Again, here one observes lies taking the position of truth, or in other words, lie masquerading as the truth. This is odd and absurd. Yet, these are the realities of our environment today: lies are presented, touted and taught to the public as truth. Appearance is presented as the very essence of things. When falsehood is held as objective truth, either ignorantly or deliberately, management of affairs and development become onerous. Nothing works no matter how much efforts are invested for we operate under the climate of confusion.
It needs be reiterated, Mr. President, that Nigeria is a combined parcel of lands and territories, which English colonialists with the help of the then European powers, namely Germany, Portugal, Spain, etc. sitting in Berlin from November 15, 1884 through February 26, 1885 forcibly snatched from the Yoruba, Gbagyi¸ Tiv, Igbo¸ Hausa, Jukun, Ngas, among others. These territories the English colonial interpolers amalgamated and nicknamed “Niger Area” in 1914 whence ensued the tag “Nigeria.”
Various politicians of the Yoruba, Hausa and other contraptions have called Nigeria as a mere “geographical expression”, “a mistake of 1914”. Indeed, it was a great mistake, but a greater mistake took place thereafter when in 1960 and 1963 those who cognised and saw the underlying error of the amalgam state nevertheless glossed over the huge mistake. They received this mistake from the English colonial interlopers when circumstances of history impelled on the interlopers to depart the shores of these once grabbed and occupied territories. However, these individual territories were forcibly occupied and powers and authorities usurped from the native inhabitants were passed from legitimate authentic leaders of these (occupied territories). In the first place, at the point of the colonial interlopers’ departure, they passed on these powers and authorities now concentrated in one body onto a third party — a group the interlopers invented, groomed in the interlopers’ world view and whom they nicknamed, “Nigerians”. This way, the occupation of these territories, even after the interlopers had left, continued to persist and guaranteed, albeit in a complicated and more sophisticated mode!
For the period of usurpation and occupation, it appeared the interlopers succeeded in fooling the varying autochthonous peoples that they were no longer who they had been, peoples of varying identities, but changed identity, now fussed into one, Nigerians. Not any more Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Gbagyyi, Ngas Tiv, Idoma, Jukun, Kamoton, Bachama, Kataf, Berom, Eggom, Higgis, etc. Any attempt to identify self by genuine, natural socio-historically formed oneness of a group would earn the person the scolding of the establishment as the person is called names, labelled a tribalist, sectionalist, parochial-minded individual who is against the unity of the country. A colonial amalgam often miscalled a nation; perhaps deliberately to further confuse issues. The intension of miscalling the amalgam a nation is to misrepresent and mispresent the various socio-historically formed specific national human cultural groups, as tribes. In Europe, though, the English is not presented as a tribe, neither are Scotland, Wales, and France nor the Germans, Ukrainians and Czechs that constitute Austria are so referred.
African political shepherd before you, my President, did not cognise/see this or they failed to recognise this problem and did not attempt solving it.
Imagine, Mr. President! The absurdity of African political realties does not end with the situation described earlier. The greatest absurdity is noticed in the instances, of the following: The Akan town, Nkroful, the birth place of Kwame Nkrumah, like many other towns, cities and villages in Africa, was partitioned into two, no thanks to the Berlin Conference: one side of the town fell under English colonial rule, while the other portion was French possession. Thus depending on where one was at the time of implementing the outcome of the Berlin Conference, parents, brothers, sisters, cousins became foreigners to one another and till date! Contradiction!!
Many such towns and villages abound along the Nigerian borders to the north, west and east. The Bakassi people’s present predicament is the product of such contradiction and absurdity. These are some of the absurdities, oddities and abnormalities our political leaders hitherto held as sacrosanct, as perfect order. Nothing can work, it must be said, under such a climate of confusion. Experience since the sham Independence to date demonstrates this convincingly.
Mr President, the transformation of the political landscape in Nigeria and Africa thus is inevitable now! Present political leaders in Africa must do what their predecessors failed to do and/or left undone. And must undo what their predecessors did but ought to have left undone. The priority action here is to undo the Berlin Conference and its aftermath, which condemned Africa to a permanent disorder, chaos and confusion.
From now on, my President, concentrate and gather all necessary materials in order to convince your fellow Heads of State and government at the next African Union meeting, that there is an urgent need for a special extraordinary summit of the body to deliberate on what to do to secure self-retrieval of the self, group by group. Examine and consider binding decision to take on the road map for the actualisation of the undoing of the Berlin conference and its aftermath.
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