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I called into the NVS Thanksgiving podcast to share my thoughts on thankfulness and
Nigeria
and came away deeply impressed with the persistence of the Nigerian idea even among the critics of
Nigeria
’s defective structural composition. It was a profoundly enriching experience—one that has caused me to contemplate more seriously one aspect of the discussion.
One of the panelists, my good friend, Rudolf Okonkwo, asked a question that goes to the heart of every discussion on the viability of
Nigeria
as a nation-state. He wanted to know if there has been any country in history—African or not—that experienced the same challenges of nationhood that Nigerian has been grappling with and came out of it intact, with its spatial integrity and tropes of nationhood secure. It is a question that invites deep reflection on the meaning, trajectory, and evolution of nationhood itself. In one poignant question, Rudolf insinuated into our discussion the knotty contradiction of simultaneously celebrating
Nigeria
and acknowledging its seeming temporariness.
Britain approximates the example of a country that has overcome centuries of turbulence, political uncertainties, and structural indeterminacy to forge a pragmatic, workable, if tense, union.
Britain
is our colonizing power and it is ironic that one would advance it as a prototype of a troubled but functional political union. But the parallels between British political history and
Nigeria
’s are as remarkable as the differences between the two countries.
The British have not always been a coherent, organic nation. In many ways, they are still not; ask many Irish and, to some extent, Scots and they will tell you that
Britain
is an imposition that hardly approximates their aspirations for nationhood. For a long time, the idea of
Great Britain
was neither great nor even British. The British were first seen as British by others before they saw themselves as such. As is the case with
Nigeria
, there is nothing natural about
Britain
. Yet, somehow,
Britain
is a nation that works for its constituents.
A small, vulnerable
Island
,
Britain
was invaded and ruled for many centuries by the Romans. The “pagan” Saxons invaded in the 5th century from the Nordic plains. It was the commingling of the Saxons and autochthonous English that produced the compound ethnic category of Anglo-Saxons, which some people today take for granted as the foundational ethnicity of
England
. Even this process was marked by vicious, bloody wars between factions of the Saxon invaders and between them and the English states and kingdoms on the
Island
. The wars between the English kingdoms and Saxon invaders were as much over differences in religion and culture as they were over territory.
Britain knew neither peace nor a discernible geopolitical trajectory for the next six centuries. The French invaded in the 11th century, grafting yet another cultural influence and complex onto the Anglo-Saxon tradition.
Also inhabiting parts of the same
Island
were the Welsh and the Irish. Both were fiercely anti-English in their ways.
Given this ethno-linguistic and religious chaos, a nation seemed impossible to imagine, let alone build.
When the French withdrew or were defeated (depending on which version of the history you believe), the momentary political unity that coalesced in the struggle against French imperialism was replaced by a retreat to the animosities and divisions of old. I have, of course, taken some liberties with British history here, but the outline is basically correct.
In fact, the British, like Nigerians, could never agree among themselves about which political system or national religion to adopt—or whether to adopt a national religion at all. Oliver Cromwell’s effort to settle these questions through an anti-monarchist revolution plunged
Britain
into a civil war.
Britain
is still a country divided about the role and influence of the monarchy, and by the Catholic-Protestant divide which is a direct result of its encounters with Roman Catholicism and the European Reformation.
The parallels between
Nigeria
and
Britain
are instructive. Like
Britain
,
Nigeria
was colonized. Nigerians, like Britons, share a common memory of resisting foreign colonial invaders and of being oppressed by these invaders. Like
Britain
, the nation-space called
Nigeria
was by and large bequeathed by, and consummated through the self-interested actions of, foreign invaders and imperial powers. Like the British, Nigerians argue eternally about what form of government to adopt to satisfy most of the country's constituents. Like the British, Nigerians argue about how to structure the relationship between the various ethno-national regions that constitute the country.
