Africa
Break Nigeria Now! -By Prince Charles Dickson, Ph.D
The Igbo remind us: “Mmiri doro anaghi agba oto”—when rain falls, it does not fall on one roof alone. Our fates are tied, whether we like it or not. The question is whether we continue drowning separately or rise together.
Nigeria should be divided like the fingers but united like the fist —Nnamdi Azikwe
One does not eat “I almost” in a stew. (What one missed narrowly, one cannot enjoy at all)
Is Nigeria truly a country—or better still, is it a contraption, a hurriedly assembled mosaic of ethnic nationalities stitched together by colonial convenience? More than a century after Lord Lugard’s amalgamation and Flora Shaw’s christening of “Nigeria,” the question still hangs like an unrelieved burden: Is there truly a Nigeria?
Every time I ask this question, silence greets me, followed by nervous laughter, then evasive answers. The Yoruba say, “A kii fi oruko je omo”—we do not waste a child because of the name it bears. But what happens when the very name is a burden? When the name carries no etymology from within, no spirit of the land, no resonance with our roots?
The etymology of Nigeria is alien: Niger Area. A label for colonial cartographers, not a destiny for a people. Can we find a soul in a name that was never birthed by us?
We have continued to live the burden of a borrowed name. Names are powerful. They mold character and carry ancestral weight. Among the Igbo, “Aha onye na-edu ya”—a person’s name guides them. The Hausa say, “Sunan ka shi ke yi maka jagora”—your name is your compass. If names indeed direct destinies, then Nigeria has been wandering in borrowed clothes, stumbling in shoes that were never hers.
Our leaders proclaim transformation and rebirth, yet corruption festers, ethnicity triumphs, and mediocrity thrives. Perhaps it is because the foundation was laid on borrowed soil: a name without meaning, a union without consent, a country without a country’s soul.
Let us speak plainly. Nigeria is less a nation than a bargaining table of ethnic identities. In truth, we are Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Tiv, Kanuri, Ijaw, Nupe, Ibibio, Birom, and more. We are Arewa, Oduduwa, Biafra, South-South. The idea of Nigeria has yet to transcend these primordial roots.
We are expected to dissolve centuries of distinct kingdoms, empires, and cultures into a single fragile national fabric. But what we have is not weaving—it is patchwork. And when patchwork is strained, it tears.
The Yoruba proverb warns, “A kii fi ika mefa se aso”—you cannot sew cloth with six fingers. Yet that is what we attempt: forcing a unity of disparate peoples under a name that inspires little loyalty.
In the myth of unity, we proclaim “unity in diversity,” but what we practice is uniformity enforced by fear, quotas, and fragile bargains. Our unity is a myth—loud on Independence Day, absent in our neighborhoods. When a Nigerian wins international laurels, we call him “Nigerian.” When he errs, we retreat to his ethnic origin.
The Hausa put it sharply: “Komai nisan jifa, kasa zai fado”—no matter how far you throw a stone, it will land on the ground. No matter how we pretend, we always land on our tribal soil.
This false unity breeds resentment. It is time we admit: Nigeria as constructed has failed to inspire true national belonging.
We are no playing to our strengths. So, what then is the answer? Must we dissolve into fragments, or can we reimagine a pact?
The fist is strong because fingers bend together, yet fingers remain fingers. Perhaps Nigeria must be re-imagined not as forced uniformity but as cooperative strength. Let the Hausa farmer till his fertile Sahel. Let the Yoruba trader expand markets. Let the Igbo entrepreneur build industries. Let the Ijaw fisherman command the creeks. Each playing to strength, not pretending sameness.
The Igbo say, “Otu aka rụọ orụ, ọ daa, ma otu aka arụkọ ọnụ, ha atụpụ nnukwu ihe”—one hand alone cannot lift a heavy load, but when hands join, the burden is lighter. That is the Nigeria we should strive for. Not a false melting pot, but a federation of proud identities contributing to a shared destiny.
Our tragedy is compounded by leadership. Leaders speak of reform but practice plunder. They preach change but perpetuate decay. They swear by God but worship at the altar of greed. In the absence of a rooted national value, corruption becomes the substitute creed.
The Yoruba say, “Iwa l’ewa”—character is beauty. Yet Nigerian leadership has beauty without character, or knowledge without integrity, both equally disastrous.
The absence of national etymology has bred a weakness of attitude, which births a weakness of character. We are left with leaders who cannot articulate what Nigeria means, only what they can extract from it.
We boast of being the “giant of Africa,” yet South Africa overshadows us in industry, Ghana outpaces us in governance, and even smaller nations shame us in electricity, education, and security. Our greatness remains locked in memory—Achebe, Soyinka, Okocha—icons from a time when Nigeria still promised potential.
But potential without definition is a mirage. Millions graduate yearly into joblessness, fed into a system with no clear destiny. We say we are resilient, but resilience without progress is stagnation dressed in false pride.
Can Nigeria, a name without origin, create meaning for itself? Yes, but only if we stop running from the truth. Only if we re-negotiate what it means to be Nigerian. Only if we admit that the forced marriage has not worked and choose instead a voluntary covenant of peoples.
The Hausa proverb says, “Ba a maganin ciwon daji da asirin magani”—you cannot cure cancer with secrecy. Nigeria’s cancer cannot be healed by silence or slogans. It requires honesty, courage, and sacrifice.
To our leaders: the true measure of leadership is not how you treat those who flatter you, but how you treat those who can do you no good. To the ordinary citizen: we cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. Change does not begin in Aso Rock; it begins in our homes, our streets, our tribes, our towns.
We must begin to give Nigeria a meaning. To transform it from a Niger area of corruption into an area of hope; from an area of lawlessness into an area of justice; from an area of division into an area of covenant.
The Yoruba say, “Bi a ba so ara wa di apoti, a ki ba ara wa jeun”—if we tie ourselves into a box, we cannot eat together. Nigeria must untie itself from the colonial box, from forced uniformity, and rediscover the covenant of voluntary cooperation.
A politician once defended calling his opponent a bastard, saying, “I only refer to the circumstances of his birth.” What then are the circumstances of Nigeria’s birth? A colonial convenience, a name imposed, a destiny unasked for.
But circumstances need not define destiny. The child born in chaos can grow to greatness if nurtured with care. Nigeria too can be reborn—not by denying her fractured past, but by embracing it with honesty, crafting from it a living pact.
The Igbo remind us: “Mmiri doro anaghi agba oto”—when rain falls, it does not fall on one roof alone. Our fates are tied, whether we like it or not. The question is whether we continue drowning separately or rise together.
So, I ask again: Is there truly a Nigeria? Perhaps not yet. But there can be—if we break Nigeria as a false fiction, and rebuild it as a covenant of peoples. If we divide like fingers, but unite like the fist—May Nigeria win!
—
Prince Charles Dickson PhD
Team Lead
The Tattaaunawa Roundtable Initiative (TRICentre)
Development & Media Practitioner|
Researcher|Policy Analyst|Public Intellect|Teacher
234 803 331 1301, 234 805 715 2301
Alternate Mail: pcdbooks@yahoo.com
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