Politics in Nigeria is madness. Madness actually means folly which word traces its root from the French word ‘Folie’. So, if politics is folly in Nigeria, we can generally talk of the follies of Nigerian politicians. But madness according to medical science is in degrees. Being that politics is madness in Nigeria and it is in degrees, it therefore means that the madness that afflicts politicians in Nigeria could be measured in degrees. It is therefore axiomatic to hold that the follies of Southern Nigerian politicians are of higher degree if one juxtaposes them, one being Southern Nigerian politician to the other being Northern Nigerian Politician.
Follies of Southern Nigerian politicians flow largely from their cultural root, for if we say biological that assertion may require scientific proof to establish which this writer is not ready to expend his meagre resources on. Culture is everything and humanity largely depends on culture to hop from one stage to the other. And this truism was what Fela Anikulapo Kuti harped on in one of his evergreen musical offerings entitled, ‘Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense” In that poetics, Fela holds that “when we be pikins, teacher be teacher, when we go to university, lecturer be teacher. When we start to work, government be teacher.” Then he raises the poser: “who be government teacher?” And he answered that the teacher of government is ‘culture and tradition’. This philosophical rendition of inimitable Fela anchors our stand that the way we behave has much to do with our culture. Culture is acquired as it is the sum total of the habits and mores of a given community. Nigeria is a multi-cultural society. And being so, it consists of hundreds of communities, each with its own distinct culture and tradition. Each community is self-sufficient within its boundaries and within that boundary it manages its affairs to sustain life and transmit civilisation. Within this cultural boundary each community organises its society the best way possible within the parameters of its culture and traditions. The structure within which this organisation of productive forces of society takes place, in modern term is called the state while the praxis is the politics. Now, if each community wants to transcend its boundary to another community that could only be through voluntary reception or imitation. But to impose that cultural mores means adversarial relation which can only materialize through conquest. Nigeria as constituted by over 300 cultural communities was not a voluntary union. It was an imposition made to benefit not the people or groups constituting Nigeria but the British conquistador, who merely wanted a secured geographical space for trade and politics. In British organisational formula, Nigeria as constituted was divided into two, then three regions (North, East and West) but basically in its relation with the three regions, it considered the North as one people with one culture but regarded the East and West as one entity with several tribes with distinct cultures and traditions. It was from this British standpoint that Nigeria unipolar politics took root. This unpopular politics ensured that the North acted and proceeded together as one people while the South (East and West) were hopelessly divided and matched against the North in political competition. In all British colonial management system this divide-and-rule tactics was deployed but that of Nigeria was taken a notch higher and applied with ruthlessness that borders on crime against humanity. This British subterfuge and crime would have failed if two foremost Nigerian Southern politicians; Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo had not quarrelled over nothing and had selflessly worked together. But they fell for the British trap and paid dearly for their follies. The political follies of these two foremost Southern Nigerian politicians became the political culture noted for its unbendable rigidity and lack of cooperation and bereft of reason. What were Azikiwe and Awolowo fighting over? They were fighting for political positions – that is who should control the governmental offices. They did not fight to structure Nigeria in a way that would help them to control the government. They failed to understand that he who controls the structure controls the organisation that is founded on the structure. They succeeded in getting government positions of premiers but lost the constitutional framework and structure of Nigerian State. These two illustrious men were properly educated in Western culture but lacked that native sense that imbues wisdom to weigh options and determine the cultural imperative that advances security and happiness of a people. In counterpoise to these two illustrious Southern Nigerian politicians, the British conquistador raised two native gentlemen; namely, Tafawa Balewa and Ahmadu Bello. Balewa was a commoner and a primary school teacher at Bauchi Province while Bello was a prince, though contested, of the Sokoto Caliphate. Both did