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“Echoes of a century”, is a historical compendium that chronicles Nigeria’s evolution from 1914-2014, published to commemorate the nation’s centenary. The author traces the Nigeria’s transition so far, beginning from the proclamation of the name NIGERIA by Miss Flora Louisa Shaw and reveals how British colonialism nurtured a country that could not sustain her independence; stocktaking Nigeria’s 100 years of nationhood.
Published in April 2013, the book is post-dated to fall within Nigeria’s centenary calendar. It is a book written over a period of 24 years in a lucid plain language. While Nigeria has been in transition for a hundred years, the book has been in progression for 24 years. The first sentence of the book was written in 1990, in the euphoria of General Ibrahim Babangida’s eight-year transition train that crash-landed. It went through thick and thin and has a history equally as tartan as Nigeria’s existence.
The content is explicit. It covers four major historical landmarks; 46 years of British colonialism; 29 years of military dictatorship; and 25 dotted years of inarticulate democratic governance. Available in two volumes, each chapter of the book deals with a specific period of Nigeria’s progression, tagged with exact time frames. Both volumes are spiced with over 1000 colour photographs and names of those who shaped and or reshaped the nation’s destiny.
Volume One deals with the period from the amalgamation of January 1, 1914, up till 1999. It examines the post-independence years; the Nigerian civil war and consolidation of military dictatorship that terminated only on May 29, 1999, including sometimes, significant political reforms and inconclusive transitional agenda.
Volume Two concentrates on a shorter, more recent, and equally significant period of our nation’s history, touching on fundamental issues, arising from 15 years of democracy, the longest stretch the nation has ever had in 54 years of independence.
Overall, the book is about the British Governor General, Lord Frederick John Dealtry Lugard the architect of Nigeria’s highly contentious amalgamation, and his fellow colonial administrators, Sir Hugh Charles Clifford, Sir Graeme Thomson, Sir Donald Charles Cameron, and Sir Bernard Boudillon. It is also about Sir Arthur Frederick Richards, Sir John Stuart Macpherson, and Sir James Wilson Robertson.
“Nigeria: Echoes” is all about a NIGERIA that was handed over to Nigerians in 1960 – an entity that has all the endowments necessary for rapid growth and development as a great nation, but which has yet to find its bearing. It is about Nigeria’s post-colonial leaders, Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe and Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
It is about Nigeria’s military constituency that deviated from its constitutional role of territorial defence, to assume administrative responsibilities, beginning with the 1966 coup d’etat, led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. It is about his successors, Major General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, General Yakubu Gowon, and General Murtala Ramat Muhammed. It is about Nigeria’s two-time head of state, General Matthew Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo, Alhaji Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari, General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Chief Ernest Shonekan, General Sani Abacha and General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Lastly, it involves Umaru Yar’Adua and President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan.
The book is all about their roles, policies, actions and inactions; what they did, rightly or wrongly, or what they failed to do, willingly or unwilling, which led Nigeria to her present state of affairs.
Yes, Nigeria is a nation in transition as could be seen from contending issues treated in this book, economically stagnated and politically retarded. At independence, we had our hopes, expectations and aspirations as a young democratic nation. But like a child pampered with a gold-plated glass mug, we had one but allowed it slip off our hands, dropped on a marble floor and shattered. Fifty-four years after independence, it has been extremely difficult for us to put the pieces together.
Our post-independence democratic experiment was squandered on a tray of ethnic chauvinism, corruption and nepotism. The First Republic managed by President Azikiwe and Prime Minister Balewa was inconclusive. The Second Republic led by President Shagari and his deputy, Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme was short-lived. The Third Republic initiated by General Babangida in his eight-year regime was stillborn. The Fourth Republic conceived by General Abacha in five years autocracy was truncated. It was not until May 29, 1999 that General Abdulsalami Abubakar broke the jinx of what alluded to an unending search for viable democracy in the world’s most populous black nation.
The book discusses fundamental issues in Nigeria’s loose federation as well as unresolved national challenges in the past 100 years; issues of leadership and its ceaseless manipulation through zoning, federal character, demography, ethnicity and religion that revolve around individuals against national interests; the politics and illusion of oil wealth that has become the nation’s albatross; endemic corruption and societal decadence that negate her growth and development, and the clamour for a sovereign national conference to renegotiate the country’s future – Nigeria: to be or not to be.
A lot of contentions have arisen from the unilateral decision of the British to lump peoples of well over 250 ethnic groups together to form a nation – an entity four times the size of the United Kingdom, without consultation or any agreement whatsoever on their willingness or otherwise to coexist as a nation. Could Nigeria have done better as two separate entities as it were, before the amalgamation of 1914, or better still, as three separate nations as envisaged in 1957, against the encumbrances of its present structure, where trust is lacking, and confidence progressively eroding among federating units?
The author concludes that with visible cracks on its bonds of unity, rising cases of religious bigotry and fundamentalism, ethnic chauvinism and exclusion, Nigeria may survive as a nation, but may not develop beyond the status of a third world country.