Nigeria: How Aristotle Got It Wrong!, by Kershio Desmond Shater

“If rapid political progress is to be made in Nigeria it is high time we were realistic in tackling its constitutional problems. Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. The word Nigeria is merely a coinage to distinguished those living within and those who do not. There are no ‘Nigerians’ in the same sense as there are ‘English’, ‘Welsh’ or ‘French’.”

– Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1947)

If the postulation by the great Greek Political Philosopher, Aristotle, that the only way to maximizes ones capabilities and attain the highest form of social life was through the state as an ‘institutionalized setting designed to resolve conflicts and set collective goals’ is anything to go by, then Nigeria as a nation – state has so far got it wrong!

Aristotle was trying to justify the necessity of the state in his famous work ‘Politics.’ Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature in which life would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” seemed to have occupied Aristotle’s political philosophical mind in trying to fashioned a way out in his work. Hobbes’ political theory began with axioms: that men are rational and desire above all their own preservation. Hence, they are led by a ‘perpetual and restless desire of power after power’ to a condition of ‘War’ of every man against every man in the state of nature. This paint a true picture of the state of affairs in Nigeria today: “A condition of war of every man against every man…”

Yes, the state Nigeria as ‘an institutionalized setting’ has failed abysmally to resolved the myriads of conflicts bedeviling her since the unfortunate 1914 British-interests driven contraption in the name of amalgamation. Setting of collective goals is a alien to this conglomerate of many nationalities. At best what obtained is the aggressive aggregates of individual, ethnic, sectional or class goals at the detriment of the general or collective interests.

I want to agree with Aristotle that “Man is by nature a political animal.” But it is very disturbing the kind of ‘political animals’ that populate this West African entity. Political animals that view national life through the narrow prism of partisanship, and play partisan politics at the expense of national interest or cohesion.

David Easton’s definition of politics as ‘the authoritative allocation of values’ is hardly applicable to us. Here, instead of values being allocated, they are blatantly bastardized. And the level of the bastardization of our national values is to the extent that who gets what, when and how (apologies to Harold Lasswell) is strictly the exclusive reserved of a few privileged individuals or groups. Greed has replaced contentment, merit overthrown by nepotism, sectionalism is unduly celebrated over qualification, truth is a by word as falsehood is entrenched, hard work is no longer recognised, creativity not rewarded.

Recently, I watched a documentary on the lives of inmates in Saudi Arabia. The focus was the number of Nigerians on death roll in the Western Asian country. But my empathy for those awaiting execution was momentarily suppressed by the magnificent nature of the prison facilities. The cleanness was like a five star hotel in Nigeria. Then I remember the accounts of one football official who visited Egypt, and came back to confessed that the infrastructural beauty of Egypt cannot be compared to the ones in Nigeria.

So if one may ask, where did we get it wrong as a nation?

The above famous quote by the late sage, Chief Jeremiah O. Awolowo is better appreciated if it is properly situated within the context in which it was made. Far from advocating secession as others would want us to believe, Awolowo was simply pointing the way out of Nigeria’s seemingly intractable challenges. Writers or public commentators who professed otherwise are simply ‘guilty of intellectual immorality’. Remember, the late statesman book that contains this view is entitled, “Path to Nigerian Freedom.”  And the title of the chapter in question is ‘Towards Federal Union.’ These make it clear that he was an advocate of a federal constitution and not a secessionist.

Honestly, Awolowo was only worried or deeply concerned about the uncertainties in the then nation’s state of affairs as some of us are in the contemporary Nigeria, honest.