When all is said and done, the knitty-gritty issue, which is still at steak about Nigeria is that state building amongst the distinct nationalities that British colonialism brought together to constitute it is still up in the air.  Although British conquest and colonial rule was able to establish the de facto state of Nigeria amongst the nationalities, the necessary and sufficient factor—legitimacy—for its stability has been absent except in the core areas of the Sokoto Caliphate Empire society with whose ruling classes the British struck a durable alliance right after its army was routed by Frederick Lugard’s forces on the plains outside the city of Sokoto on that faithful day in 1904.  From my research, I did discern that both the modicum of stability that the Nigerian state enjoys in the core parts of the Caliphate society and the alliance between the British and the Caliphate ruling classes derive from the congruence and consonance between the authority patterns of the Nigerian state and those of the Caliphate state.  Both are inherently autocratic to boot.  Elsewhere in the rest of the Niger basin, where such congruence and consonance are lacking for the reason that authority and its practice amongst the nationalities that inhabit those areas are normatively democratic, a similar alliance was never struck and the resistance to British intervention and colonial rule didn’t ebb at all.  The departure of the British, end of de facto colonial rule and the transfer of power to Britain’s Hausa-Fulani allies simply entailed the recalibration of that resistance by the other nationalities.  Look down the valley of Nigeria’s checkered existence and tell me if it’s not filled with the wreckages and indicators of the political instability that I’m talking about.  The unfortunate truth is that Nigeria has sustained its roll on the lane of illegitimacy ever since. 

Fast forward to today.  That self same roll on the lane of illegitimacy is still on.  This last time, Umaru Yar’Adua and his handlers are not unaware that they were in violation of the “Constitution” that same day when they wheeled him onboard the aeroplane to Saudi Arabia without fulfilling the relevant clauses as stipulated.  The sad truth is that they’ll still be in violation even if they decide now to do what they failed to do at the time.  The fact that the preference is to roll that violation aside to enable Nigeria’s roll on the lane of illegitimacy wouldn’t help matters at all.  The resolution passed today by both arms of the National Assembly that Mr. Goodluck Jonathan should become acting president wouldn’t entail otherwise.  If the resolution to make him acting president is not prescribed by the “Constitution”, it’s yet another illegitimate pile-up.  There have been quite a lot of those illegitimate pile-ups ever since Yar’Adua’s abdication in November last year.

My lack of legal training notwithstanding, I still do not see why any or all of the nationalities that were made to constitute Nigeria should not take advantage of the continuing pile-ups of illegitimacy to embrace self determination.  If they don’t embrace that option today, there’s no guarantee that they wouldn’t tomorrow, or the day after.  There’s no legitimate excuse for the game of self-deceit by the managers of the Nigeria project to continue.  It’s simply unsustainable.  Making Goodluck Jonathan acting president will not resolve the teething issue of unfinished state building amongst the nationalities. 

If all the state building activities by ambitious state builders who lived in the upper Niger’s open savanna ecological zone couldn’t sufficiently subdue its inhabitants and bring them under a stable polity, how reasonable is it to assume that all inhabitants of the entire Niger basin will be kept under wraps by deceit in the Nigeria project?  In our time, states can never be built through wars and banditry as the case was in early modern times.  My assessment of the situation indicates that there’s a peaceful way to resolve the unfinished business of state building amongst the nationalities.  There’s also a not-so peaceful way that cannot be wished away. 

I haven’t seen how pile-ups of illegitimacy would resolve the mistrust of the Nigerian state by a line up of distinct nationalities in an indefinite manner.  The least of the consequences of those pile-ups of illegitimacy are the wasted years, the underdevelopment that characterize them, and the unsavory image that Nigeria stamps on each and every one of us who, driven by our conscience, decided to opt out of the mess to lobe-trot instead in search of a dignified livelihood.  For how much longer must the deceit continue?  The blow up that all the pile-ups and their consequences will produce is inevitable.  People of conscience in every nationality must make haste to appraise the real situation concerning the Nigeria project.  Complacence isn’t a viable option, because come tomorrow or the day after, we’ll have a rendezvous with the inevitable.

● E. C. Ejiogu, PhD is a political sociologist