Imperatives of the Nigerian Revolution
Ten lessons from Dele Farotimi’s insights from Nigeria’s past, present realities, and vision of a better future.
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
~Isaac Newton
Seeing through the eyes of those with clearer vision will only help us chart a safer route to our destinations faster.
In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey stated that “The Leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation and yells, “Wrong jungle!””
Seeing Nigeria through the eyes of Barrister Dele Farotimi, is standing on giants’ shoulders. Not only will you see the root causes of Nigeria’s wilderness wandering in all its stark grimness, but you, like the man atop the tallest tree in Stephen Covey’s Wrong Jungle will enter the order of pathfinders charting the route out of Nigeria’s evil forest of socio-political and governmental woes.
When the law does not bind a man and the morals of the people have become as compromised as that of Nigeria; impunity becomes the order of the day and the society itself begins to implode from within.
~ Dele Farotimi
I would wish that every Nigerian read The Imperatives of The Nigerian Revolution.
In it, Mr. Farotimi articulately tracked and pinned down the root causes of Nigeria’s problems. But unfortunately, as is characteristic of many Nigerians, nobody wants to dig deep into the root causes of this rolling disastrous snowball — Nigeria.
Imperatives of the Nigerian Revolution is a contemporary analysis of Nigeria and its lackluster and dimming hope, social, political, and governmental landscape.
The author discusses the emergence of Nigeria and the insidious rampaging retrogressive forces that have hamstrung and kept her perpetually one step backward, three steps backward.
Anytime Nigerians hear of “Revolution”, many of us who grew up in past decades of coups, counter-coups, and military rule mentally respond with, “You are on your own.”
With the benefits of hindsight, Nigerians, are déjà vu wary of any form of “Revolution”, benign or violent that will take them through yesteryear’s woe-begotten route.
Farotimi’s plea is not for a violent revolution. A violent revolution can never work in Nigeria. For a start, you cannot “revolute” for an already docile horde who are forever expecting their liberators to do everything for them on a platter of gold.
Any Revolutionary calling for a violent revolution in Nigeria will meet with lonely frustration and disappointment.
In line with Saul Alinsky's words in, a Nigerian will rightfully respond to such an individual.
The masses of people recoil with horror and say, “Our way is bad, and we were willing to let it change, but certainly not for this murderous madness — no matter how bad things are now, they are better than that.” So they begin to turn back. They regress into acceptance of a coming massive repression in the name of “law and order.
A reformation means that masses of our people have reached the point of disillusionment with past ways and values. They don’t know what will work but they do know that the prevailing system is self-defeating, frustrating, and hopeless. They won’t act for change but won’t strongly oppose those who do. The time is then ripe for revolution.
Similarly, Farotimi reiterated the need for Nigerian’s reformation. His idea of a peaceful revolution calls for change using peaceful, non-violent means. Otherwise, there is no hope of redemption for our country.
Some Pertinent Lessons
1. Nigeria is a Feudalized Democracy
In writing Do Not Die in Their War, I sought to deal specifically with the several lies, the foundational lies that have undergirded the Nigerian governance system and assured that instead of being a nation that caters to citizens who are equal, Nigeria had over the years become a feudalized democracy that caters only and solely for the interest of the rulers, whilst the ruled are perpetually kept underfoot.
I have spent a lot of time and effort in trying to persuade the Nigerian, by deductive analogies and logic, to see how we are all rendered serfs and slaves by the governing systems and the fraudulent 1999 constitution, but nothing that I have ever written or said in lectures and interviews, have illustrated the point, better than the entirety of the #EndSARS protests and its brutal put-down at the Lekki Massacre of 20/10/2020.
2. On Nigeria’s Elite
The Nigeria middle class is the fertile ground for the promotion of all of the divisions sowed by the ‘ruining crass’.
They are the ones that you would find on the internet fighting the battles of the ‘ruining crass.’ They are the ones that have embraced religiosity as a refuge from the harsh realities of their existential lives, and they are the ones that have failed to make use of their education and learning, to teach, instruct, and guide the lower classes with whom they interact daily.
They are the ones with the capacity to recognize the several iniquities of the Nigerian State. They are the ones acquainted with its evil wickedness. These have eyes, but are wilfully blind. They have failed to discern that the evil befalling them is visited on them by their own, and they have bought the hate: hook, line, and sinker.
3. War or Dissolution is Not the Solution
Continuing from above, Farotimi explained, “I understand the pains and frustrations behind these agitations, and I am not promoting or counseling inaction, but beyond people talking about war, have they factored in the fact that talks inevitably follow wars, before they might be ended?”
For these foolish warriors, the solution to the Nigerian problem is simple, and as simpletons, they have believed: divide Nigeria and be done with it already.
4. Nigerians Have Never Being Citizens of Nigeria
The same Nigerians, who have refused to engage with the system to peacefully demand citizenship, but are happy with indigene-ship, whilst eyeing promotion to the ‘ruining crass’, are the ones promoting and demanding the break-up of the country that they wouldn’t fight to birth.
Nigeria was founded on indigene- ship, and Nigerians have never been citizens in the true sense of the word.
5. Some of Nigeria’s ruling class are working hard to destroy Nigeria. Why? They are afraid they might one day have to account for their crimes against Nigeria.
The Nigeria ‘ruining crass’ is not going to miss the Nigeria State.
