Ilu le o, kosowo lode; Ilu le o, kosowo lode,

Ọkunrin nkigbe, Obinrin nkigbe; Kaluku lonkigbe owo.

(Town is hard, no money about; Town is hard, no money about,

Man is protesting, Woman is protesting; Everyone is protesting about money)

Life is hard in Nigeria. The whole of the ordinary Nigerian’s existence is devoted to the basics of life: to eat, to drink, to have a roof. This has been so throughout Nigeria’s 110 years of existence. 110 years, still Nigerian life is devoted to the basics of life. There are no countries in the world created in 1914 that have the same dismal socio-economic record as Nigeria. Not one.

There had been a gleamer of hope engineered by Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ in the Yorubaland of the 1950s. In those halcyon days, the Yorubaland was ahead of Singapore and South Korea in development. Then Singapore and South Korea took giant steps forwards and Nigeria took giant steps backwards dragging the Yorubaland down with it. The reason for the disparity is obvious: whilst Singapore, the same as South Korea, spoke with one voice, Nigeria spoke with a dozen or more voices, just like the Tower of Babel, doomed to achieve nothing. 

The British built Nigeria on ethnic hatred that continued to this day. In the early 1800s, the Fulani launched a jihad into northern Yorubaland, which the Yoruba successfully repelled but the British handed Ilọrin to the Fulani anyway. In 1945, there were riots in Jos in protest against amalgamation, which claimed at least 200 lives. Northern Emirs threatened secession if the North was not allocated 50% of oil just discovered in the East; acceptance of their demand was the beginning of northern domination of Nigeria politics. In 1953, there was mass killing of Igbos in Kano. Supported by their elites, Fulani herdsmen destroy farms with their cattle, and gun the farmer down with their AK47 if he protested, as they did Dr Fatai Aborode in 2021. Supported by their judiciary and lawyers, the Fulani stoned their neighbours to death or burnt them alive for ‘blaspheming’ Mohamed, their God, as they did Deborah Samuel Yakubu in 2022. The killing of Christians and Southerners is what Northerners do, and have done consistently and persistently since the beginning of Nigeria. It will not stop until Nigeria is dissolved, and everyone was free to defend themselves.

It is not possible to make Nigeria succeed if it remained one country. Had it been possible, a way would have been found by now in these 60 odd years of independence. The ‘Integrationists’ (Aladapọ) have ruled Nigeria since 1914, beginning with Lugard, Nigeria’s first ruler. Nigeria’s current president, Ahmed Tinubu, is an ‘Integrationist’. The brilliant idea of the ‘Integrationists’ was to bring everyone down to the level of the lowest denominator. It was always a fool’s paradise to rely for success on the lowest denominator. Nigeria was doomed from the get-go. Sooner or later, Nigerians will realise that no matter how long you travelled on a wrong road, you are travelling on a wrong road. Nigeria is a wrong road.

Potentially, Nigeria could be split into 5 separate economically viable republics – Arewa, Igboland, Middlebelt, Niger Delta and Yorubaland; each republic had the basic ingredients of land and population to make a successful transition. Removing the scourge of multi-ethnicity would make each republic prosper. The Arewa Republic could seek assistance and friendship from the Islamic countries of the Arab world, with which they have affinity; the other republics could look elsewhere. War is unlikely, firstly, because no republic would be strong enough to successfully wage one, and secondly, because each republic would have enough on its plate to grapple with.