not attend university but were full of native sense and culturally attached to their community. These two foremost Northern politicians never throughout their political vocations from 1946 to 1960 bothered about capturing political positions rather they were bothered about how to structure Nigeria in such a way that their cultural community controls the new country they were about being forced to become part. And they succeeded! First, Britain had already adopted North, West and East structure and adopted Indirect Rule which is their Northern political praxis to govern Nigeria. Second when in 1950/1953-1954 the constitutional framework was about to be instituted they were not found wanting as they issued ultimatums to Britain that unless the three region structure is guaranteed and they were granted 50% of the parliamentary representation in the central legislature, the country should be disbanded and returned to pre-1914 status. Britain worked with them to coaxed Nnamdi Azikiwe to concede to Northern demands while believing that Nigeria was his to inherit. Since 1950/1953-1954 when the North got these political prizes it has never ceased from insisting on being the ruler of Nigeria and master-of-joint-deliberation in the Commonwealth. But the southern Nigerian rudderless politics did not just happen overnight. It followed the trajectory of Nnamdi Azikiwe’s compromise with colonialism when he accepted Governor John Macpherson’s rapproachment at the heat of nationalist politics by National Council of Nigerian Citizens bolstered by the militant activities of the Zikist Movement. From that moment Azikiwe w as co-opted into the colonial government and sucked up into political position as Commission member, and falsely promised prime ministership of Nigeria. From then, Azikiwe toned down his nationalist fervour and discreetly withdrew his identification with the Zikist Movement which organisation even though not formed by him was a national youth revolutionary group committed to achieving Independence from Britain, and that not accordance in Britain’s terms. Between 1948 and 1950, Azikiwe disowned the Zikist Movement which was the shield protecting him and NCNC from British buccaneering politics geared at foisting neocolonialism on Nigeria. At that point, when radical youth nationalism was betrayed by Azikiwe, Britain moved in quickly by springing up the tribal parties, especially the Northern Peoples Congress from Mutaneen Arewa and Action Group from Egbe ‘Omo Oduduwa. The emergence of these tribal parties diluted the nationalism of NCNC and effectively reduced it to largely Igbo party. This politics of tribal identity effectively destroyed national political culture and polarized Nigeria into tripodal political entities each, routed to maintaining control of its area of influence and from that standpoint makes a stake at the control of national state. This tribal politics played out in 1951 regional elections when NPC got control of the North while NCNC took control of the East and would have taken control of the West but that would have meant Azikiwe achieving majority control at the National Parliament and politics. To avoid that scenario, Britain weighed in by designing a method that robbed the NCNC of parliamentary control it was entitled to have in the Western Region. NCNC was the formed in 1944 by the resolution of National Union of Nigerian Students and West African Students Union and 100 of tribal and syncretistic organisations. It did not have individual membership. By this legal lacuna, Britain, exploited it and devised a method of tagging winners of the parliamentary election not on the platform of NCNC under which they filed nominations, campaigned and won but on the winners’ tribal or local organisations. In this way, Adegoke Adelabu, Meredith Akinloye, and other persons who won on Ibadan based local organisations were not accredited to NCNC but to such local organisations. For if such parliamentary victories were accredited to NCNC, the parliamentary convention would have obligated Britain to call on Azikiwe as leader of NCNC to form the Western Region government with Azikiwe as Leader of Government. At the background, British officials actively promoted tribal fears which made Yoruba-elected parliamentarians to switch camp from the NCNC alliance to AG to enable Awolowo, AG leader to form the government of Western Region. Having succeeded at robbing the NCNC of leadership of Western Region, the tribal fight continued to denying Azikiwe of the support of his fellow Yoruba political allies’ support to be elected into the Federal Parliament. Thus, rendered politically incapacitated Azikiwe scurried to the East to generate crisis in the NCNC government in the East which culminated in the overthrow of Prof. Eyo Ita’s government and factionalism of NCNC. From then, Azikiwe was brought down from his Olympian height of foremost nationalist leader to ethnic champion and a rudderless politician who could hardly found his feet in the East not to talk of Nigeria as his turf.
