 Passleaders have failed to unite Nigeria, says former president Goodluck Jonathan, and Serap has sued Inic over failure to register 7 million voters. This is plus politics, and I am Mary Anna Cohn. Former president Goodluck Jonathan has blamed passleaders for not doing enough to unite the country. He said Nigeria's founding fathers, including former premiers of the western northern and eastern region, or Bafemiawolaw, Amadw Bailu, a Namdea Zikwui, never had nationalistic views, but were focused on regional development. The ex-president noted that the present crop of leaders inherited a country that was already divided into three regions and later four. Joining us to discuss this is Ambrose Igboke. He's a public affairs analyst. It's good to have you join us with Igboke. Can you hear me? Thank you very much, Robin. I can hear you loud and clear. Okay, great. Let's start by examining what the former president is talking about, because you see, there is that thing that we always say about, you know, there's unity in our diversity, but in reality, is that diversity unifying us, or is it further dividing us? First of all, I would say the president is correct, is right, because the ex-president is right, because one, Nigeria was a country of independent kingdoms before the British colonialists came. We had the Oyog Kingdom. We had the Binig Kingdom. We had the Popol Kingdom. We had, you know, kingdoms like the Zazog Kingdom that was, remember the popular phenomenon, who was a very strongly died in the 15th century. Then in the east, where we didn't have large kingdoms, we had settlements where were ruled by chiefs, every small kingdom like Henry, and some other kingdoms at this stage. So Igala had the Obong of Calabar was the judge for Popol. No, we had strong kingdoms that were independent, and these kingdoms were actually trading with international partners. For example, the Binig Kingdom had trade partnership with the Portuguese as early as 600 years ago. Also, the oil empire had tradeings with the Middle East, with the Arabs for a very long time. So we had things that existed on its own. In the north and the south of the country that existed. Then just one day, a man called Frederick Lord Lugard, who was sent to go over the protectorates, they used to call them protectorates of southern and northern Nigeria, woke up on January 1, 1914, and said that for the convenience of his administration, that is merging the northern south of Nigeria together, and he brought them together, merging the northern southern protectorates and called it Nigeria. Of course, it was declared Istiwan, and other kingdoms were treated separately. Until in 1897, the Binig Kingdom was attacked by the British, where the last sovereign king, who was of Ovaram, was overthrown by the power of the British. So this is the time that the exiled a judge of the people who resisted their rules, and that is how they decimated the kingdoms. So this is my work of January 1, 1914, and I said they wanted to be matched with the two protectorates, and that is, I named them Nigeria, which was the name he was given by a foreigner. So first of all, we made Nigeria do not emanate from Nigerians. It has known, from any language that we speak, it was just an experiment by a British civil servant who was sent to go over the protectorates. And so it has been like that, and over the years, our forefathers who fought for our independence, our statesmen, from Habatimakoli to Enes Ticoli to Awoluwa, to Nambia Zikiwe, to Amadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa, and Enahorua, so on Enahorua and the rest. They understood the fact that we are diverse. They understood the fact that we are different. They understood the fact that we have our separate identities, and those identities were respected. I remember that even as far back as 1948, the revered Awoluwa wrote in his tribune newspaper that Nigeria is a mere geographical expression that is not a nation. Nationhood is a people that have homogeneity in culture, homogeneity in tradition, homogeneity in values, and homogeneity in culture. So these are the things that make up nationhood. Most of them speak one language. That was for nationhood. But Nigeria's expression was because the nationhood was first on these various entities that were independent. They came together in 1960 to form a country. But in respect to the diversity that existed before the independence of 1960, each region, three regions were created to take care of those entities, those unique entities that existed. Although they were still lumped together, but they were able to have some unique identities among them. So we had the Northern region, we had the Western region, and we had the Eastern region. Then some three years later, Midwestern region was created, I think, six years later. So these are to take care of the identities of those people. And Nigeria was more healthy when it was operating regional system, than now that it's operating a unitary system. Remember between 1960 to 1966, when we have regional governments, regional governments were competing among themselves, healthy competition. Remember, by 1960, UNN created the first indigenous university. And then, by 1962, 1963, we already have universities in Lagos springing up, IFEI was springing up, Amadebello was springing up. And then, you know, everybody was trying to compete wholly. Grantnot was going on at Heiss and Skin in the North, Pampoy was going on here in the East, and then Coco was moving in the West. So the economy of each region was being competition so that they would not lag behind. And that was to witness, and that was what the country prospered. And that's where the country, where there was the glorious age of Nigeria. Where nationalhood was addressed, first and foremost, we are Nigerians, but they gave, in terms of economic growth, we took it from the regions. And the regions paid tax to the center. And we had strong regions. And then in, after the 