By
Sampson Iroabuchi Onwuka,
Nnamdi Azikiwe speaking in 1948 at
the foundation of NCNC in Aba offered this prayer as part of their Creed, "That oh Almighty and everlasting God
of the Universe, God of Africa...give ear to the prayers of thy children who
assemble here...to implore thee to give us...freedom from foreign domination,
and freedom to own and enjoy this portion of thy earth which thou hast, without
a mistake allocated to us..."
The Portrait of A Nigerian President
The Nigerian President is the most
powerful African. In all probability, the Nigerian president is the most
powerful black man in office anywhere on the Earth's Planet. But of course, the
advent of Barack Obama as the President of the United States makes Goodluck E.
Jonathan, the second most powerful black man if there is such a thing. But as
far as Africans are concerned - Natives, Blacks, Jews, Arabs, Whites, and so on
- all converge in the office of the Nigerian President. The office is above and
beyond all offices in Africa or concerning it, to a point that lack of Nigerian
representation as Permanent member of United States Peace Keeping force is a
blind eye that GEJ should look to amend. How the past meets the present and the
present a matter of how well Nigeria combats the past should be our concern.
What is this past, the past when
many Africans were forced to dwell under the Canopy a nation or nations that he
did not sign up for and where forced to continue this national identity for a
very long past. What is the past, the past is Africa’s taint with foreign
influence and slave trade and colonial era, and the past where religious and
amphibious agencies throughout the continent has tried to piece together a new
beginning and a new Africa. I for one, believe that the current precipice which
Nigerian occupies in Africa can separate the past from present, that by one
single act of currency re-domination with interest parity to South Africa and
perhaps Ghana or Egypt and Morocco, can in single stroke separate Africa and
its new economy from Post-Colonial era. But this is a later day argument, no
more or less than the case of a Continental West Africa, a vision I spy from my
vista to be destined for one man and perhaps not GEJ.
In my view, only from this view,
Africa’s expectations of leadership and charismatic clarity of the high office
is best explicated through the persons of Nigerian President. This is too easy
to call, given the fact that the population at work in Nigeria is perhaps equal
to a very huge province in China, there are however more diversity of peoples
of the world in Nigeria than China, Nigeria is more diverse than India both in
people, in culture and in languages. Although the historical audacity of India
and China is world history and Nigeria a new country but being the 10th most
populated nation in the world is not over-shooting the emphasis of the 500
ethnic groups and languages. Few offices in the world is as demanding as the
office of the Nigerian President, fewer still is less fulfilling than the
cultural inertia of Nigeria.
Starting with the office of the
Nigerian President, is the office of the Governors, whose annual budget exceed
that of most African countries. So far and still in my view, these Nigerian
Presidents and their Governors, may not have fully realized the huge responsibility
in their hands, how much of the Black Race and in fact Africa is watching the
Great Giant, to see if it will buckle its belt under the weight of
responsibility that they have inherited. Still in my view, and perhaps by the
Acts of the Nigerian Presidents so far, they may have not known why their
exemplary lives and depth of humility is of the greatest demand and of greatest
consequence. Never, in the history of Africa - the oldest of the continents;
the birth and cradle of civilization, has one country and one nation is faced
with the Pandora of caring for the largest population of Muslims and Christians
alike and together in one country.
No country has inherited so much of
tradition from eight older empire in the continent than Nigeria, let alone the
strange and unyielding strain of older materials in the continent which by
necessity Nigeria now acquires. Nigeria even has outlets outside the continent
that Nigerians themselves and their President may not also know. In Brazil,
there are about 50-55 million Afro-Brazilians of the 70 million, who trace
their home to West Africa, many of them speak very well of their continent and
of Nigeria. Brazil is larger than Nigeria by at least 30 million, but in Brazil
they speak Yoruba, Ijaw variety of Gullah, they speak Igbo, among other
languages of West Africa.
But one country that gives reason
to think and listen for a moment is Nigeria by far. In West Africa, there is
Ijaw - perhaps the largest tribe on the West Coast, there is also Yoruba -
perhaps the second largest, there is the Igbo - the third largest, there is
Hausa the fourth largest, there is Fulani - the fifth largest, and there are
others of great importance, the Kanuri, the Bini Edo, the Itsekiri, the Igala,
the Tiv and so on, all of whom I mentioned have their ancestral home in one
country and that country is Nigeria. There is at least 300 thousand to half a
million Arabs in Nigeria and there are more than 1 million Syrian Lebanese in
Nigeria, many of them of Jewish descent.