Like Britain, which is effectively a confederacy of several nations—Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England—Nigeria is a country of many nations, with each one striving to define its relationship to the tenuous symbols of Nigerian nationhood—and to maintain its residual cultural and political autonomy in the face of an increasingly unitary Nigerian government.
Like the British, Nigerians argue about whether to adopt a national religion and about whether the Nigerian state can or should remain a neutral arbiter in religious matters. The Catholic-Protestant debate in
Britain
is just as volatile and as occasionally bloody as the Christian-Muslim divide in
Nigeria
.
Like
Britain
,
Nigeria
fought a devastating civil war.
Britain
actually fought several civil wars throughout its history. The passionate rejection of the “imposition” called
Britain
by some Irish and Scots is strikingly similar to the repudiation of the “Nigerian imposition” by many segments of the Nigerian populace, especially constituents like the Niger Delta and the Igbo whose sacrifice for
Nigeria
clearly outweigh their rewards and investments in it.
Like Nigerians, Britons received a defective national contraption that was designed more by the interests of a succession of external invaders than by the interests and aspirations of Britons. The British colonizers crafted
Nigeria
purely to fulfill a British imperial administrative and economic imperative. The African peoples who would constitute the nation had no say in its emergence.
Nigeria
, in short, emerged outside and in spite of the multiple nationalist aspirations of
Nigeria
’s many nations, just as
Britain
emerged largely outside the free volition of, and even against, the aspirations of many Britons.
Yet the British overcame these historical and preexisting handicaps to build themselves a workable union that, however imperfectly, offers more belonging to its constituent units than it alienates them. The British decided to use the outline of the received “foreign” imposition to evolve a new nation-state that could unite Anglo-Saxons, Welsh, and Irish in one diverse commonwealth of mutually shared symbols and aspirations. They did this so well that not only did they build a great nation; they used it as a linchpin to conquer almost half of the entire world. You can’t go out to conquer and colonize other nations if you are not a nation yourself.
How did
Britain
do this and what lessons can
Nigeria
learn from its experience?
It is my considered opinion that the British first made one crucial decision: to be pragmatic about their nation building. They decided not to destroy Welsh, Irish, English, or Scot identities and autonomies in the process of evolving a British nation-state. They didn’t see these national identities and aspirations as enemies of the emerging British nation; they saw them as essential components of
Britain
. This is a crucial difference between
Britain
and
Nigeria
.
It was a sound premise from which the idea of a new, representative
Britain sprouted
and won adherents. The British adopted a political structure that allowed each people to hold on to practices, cultures, institutions, resources, and developmental aspirations that are dear to them. But they all came together under the Union Jack and the Crown to transact political businesses that were mutually beneficial. One of these businesses was that of empire-building and colonization. There was something in it for everyone. The impoverished Irish needed jobs and economic lifelines and were all too happy to be sent to govern colonized territories in Africa, Asia, and the
Caribbean
on behalf of the British crown.
The Welsh, English, and Scots fulfilled their business and missionary aspirations by serving as Christian missionaries and traders/extractors of raw materials in the colonies. Some people argue that the “dominant” English offloaded the Irish to the colonies to uproot a growing Irish disavowal of the “British imposition.” This may be true, but the Irish were eager to represent the crown in the colonies because they felt British enough to do so, and because they craved the benefits and recognition of Britishness.
Whatever its faults then, the British nation represents a pragmatic model of nationhood. It recognizes that, for a nation to work, its constituents have to see it as beneficial to their interests and aspirations while not perceiving it as a threat to their way of life. The British Empire and its attractions is no more, but more Britons still believe in
Britain
than those who do not. This is because the foundational principle of cultural, political, and fiscal autonomy and of inclusion remains intact.
Some segments of the Irish and some Scots will continue to call for the dissolution of
Britain
but the overwhelming majority will continue to believe that they have more invested in the British project than they are willing to give up.
The lessons for
Nigeria
here are many.