16th, 15th January 1966 school, somebody like Aguri Euronsi, you know, from what I've done, you need to decree, and then collapsed everything, I said I created stakes. By 1967, they upgraded websites. And that is where Nigeria started having a very weak federating unit and a very strong center. And that is why, to today, we have really, really gone down the precipice because of that change. So I agree with President Good Lord Jonathan that our people, our first political actors, promoted the region more strongly. But they promoted the nation because through the regions, the Nigerian nation was able to be stronger in terms of economics. So that, where we disagree, is that he said they didn't promote nationalhood. They promoted nationalhood. The Zik of Africa was travelling everywhere, talking about nationalhood. Sardana Osokoto was sparkling Zik then, that look, let us understand our differences. When Zik was saying, let us forget our differences. So we cannot forget our differences because we are different. I'm curious to come in there. Now that you have said that you agree with President Good Lord Jonathan, it seems more like we've just seen that idea of nationalhood, even though we still say that we are a nation. What do we do now because it's about solutions? Good Lord Jonathan has clearly stated that the legacy of nationalhood and roots of unity were weak, even at the Nigerian independence. How do we strengthen it? Because I have sat in a room with several people, leaders of thought, who have also said that, who have said that one way or the other, politicians are the ones who are responsible for the divisions that we are facing as a people. Because I don't know which Nigerian would say they're Nigerian first before they start asking you about your indigent where you're from, are you an indigent or a non-indigent. So where do we start in solving the problems if we have said this is where we started nationalhood from and this is where we are right now. How do we retrace our steps? And do we have leaders who are able to rebuild that? Well, for now, Nigeria is a pretty more, Nigeria is a pretty more as a country, not a nation. Because first of all, there seems not to be a homogeneous focus on how we are going as a nation. So the first thing to start with is, let's take a cue from other African countries, for example. All other African countries that we have received British names, most of them have changed them, especially in West Africa. The British, just like La Lluca called here Nigeria, the British called it Gold Coast. After independence, they changed it to Ghana. We had an offer vote up. After independence, they changed it to Bukinaw Faso. We had a Rhodesia. After independence, they changed it to Zimbabwe. And so many other countries like that, they had changed their name. We had another country, they changed it to Zaire. I forgotten the name, they used to call it. They changed it to Zaire. So what are we talking about? First of all, that is where to start. We don't have a sense of nationhood because this name, first of all, was imposed on us. Having said that, the next thing to do is first of all, we don't have any indigenous national language that would give us that sense of nationhood. We don't have it yet. Therefore, we just speak the English. Isn't that one of the problems that we have? Isn't that one of the problems that we have? I appreciate the fact that you are making reference to other countries. The likes of Bukinaw Faso, the likes of Cameroon, they all speak the same language. They speak the same language. In Nigeria, we have so many languages. We have over 500 indigenous languages. When it comes down to picking which one would be a national language, the politics, of course, comes to play. We might just be going around in circles for a long time. Isn't that one of the problems where we all even can't as much as make a decision as to which language should be national? So we have three major languages, Ibo, Hausa and Yruba. If we decided today that we're going to pick a national language, which would it be? First of all, linguistics. Those who study linguistics will tell you that linguistics evolve. Linguistics can also be created. Linguistics can be merged. That is why you hear languages, items in some languages sound alike. So when you check etymologies of language, of etymologies of words, you find out that there are root points that came up from different places and then coming to mean almost the same thing. So if we had it as an assignment that we took as a nation series, which is what independent, we would have been able to cover a national language. We can create one through a mixture of the various major languages as we have said. And we can create a language out of it. Some countries have done it. You can actually create a language from what you have and teach it and over the years it will become a language. So it is not rocket science actually. Languages are developed. So that is one area also. First of all, let's even begin by changing the name to see whether we can get a name that is indigenous. We can couch it, we can form it. The other one also is that our fathers recognised the fact because of our diversity there is need to have some sense of commonality, some sense of belonging. And that is why they ensure that there is a balance always in terms of political balance, in terms of religious balance, in terms of cultural balance. The last seven or eight years have been thrown into the dustbin. That is also why a lot of people are becoming disenchanted now that is willingly belonging to the same nation. So those are the questions we also need to answer. The other one is that a situation where some part of the country does not feel more privileged than the other. For example, look at the unity school scores. A child in Zaffara State who is 10 years old and going seeking into admission into unity secondary school can score points over 300 or so. Then somebody from