lugard’s amalgamation of 1914 has transformed the Black experience as a whole.
We have reached a stage when we can affirm that over two thirds of the news from Africa is good –– but it is not adequately being reported. Economies are beginning to take a turn for the better. One-party states have given way to legalized opposition parties; the number of military regimes declined significantly; corruption is being discussed more openly though it is not yet under control; political apartheid has been substantially dismantled though economic apartheid is still alive and well; the demographic transit on in population growth has begun to occur, and growth rates are declining.
While HIV- AID is a new killer in Africa, civil wars are fewer in number and are no longer being artificially prolonged by cynical Cold war rivalries. The United Nations has had two African Secretaries- General in succession, Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan, the commonwealth has its first African secretary-General Elezar Emeka Anyaoku,, African states are assuming regional security responsibilities in such situations as ending the civil war in Liberia or ending a military take ––over in sierra Leone and addressing the conflicts in Darfur, congo and Burundi, African women are raising their political aspiration to the lrvel of becoming presidential candidates on countries like Kenya and Liberia.
Meanwhile, the contradictions of Nigeria persist. Is it a microcosm of Africa or is it a microcosm of America? Is Nigeria unique or is it a mirror of the African condition? And what other paradoxes does Nigeria embody?
Thanks to Lord Lugard and general Gowon, Nigeria is the largest concentration of educated in one country, and yet learned Nigerians are more efficient and productive outside Nigeria than within. Why is the home environment less conducive to maximum creative performance by its citizens than exile has been?
Now the question has arisen as to whether Nigeria’s amalgamation will survive the politics of shariacracy in the North, the new nationalism of the Yoruba, and the tensions of politicised petroleum.
In the course of these ninety years of amalgamation, Nigeria has developed a dialectic between its own uniqueness and what it shares with the rest of Africa. There are certain aspects of Nigeria, which continue to make it exceptional and other aspects which make Nigeria typical of the African experience. Let us explore this dialectic between Nigeria’ s exceptionalism and Nigeria’s typicality. The phenomenon of Mega-Nigeria continues to bestride the African world like a colossus.
Nigeria has had more years under military rule than any other English-speaking country in Africa-and yet Nigeria has helped restore democracy in Liberia and Sierra Leone. A major producer of oil has some of the longest lines for petrol in Africa.
Nigeria has more Muslims than any Arab country including Egypt, and as many Christians as the rest of West Africa added together. Nigeria produced the first African winner of the Noble Prize for Literature, the first African Secretary-General of the commonwealth, the first African football team to win the Olympic gold medal, the first African motor-car locally invented, and the biggest national constellation of gifted novelists, poets, historians, playwrights and philosophers of any one African country. Whither Nigeria? Whither Africa? And how will the tension between exceptionalism and typicality play out?
It is ninety years since the unification of Northern and Southern Nigeria. Let us understand Mega-Nigeria better by knowing more about the African condition. It is over thirty years since Yakubu Gowon helped to save the Union. Let us get new insights about Africa by digging further into the Nigerian predicament. After all, deeper than the wells of petroleum are the inner recesses of the African mind. Let us challenge that mind more creatively in preparation for the next ninety years of the fundamental singularity of Nigeria, which the government of Yakubu Gowon helped to save.
Long Live Mega-Nigeria.
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