First, no nation is a given. A nation is what the people who desire it make of it. The British inherited a defective union, but they worked at it until it became fairly workable. Unlike
Nigeria
, they did not do this by becoming more unitary and more homogenizing. They did it by allowing the expression of the nationalist autonomies that predated the idea of
Britain
. Homogeneity followed logically as a voluntary pragmatic process which saw Irish, Scots, and Welsh assimilate in various degrees into English culture. Although today some Britons decry what they see as English cultural and linguistic imperialism over the rest of
Britain
, it is generally not a deep felt sentiment that threatens to tear the country apart.
For a nation to survive it must mean more than a concept to its constituent units; it must approximate their interests and aspirations while allowing them considerable autonomy over fiscal, cultural, and political affairs. The British made
Britain
such a nation.
Nigeria
’s solution, on the other hand, has been to homogenize everyone into a shared national ethos underwritten by a unitary political system that brooks no centrifugal agitation. This approach doesn’t work. It is counterproductive.
Second, nations, as Benedict Anderson posits, are imagined communities, not natural occurrences. You work to build a nation-state; you don’t take it for granted. If you desire a nation, you have to work hard at it. Nations are therefore being constantly re-imagined to remain relevant to the evolving aspirations and interests of their constituents. This should be especially true for
Nigeria
, which was set up since independence to function not for its constituent units but for the interest of a small multi-ethnic political collective. This is the reason why I find the expression “the unity of
Nigeria
is non-negotiable” ludicrous and dangerous. Only documented divine revelations like the Bible and the Quran are settled, non-negotiable subjects. Even those are subject to diverse interpretations. How much less a nation that was conceived and created by a foreign European power without the consultative or deliberative input of
Nigeria
’s peoples.
On the face of it the rhetoric of non-negotiability sounds lofty. But it is actually quite dangerous. It forecloses the process of nation-building in its proper sense of crafting and recrafting a nation until it is acceptable, however tentatively, to its constituents. It forecloses the tweaking of the union to make it relevant to the aspirations of those who constitute it. It is tyrannical in the sense that it forces those who do not or no longer believe in
Nigeria
to refrain from imagining alternatives or creative structural solutions to the dysfunctional status quo. It also impels believers in the Nigerian project into a complacency that prevents them from appreciating the ways in which many constituencies are being alienated from the project.
What’s more, it dismisses and demonizes the separatist agitations of ethno-nationalist pressure groups instead of celebrating them for, if nothing else, serving to remind us of what is wrong with the union. Separatist agitations are, contrary to popular perception, instruments of nation-building; for they reflect legitimate disaffection and disillusionment with the union and should be taken seriously as a point of departure for at the very least reforming the nation’s political arrangement. Unlike
Britain
, we do not brook discourses of secession and separation. The British not only tolerate such discourses; they use them to remind themselves of how hard they need to work to preserve their troubled union.
Third, a nation will never be a final product, being constantly remade in the interests of its constituents, but a nation has to work to be relevant and to endure. The difference between
Nigeria
and
Britain
is not that
Britain
is more coherent or more of a nation than
Nigeria
is. The difference is that
Britain
works for its constituent ethno-nations—however imperfectly—and
Nigeria
does not.
The British national idea was partly forged in the crucible of external aggression and British empire-building.
Nigeria
does not need to invade or be invaded to craft a workable Nigerian union. We should do the other thing the British did: be pragmatic in our nationalist aspirations. That would entail the difficult decision of doing away with the de facto unitary composition of
Nigeria
. It is founded on an erroneous view of nations as incubators of sameness and homogeneity.
The Irish, Welsh, English, and Scots are free to dream and aspire relatively independently of one another while sharing geo-national symbols, loose central government, and a common memory of external oppression. This is a model for
Nigeria
. Like the British, we are diverse. But as the British did, we should use our common memory of colonial oppression as a basis for (re)negotiating a union that works and is acceptable and meaningful to
Nigeria
’s many constituents.
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Posted by Robot| 23.11.2007 16:20