This above stated fact may only
seem that clear to outsider’s, some of whom are Europeans - Britons to mention,
some Americans, some others of Arab descent and yet others of Asian, who may
now understand that they either bow to this sleeping and reckless giant called
Nigeria, or cut it down. Understanding the role of the office may force
Nigerians to see themselves in a world and in a situation that will always
remain uncertain. That the country is fighting enemies home and abroad and deserves the attention of the United Nations Security consign. Looking at the role it plays in West Africa, it may suggest that Nigeria and Nigerians are part of the general and global attempts at reducing the problems of insurgency.
The 'Instruction of Menakhare' we
read of the great men who it is said 'living life they are forgotten but
writings make them remembered'...
Former Nigerian Presidents and
Heads of State, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Aguiyi Ironsi, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala
Mohammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, Shehu Shagari, Mohammed Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida,
Sani Abacha, Ernest Shenakon, Abubakar, Umaro Musa Yarduwa, Goodluck E
Jonathan, did possess attributes worthy of remembering but will take others to
rank them according to their more popular and more pronounced inclusions in the
society. But these men who in years to come may be become pillars in a central
coliseum may however donate of their own, the best estimates of what a Nigerian
President should look like. Whether or not we agree with these Presidential
Candidates, Goodluck E Jonathan, M. Buhari, IBB, Atiku, R. Nuhu, Sarkin, Uzo,
Dele, and so on, or whoever the consensus candidate is, we can at least agree
that the challenges facing the next President of the country, whoever that is,
must include ACTIONS in the interest on the country and of West Africa.
The portrait of the Nigerian
President looms very large since the destiny of the Black race is more or less
in his or her hands. In my view, the office inherited one nation that is bigger
than anything we have seen in Africa throughout her history, as if to say that
old Egypt which Isaiah prophesied its ending is born in a different country,
and in the West of the Continent, which is now Nigeria. Therefore such
responsibility leaves the man in office a lot of headache and is up to him to
understand his role in the history of the country and of the continent, and is
up to the Governors to see what is offered to them as an Accidental Empire.
The portrait of Nigerian President
is not one that rules over a country, but one that is devoted to a continent
and its greatness which must begin at home. More than anything, the individual
and the office must demonstrate the Image of Man or Woman as the case will be.
The office is no less as engrossing and humbling than the Pharaoh - much less
that of the Emperor, who must be bound to the people. Still better, since the
Nigerian President must be elected. For that part of what is necessary, the
citizens must also live very exemplary lives. For at least in the beginning of
all we can cite the statement….What these men now do with this power,
especially the Governors, the Senate, and the LGA Chairmen who receive the
elective clearance of people to manage the smallest few. Arabs legendary
Governors - had their and we shall see note, these people are returning with
renewed connection to the European countries.
Never has any country in the
history of the African Continent, been gifted the great opportunity to serve
humanity by one oval office. Never has any of the greatest men and women who
walked this Continent, such as Thot, Imhotep, Osiris, Zeus, Isis, Thotmosis
III, Amosis I, Ramses II, Seti I, Psalmsik I, Amenophis IV, and possibly Queen
Nefertiti and Queen Pharaoh Hatsput, some of whom worshipped as gods in foreign
world - all of whom human and Africans - been gifted the great chance of
deciding the fate of 140 million Africans, by association 250 million West
Africans and by circumstance, 700 million Africans. The Nigerian President and
her Governor is that fortunate.
Perhaps in the past, the Mandigos,
the Fulanis under the banner of Islam and their cattle and herds-men had
travelled to different parts of Africa and saw how intricately interwoven the
tribal lines are made wars in West Africa in the name of Allah and of Mohammed,
these men did not progress beyond Mali and Ghana and in fact Abu Baker at the
beginning of that Alhorovids under the Tustin and the Seljuk Turks (who made it
to edge of Bornu of Nigeria helping them to create their kingdom Segenwa –
engines behind the Boko-Haram and bringing Islam in that 13th
centuries) may have drawn a lot of muscles from
Ghana and Mali who were instrumental in financing wars to unify West
Africa under names such as Mari Data (Sundiata) who son Mansa Musa was world
renown under the cloaks of Songhai empire that displaced the older empires.