As I have sought to establish, the rulers of Nigeria have committed several crimes against Nigerian people, and they are afraid of the day when they might be asked to explain their crimes.
They have concluded that the destruction of the country would ensure that they wouldn’t have to account for the evils that they have perpetrated on the land.
Our ruiners are pyromaniacs; burning down the State erases the huge crime scene the country is. If Nigeria would be saved from the impending catastrophe, it would be Nigerians of all ethnicities, languages, and biases that would have to collectively save the State from itself.
It is the victims of Nigeria’s several afflictions that need Nigeria to survive.
6. United, we will stand, but impossible without justice.
The benefit of history means that one has a rear-view mirror from whence to look. But one critical part of the hegemony were the Nigerian ethnic and religious minorities.
Taken together as a group, the minorities are actually numerically superior in number to any of the three major ethnic groups. But given their balkanisation in the three original regions — which became four at the dawn of the second coup — simply meant that their fear of ethnic domination and injustice which had always coloured their relationship with every one of the majority, it was better to be a part of a united Nigeria.
In a balkanised Nigeria their minority status would guarantee their marginalisation. It then meant that at every point in time when anyone of the three major ethnic groups sought to break away from the Nigerian federation, it had to fall on the ethnic minorities, acting in concert without consultation, responding to their own fears, to act as a check on every secessionist tendency.
There is nothing for the ethnic minorities in a breakdown of the Nigerian Federation. Those in the northern part have centuries-old memories of Fulani or Borno domination.
7. If you want the Nigerian state to take you seriously, become a terrorist, militant, or kidnapper.
The Nigeria State is happy to speak with violent terrorists, it has absolutely no problem with kidnappers, hostage-takers, and militants of all sorts, but it has never had room for engagement with citizens.
It has no template for such engagements because it has no room for the mutual accommodation of its rapacious rulers, bred on impunity, and the lawful demands of the citizens, and the obligations and restraints that that would place on the rulers.
8. By Design: Nigeria was created on an unbalanced foundation of inequity.
The creation of the first and original veto that was part of the foundation of the Nigeria State before its Independence has been well-documented. Sharwood Smith’s book, (particularly pages 216–221 in Always As Friends), dealt exhaustively with how the foundation was laid in 1947 to ensure that the North always held its veto.
There were 136 members – 68 from the northern part, 68 from the two southern regions combined. This will mean that each region had 34 members. Hence, the north had 68 and the western region had 34 and the east, 34. This was the beginning of the institution of the Fulani hegemony over Nigeria. It is also the beginning of the problems that have plagued Nigeria from the dawn of its birth.
9. “The Nigerian president is literally more powerful than the American president, at least it was, until the coming of Donald Trump. “
The Nigerian president essentially operates at the top of a gangster empire; is completely above the law; operates above the cult; and is unrestrained and unfettered in his dealings and actions by any law that will bind every other citizen.
With the adoption of the presidential system under the 1979 constitution, a complete departure from everything that was ever agreed upon either by the British or even the owners of the hegemonies themselves. Emirates were effectively created all over Nigeria and these became points from where patronages were dispensed.
10. The Errors of Nigeria’s would-be liberators.
When a person is related to the battle, they fight with no regard to their personal safety; the interests that are intrinsic to the fight suffices as sufficient motivation.
But the duty to educate and connect the people to the struggle for their freedom has not always engaged the attention of the Nigerian progressive movement. This disconnect weakens any impact on the system, delegitimizes the exertions made, devalues the sacrifices, and discounts the pains of the ones who have sought to lead the people to freedom.
These examples have taught me that you cannot revolt on a people’s behalf, and that nothing will change in Nigeria, until the Nigerian people are connected to the battles for their own liberation.
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On Nigerian issues, Dele Farotimi thinks more effectively and efficiently than any one else you’ve read. His book will clear the scales will clear from your eyes and you will have a better grasp of why Nigeria has never worked for you.
Unless Nigerians and their rulers heed the warnings of this lonely prophet, they will forever be beset by one crisis or the other — forever deviating from its destiny while the rest of the world leaves them behind.
Writing about Nigeria, author Karl Maier in his book, This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis had this sweeping and generally correct conclusion.
There is certainly much anarchy to be managed in Nigeria, but just doing that — if it can be done — is not enough.
The tragedy of the future is that Nigerians refuse to learn from their own past. “We are far more anxious to dismiss what happened than anything else. Nobody wants to get to the bottom of anything.
~ Karl Maier
So long as Nigerians keep journeying in the ever-deepening sea of rascality we see and swim in, this country will keep on sinking irredeemably.
Here, the pervading atmosphere is of salient desperation, hunger, and degradation. Therefore, things get very easy for you, because “If you want to hide anything from Nigerians, simply put it in writing.” The sad reality is that many of our people don’t or won’t read.
Calling Nigerians to read Dele Farotimi’s books is like calling a terminally sick person to read the required dosage for the medicines that will save his life. Yet, the only safe path is the route marked by milestones of honor and steadfast principles, and the involvement of all Nigerians as succinctly set forward by Dele Farotimi.
You can download your free copy of The Imperatives of The Nigerian Revolution from Dele’s site or via Amazon.
A kingdom can endure with unbelief, but it cannot endure with injustice.
~ Uthman Dan Fodio (1754–1817)
Source
©’Dele Farotimi, The Imperatives of The Nigerian Revolution, Dele Farotimi Publishers, 2021
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