Anambra State and Enogustin will not get that admission until it scores 230 something. That shows that we are not a nation. That is a divided country because we are not giving everybody the same comparative advantage, the same playground to play, no equity. So when you start doing things like that, then when you talk of recruitment into the police and some other, the armed forces and some other places, you don't find also a place of some people from one part of the country seems to dominate all. And so when you do that, the other parts of the country that are being online or marginalized will not feel the sense of nationhood because a nation is that give every citizen the opportunity to excel without minding where you come from, where meritocracy is enthroned over nepotism. And that is where you start building a nation. Anything short of that is not my nation and that is why a lot of Nigerians are disenchanted about this nationhood. And it's really that where we are just existing as a country because there's no sense of cohesion yet. But also beyond that over the years we have been able to form bridges across different divides and through intermarriages, through the NYSC has done a lot, for example, to ensure that Nigerians from different parts of the country go to other parts of the country to learn one or two things. But basically that is where it ends because we need to have social and cultural integration but there's also something that is wrong with the way we do our social policies in terms of every one part of the country to another. It's making people feel disenchanted. So and then the biggest fundamental problem with this country called Nigeria while it's not a nation is that we are not practicing physical federalism. Thank you for bringing that up because that was going to be my next question. I was going to ask, that's because the issue of restructuring like you said when you talked about language. You know, we keep saying that oh we need a unifying language but then the action to make that happen has not been resolute in any way. It's not shown any form of resolution in that regard. So is the issue of restructuring. We've been talking about it. Every election cycle it comes up. We throw it up there and we use it as some rhetoric. Why is it so difficult for us including the politicians to embrace the issue of restructuring and getting through federalism? Is it too much a knot to crack? Well, you don't expect the politicians to throw away the things they are gaining. There's time to gain a lot from this present system because where you go to Abuja, everything is centralized, command and control, power is controlled from there, the economy is controlled from there, allocation of resources is controlled from there, allocation and exploitation of mineral resources. They even allocate who to get what and who not to go. How to exploit mineral and not how to exploit mineral. Who owns the oil well and who doesn't own the oil well. So there's so much power concentrated on the centre. Therefore they will not want to really push that power. So we don't expect the politicians to do that. It is the movement of the citizens, the demand of the citizens that will ensure that that happens. And if the citizens are docile about it, then the politicians will not really want to do it because there are humans and we are also humans to where you are getting from. We don't want to turn the apple card. Therefore what we need and what needs to be done is clear to everybody. Though we may not go back to the issue of region, but we can also do that because, for example, most of the states cannot be personal. Most of the states are not sustainable. They are not economically viable. They are just existing as they go to Abuja. Some of them don't contribute anything to the GDP. They don't contribute anything to the income of the country. But every month they go to Abuja because some of them have, what do they do? A nation that uses local government to give allocation and then they go to some places. What they bring to GDP is almost zero percent and because they have 40 local government, they get more than they said that is giving more to the GDP that has 17 or 20 local government. Imagine a leader having 20 local government without the population and then the state somewhere is having for something. So it is that kind of voodoo economics that is making us not be a nation. What we need to do is have a fiscal strategy. Even if it is political, so it is a comfortable reform system. And no, if we want to go back to what we had between 1916 and 1960, but if we don't want to go back, we can do what the way it is constituted, let the states exploit the mineral, let some items of the exclusive list of the constitution, remove to the concurrent list. For example, the issue of mining licenses, the issue of electricity. We are saying that the electricity, for the TCN, the federal government is still holding a grip on it. There are a bunch of laws in the electricity sector that needs to be removed. Look at the issue of refining of petroleum products. The states are not allowed, modular refiners are not allowed to start because of policies that are muslin despite the PIB deal that has been signed into law. Nothing is still happening there. But we are here constructing pipelines to somewhere in the GER report, so these are the problems. That is why a lot of people don't see it as a nation. We are just a country existing and managing and patching up. Thanks to capitalism, where the state's pay tax to the centre has to be revived. That is the only way to actually say you are running a nation. I want to say thank you. Thank you so much for succinctly putting that particular one to an end. Thank you so much once again. Thank you all for watching. We'll take a quick break when we come back. We'll be talking with Serap and INEC because Serap is trying to sue INEC for the 7 million voters who are yet to be registered for 2023. Stay with us.