It is important that the psychology
of a nation bigger than the GOA or similar tribes in West Africa was already
profound at least in the period leading to the return of Europeans and may be
persuaded towards additional meaning in one country. That idea of unifying say
Ghana, Guinea and Mali as one nation is not new. The concept seems to suggest
that these indigenes were people similar in blood in griot narrative history
which Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Wole Soyinka, Kwame Appiah in Encarta Africana
accepted as useful history, that they were divided over religion and those who
attempted to mount their power over others. In later times, the military
benefit one mostly West African country was revived by Muslims but this time under
the weight of Fulanis whose original homes is what now Nigeria is enjoyed
similar leadership under the Usman Danfodio.
Beginning with a certain Usman
Danfodio who was a herdsman like many of his kind from GOA in what is now
Nigeria, he took his army across the Northern Nigeria fighting long-wars in the
name of Jihad against enemies of the faith but also on the plans to have peace
reign over West Africa through the blanket of one religion and then perhaps one
language. The success of this movement is famous for how well these Fulanis who
was second class to Bornu and Hausa overturned the house which ruled them and
became the leading house. The conflict between the Hausas and the Fulani is
such that at the coming of English, they considered the relationship between
Fulani and Hausa as one of slaves and masters. Further down the hinter land of
the North Nigerians these people called Fulani led by Usman Danfodio had to
come in conflict their new and old empires, who for years were unknown in
direct contact and conflict and who were not necessarily of the brightest
unions.
But these religious conflict under
Jihad forced Muslims to attempt to conquer much of what is now Nigeria,
including the Jukun empire which were among the more formidable empires in
region, against the land-locked Ijaw who were also among West Africa largest
groups until slave trade, against the Bini Empire that was for some reason the
last of the older empires that enough civilization to spare, there was Ibibio
and farm people in the Riverine areas and their relationship with Yoruba
another empire on its rights is not very clear but shared and inherited more
than a few historical past with them. There were mixed Bini groups and Igbos in
the hinterlands, which were not naturally comfortable with others entering
their territories. These Igbos lived at times with direct permission of the
ruling empires, for instance among the Eddas, among the Bini, among the Hausa,
and especially the Ibibio, Anyang and the Abonneme of Ijaw people and others in
parts of Cameroons.
They earliest conflict started
because of these privileged arrangement and cultures, and when the Fulani found
in Jukun and Bini people who cared little about their rights of administrative
rule they prepared to end it all. They will be others such as Igbo who didn’t
recognize Islam and it was a question of time that the wars fought all over
West Africa and in parts of Cameroun reached Southern Nigeria. While Muslim
horses died from tsetse fly and similar killer insects from hinter lands, the
lands were easily littered with dark forest and foot soldiers were most
vulnerable. The prayers of Usman Danfodio and the Jibril who was Sunni Ali in
conquering West Africa died with the age of future country to be Nigeria in
what is now Plateau State of Nigeria, and ended with destruction of Bini Empire
with a section of them known to have descended from Fulanis and were among the
ruling class and were Muslims.
The Yorubas the same and Ijaws as
well, found among their people those who became a part of Islam. The Ibibio and
Igbos and some other groups related to them such as the Bini were totally
against Islam and saw the death of Usman Danfodio fighting in at the tip of
Niger-Delta area as a blessing and so also the death of Jibril who succeeded him
as an accomplished military tacticians in Splinter Zone as a blessing. With
many death of these horses and diseases in these areas, the penetration of the
hinter-land was come to an end. We look at the many tribes after the formative
Songhai to have seen something of a possibility and in terms of Ijaw Nation and
birth of Nigerian political parties such as Ibo Nation under the leadership and
in latter times, Louis Ojukwu, the inherited affiliation of Herbert Macaulay
and Samuel Ajayi Crowder, the long distance formation of arrivals from Brazil
and United States who settled in Liberia including Blyden shifted the course of
West Africa Independence from any nexus including Ghana to Nigeria where it
nearly died saving for Ghanaians and their assistance to Nnamdi Azikiwe….
Who can begin the history of this
new Kemit called Nigeria………
So much is as stake for these
Nigerians in the four years in Nigeria, so much that it is only through public
discourses of any nature can any hope of at least forming the right candidate
essentially endure? The identity of these Nigerians is so much at stake that
there is no easy explicating saving the extra-ordinary effort of Nigerian
president to make the difference in Nigeria and become the image that protects
this portion of our country, which is now beyond any living tribe, which cannot
be ruled by any living tribe or without the others or exercise competitive
existence at the expense of others. This new nation which must only be ruled
pro-piece for the good the general society and not the ill and which must
include the rest of us. WE THE AFRICANS.
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