Fani Kayode - Nigeria is destined to fail

A former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, says Nigeria has been destined to fail since its creation by the British in 1914.

He said the British created Nigeria such that the ‘poor North’ would continue to rule while the ‘rich South’ will remain oppressed.

He said shortly before independence, the British gave the North permanent rule.

He said, “The Nigeria that they (British) handed over to us in 1960 was nothing but an unworkable artificial state and a poisoned chalice. It was destined to fail right from the outset.

“Worse still, they handed us that poisoned chalice with a malicious and mischievous intent and without any recourse to our people in terms of any form of a national referendum.”

Fani-Kayode, said what the British did in Nigeria was replicated in other countries like India and Sudan, adding that those countries had since divided having woken up politically.

He said it was regrettable that Nigerians had failed to take their destinies into their own hands.

He added, “The British did the same thing in varying degrees when they left virtually each and every one of their other third world colonies. The most obvious cases, however, were Nigeria, Sudan, India and the nation that was formerly known as Malaya.

“Every one of these four countries had monumental problems with sustaining their unity after independence and all of them, with the exception of Nigeria, were compelled to breakup into smaller entities before they could bring out the best in themselves as a people and fully exercise their human potential.

“Consequently, India broke up into three and became India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; the Sudan broke into two and became Southern Sudan and the Sudan and Malaya broke into two and became Malaysia and Singapore. Nigeria has yet to find the courage and fortitude to go that far and whether we will eventually break up or not remains to be seen.”

Fani-Kayode said if the terms of the ‘marriage’ between the North and the South were not reviewed, there could be further crisis.

He added, “The result of the amalgamation was predictable. It was either the ‘poor husband’ (the North) would fully subjugate and eventually kill the ‘rich wife’ (the South) or the ‘rich wife’ would fully subjugate and eventually kill the ‘poor husband’. And we are right in the middle of that struggle for mutual subjugation till today.”

The Peoples Democratic Party chieftain said the only way to address the “unfair” arrangement was a complete devolution of powers. He said Nigeria must embrace true federalism.