We were born not of fine politics, our nation's birth theatre echoed loud languages, and rued the ruses of "as soon as practicable". The colonial surgeons, by will or pressure, forfeited sweet cocoa in the west of the Niger, wealth beneath the East, and now with nostalgia, pyramids of grains heaped by the commitment of the Hausas in that dusty, audacious landscape. And then to the south, the Atlantic stayed ours, we gazed at the alluring scenery and vessel traffic.
And so we became a nation not of UN resolution, but from the courage of men, the self denial of the Tafawa Balewa of our history, sailing across the oceans through tricky currents of daylight and wild tides of nighttime in the multiethnic and multifaith company of our 100, 200 and 500 Naira faces, himself being only 5 Naira.To London and back in 1957, to London and back again in 1958, the voyage never less perilous, they returned with a constitution, our swaddling documents.
A nation, fresh in breath, Nnamdi Azikiwe-President, Tafawa Balewa-Prime Minister, Nation Building-The Agenda. Forlornly, ethnic factionalism began to pull the handbrake of a toddling state set in brave motion more by character than by scheme...we jerked to 1966, and in the mid days of the first month, the lifeless body of Sir Balewa awaited picking by the roadside near Lagos.And the Sardauna, slain by the stroke of the same coup, both were in unity with older spirits, with the Dan Fodios. In stepped Aguiyi-Ironsi with the suicidal Decree No. 34, with the calendar turning only 7 times, he was shot by the order of Theo, the Jukun Soldier. Not resting on old heads but on the young shoulders of the man trained in Sandhurst, the young nation brazed itself to counter the intentions of Ikemba. For three years, 1967-1970, 3 million armed men and civilians fell to bullets, malnutrition and disease, but Nigeria won and fire ceased. Only 10 years old, the child labour of Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation beckoned.
60 months later, democracy still procrastinated and Gowon caught offside in Kampala, Radio Nigeria's makeshift presenter voiced:
'Fellow countrymen and women, I, Colonel Joseph Nanven Garba, in consultation with my colleagues, do hereby declare that in view of what has been happening in our country in the past few months, the Nigerian Armed Forces decided to effect a change of the leadership of the Federal Military Government.
As from now, General Yakubu Gowon ceases to be head of the Federal Military Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. The general public is advised to be calm and to go about their lawful duties'.
With Gowon ousted to Hertfordshire, in came the face of 20 Naira, with "fellow Nigerians" and "with immediate effect" on his lips, and the ammunition against corruption, inflation and gerrymandering. But not for too long, nearing 8 months of popularity, Ramat sipped the bullets of Buka Suka Dimka through Mercedes glass shields. Who stood up? The Balogun of Owu, he promised democracy straightaway and shook the hands of the Turakin Sakkwato on this day in 1979. "One Nation, One Destiny" promised the bespectacled Fulani...but when the pockets of fraud and public indiscipline fattened, the slender uniformed chieftain of the war against it toppled bloodlessly on the last day of 1983. Corruption not abating, history gave us gap teeth for gap teeth, the genius of our own Maradona in military regalia. No more Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation but the Structural Adjustment Program, the little General mortgaged our future to the IMF and dribbled the nation beyond the promise for democracy in 1990, in the process nutmegging Orkar in a Dodan Barracks two-a-side game of coup, and journalists did not live to read their letters. Deep into extra time, exhausted from dribbling, he moved the goal post MKO attacked in gorgeous route one fashion for a sterile victory. In Ernest, 33 years old, middle-aged Nigeria was headless under a Transitional Council. Off the bench came the General behind tinted glasses, cheeks lined with Kanuri marks, corruption will be monumental, he decreed:
'The Interim National Government is hereby dissolved.
The National and State Assemblies are also dissolved.
The State Executive Councils are dissolved.
Decree 61 of 1993 is hereby abrogated'
Yet, with the first gap teeth in the PTF, roads were tarred and networked, hospitals and schools were supplied for five years until private fatality consumed the man with the best fitting for every hat. One year on the job, the last Gwari General stepped aside for a man just freed from prison and not backed by his kinsmen but by antecendence- the return of Aremu, the Balogun of Owu. 1999-2007, power, education, security, transportation, healthcare still wishful thinking. In the same style as 1979, he shook the hands of a slim former teacher thinned to his grave to the ascension of another man wholly representative of his name in 2011. The handbrake never reclined.
In spite of these, what makes us 51 is the character Sir Balewa sailed with, and the spirit of compatriots who by ignorance or awareness, by confidence or delusion, and without connection to things but the failure of a fatherland may fret in their ambitions but never in the belief that one day the Nigeria conceived in 1960 will come true. This is how we are 51, hope is the teeming lubricant of this engine with 160 million moving parts. We are 51 because we were never a political or ethnic calculation, but a human calculation and we exist for things extraethnic, extrareligious, and extrapolitical. Always...always optimistic!
