Maintaining Nigeria’s Unity: Lessons from Zik’s Nationalism and Politics

MAINTAINING NIGERIA’S UNITY: LESSONS FROM ZIK’S NATIONALISM AND POLITICS

by Prof. B. C. Osisioma

Nigeria has proved that it takes more than mere potentials to transit to true greatness. In spite of a glut in human, natural and material resources, the nation is weighed down by an unfortunate interplay of factors. The emergence of the military as an armed political party, the near ‚cardiac arrest‛ of the oil-rich Niger-Delta otherwise called ‚the heart of the Nigerian economy‛, the excesses of Islamic fundamentalism in the North, the ferment of Yoruba dissent and insurgence in the West, and the growing restlessness of the marginalised Igbos of the South-East, all portend ominous signs for the Nigerian federation - a deadly and inflammable cocktail that could ignite and inflame passions in the nation. This paper offers the Zikist principles of compromise, negotiation and accommodation to ease the tensions in the land. If Europe was built out of the colonial exploitation of Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries, and modern American was built on the sweat and tears of slaves transported across the Atlantic ocean in inhuman and dehumanizing conditions, then modern Nigeria seems to be built on the rape and abuse of the South-South and South-East regions where much of Nigeria’s oil is mined. Only equity, fairness and natural justice in the allocation of the nation’s abundant resources, will enable the land and her people be at peace. Keywords: Federalism, Unity, Diversity, Ethnic Conflicts, Nationalism, Zikism.