This is undoubtedly one of the most important issues in Nigeria today. It has always been so, but today the suspicions and the fears and the challenges of national unity and cohesion havereached a crescendo that is threatening the continuity of the republic. Admittedly this clamor is driven by ignorance and emotions rather than knowledge and foresight. It is therefore important that it is addressed by experts and statesmen so that Nigerians will be more informed and nation-building process will be salvaged from the short-sightedness of poorly informed local champions. The NIPSS is the most befitting place to discuss and thrash this important issue, being the think-tank of the nation and the repository of the nation’s memory and wisdom.
Nation Building is used to refer to the tasking and delicate process of state formation. While nations come into existence as a result of historical events, but nations are no historical accidents. They are a result of the hard and difficult process of keeping a polity together by among other things efforts to galvanize
citizens to acquire that common sense of belonging and national cohesion through gradual social integration. By its nature nation building is dynamic process and is a journey, not a destination. Nations have to continuously be built to maintain that cohesion necessary for the nation to summon its national assets and to succeed in the competitive world of nation states. We can see how nations that are thought to be well settled and established keep going back to address some of the more fundamental bases of their existence.
Almost every nation state which has succeeded in evolving into a stable enviable polity today went through several trials and tribulations before getting there. So if it is any consolation, Nigeria is not alone, in fact a number of countries have had to fight several wars to arrive at where they are today. Europe have many such states, but today they operate like a single big nation under the European Union. After several wars fought they discovered that they need each other after all and that they are better together than separate. That
they have gone to several length to keep this union and made heavy investment and sacrifices should be enough lessons for us today.
As historians know very well, until the emergence of the modern nation state some two hundred years ago or so, human societies were largely organized under empires of varying sizes which often go to war to protect their economic assets or incorporate other polities to grow their economy. During this phase of human history plural societies gradually integrate into each other, creating new communities and new language groups. The search for knowledge as well as the search for livelihood through trading were the more regular processes driving integration. Occasional natural disasters causing migration also add to the causes of the evolution of the different communities. By and large, these movements are gradual and cumulative and over time disparate communities adjust, fuse and evolve into new communities. It is essentially these phenomena which produced the succession of the empires in
the WestAfrican region from Ghana, Borno, Mali through Songhay and Sokoto Caliphate.
The coming of European imperialism which occasioned the colonization of African communities and the drawing of arbitrary Borders, forcing separate communities to come together and the separating of single community into disparate parts created havoc to this otherwise gradual and more natural process of human integration. This colonial disruptions appear to constitute the greatest challenges of nation building in Africa today. Prior to colonization, state formation in Africa was far more gradual, humane and robust. It is therefore important we do not lose sight of this important point.
The Sokoto Caliphate for example (to speak about an experience I am more familiar with) was unprecedented in size and population, plural in both religion and ethnicity, yet even the British resorted to its administrative structure to run its colonial rule. What facilitated the social integration of the Sokoto Caliphate
is the love for strangers, the cosmopolitan disposition and the desire to spread the message of Islam beyond the confines of the polity which all added to the economic growth and peaceful coexistence in the polity. Many of these ideas were actually state policies clearly spelt out in the many books written by the leaders of the Caliphate. These books were not issued ‘from on high’, even as the stature of the scholars and the hierarchy of society grants them that privilege, yet there were rigorous debates and often disagreements between themselves. These disagreements were not fundamental and were done with such decorum that the respect, nay reverence, among the hierarchy was not in any way affected. It is a measure of their selflessness, scholarship and maturity that never led to any disruption of obedience to constituted or moral authority. It only brought quality and thoroughness in their leadership.
We should not lose sight of the fact that today in Nigeria, there are quite many who promote all manners of hatred and uncultured utterances because that is the only way they can become prominent and for some it has become a means of livelihood. Democracy has given rights to citizens to express themselves and these rights are important and should be guaranteed; but the exercise of such rights must not be at the expense of the peace and progress of the polity. So while remaining democratic we must not find a way to curtail those who wish to injure our corporate interest as a people and as a country.
It is my hope that these experts will do justice to this important matter. I also urge us to learn from the lessons of others in the Americas, Europe and Asia, but particularly lessons of our precolonial societies and polities that have held sway for nearly one thousand years before the coming of Europeans. In Nigeria we have a lot of lessons from the older polities such as Kanem-Borno, Oyo and Benin Kingdoms and of course the Sokoto caliphate. It is time to return home and look inwards for the solutions to our problems rather chasing foreign models. I believe that the collective wisdom of our pre-colonial societies will give us fresh insight in the search for solutions to the problems of Nation Building.
Sultan’s remarks as Chairman at the NIPSS Graduation Lecture delivered by Guinea Bissau President.
