Okay, let’s talk Nigeria. Why, you ask? Because it’s probably the
only African country most can name aside from Egypt and that one with
all the white people. And maybe Chad, just because it’s so silly. But
more importantly, Nigeria should be better understood because it is the
largest country in Africa by population (about 7th in the world, with
around 180,000,000 people and growing tremendously)
and therefore the arguable hope for a huge amount of the continent
(some people say Ghana is the hope, I think it’s too small to be so).
But, as you probably could have guessed, Nigeria has not been doing too
well at all as of... as of... ever. Since its creation, Nigeria has
been completely crippled by rampant political corruption and internal
conflicts. While political corruption is fairly self-explanatory (“take
what you can when you can”), the conflicts are what I wanted to focus
on. What internal conflicts may these be? Quick, the map!
Huh, that certainly looks complicated… and not a whole lot different from any other African country. Let’s take Gabon:
Okay,
so most African countries’ borders completely suck, in the fact that
they’re totally arbitrary; they don’t reflect anything about their
inhabitants. So then why does Nigeria stand out, even amongst them, as
particularly awful? Maybe this will help:
You
got Muslims in the north and Christians in the South; the religious
fault line of Africa runs right through the god-damn country. You might
think, “Well, it looks like the Muslims control well more than half the
country, so what’s the big deal?” Well, here’s the thing. See that
thing in the lower left corner called Lagos? That’s the second biggest
city in the world, at least as far as cities ‘proper’ go. As for the
Igbo, they control the populous Niger Delta, meaning together the two
southern regions’ population is about equal to the North’s. And it’s
not even like these religious groups are united. On top of flat
religious differences, there are more even more general cultural ones.
For example, the Hausa-Fulani of the North have traditionally supported
a very autocratic form of government, where the Igbo have been
traditionally democratic, and the Yoruba in between. Anyhow, there’s
yet another overlay adding even greater tension to this house of cards.
This division would be that of economics. When the British controlled
Nigeria, each group responded differently towards them. The North,
which the British controlled indirectly (through allowing the rulers of
the area to remain in power), had become staunchly anti-Western. On the
other hand, the South, especially the Igbo region, embraced the British
cultural imperialism much more. I don’t mean that like all the Igbo
ran into the streets and threw flowers at the British, but rather that
the Igbo elites were willing to, say, work with them more. So, what
happened was that by the 1950s, the North was totally underdeveloped and
clinging to the rest of the country like some grotesque tumor of sorts.
This led to a culmination of great paranoia in the region; widespread
belief that the South would just overrun the North when it could. When
Nigeria won its independence, the North’s leaders acted on this fear and
demanded that the new Nigerian state’s government favor the North. The
South, desiring political independence from Britain above anything
else, agreed. That was until 1966, where a failed, predominantly
Igbo-run coup d’etat and the events that ensued ultimately resulted in
the installation Nigerian Army’s general, an Igbo, as president of the
country. The North felt that the Igbo conspirators had planned to put
the fellow Igbo Army general into office, and became ever more fearful
of the Igbo taking them over. This led to an explosion of ethnic
violence in the North, targeting the wealthy Igbo tradesmen who had made
their ways into the area. This prompted the Igbos to secede in 1967,
as the state of Biafra. What followed was one of the more horrific
African conflicts in history; the Nigerian Civil War. The Yoruba region
basically sat idle as the Hausa-Fulani of the North sent in “police
forces” to dislodge Biafra’s secessionist government. Although the
Biafran soldiers fought surprisingly valiantly, and even launched a
fairly effective offensive into Yoruba territory, they ultimately could
not stop the bigger and better-equipped northern force. The Nigerian
army was able to ultimately encircle Biafra, with the capturing of Port
Harcourt in May, 1968. What ensued was the real tragedy; between over 1
million (and possibly as high as 3 million) Igbo civilians starved to
death over the course of a year and a half. The war ultimately end in
1970, with Biafra being repossessed by Nigeria. It was a truly horrific
moment in history that had so little implications beyond just flat
ethnic between the two groups that the rest of the world was
legitimately confused in what to do. For example, the UK, the Soviet
Union, and Saudi Arabia all sided with Nigeria, where the US, France,
and Canada sided with Biafra. It just astounds me that there was a war
where the US was on the opposite side of both
the UK and Saudi Arabia, but that’s just me. Anyhow, the war did not
really change much in the long-term, in that the country’s south still
remains economically dominant, with the Igbo and Yoruba controlling both
oil and commerce, respectively. The North is still significantly
anti-Western, with the spreading influence of the terrorist organization
Boko Haram (“Western education is sinful”), as well paranoid over being
‘taken over by the South’. As of 2010, Nigeria’s presidential cycling
between the North and South was interrupted when then-president Umaru
Musa Yar'Adua (a Northerner) died, allowing for Vice President Goodluck
Jonathan (a Southerner) to finish his term. Jonathan then ran for
presidency 2011 and subsequently won. This outraged many in the North,
who wanted the North to be given another term since their last president
died in office.
Anyhow, I just wanted to bring up the whole ‘Nigeria’ thing because of
two reasons. First, it draws many parallels, even if loose, to what has
been discussed in class. Nigeria continues to be imprisoned by its
history of colonialism just as much as Rwanda, and many elements of the
Nigerian Civil War resembled genocide. But I’ll let you decide for
yourself through your own independent research. Anyhow, Nigeria also
greatly reminds us on how much history repeats itself, or rather can
repeat itself if allowed. Perhaps we’ve already seen this in class.
The Holocaust, Yugoslavia, Rwanda. It is up to us to not understand
this simple fact of repetition, but learn to counteract it. If we fail
to, then we will be no better than this country of Nigeria, too busy
reliving the tragedies of the past to break out of its quiet
desperation.
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