Nigeria: 1960 -2014

By  Banji Ojewale

 It is as reasonable to represent one kind of imprisonment by another, as it is to represent anything that really exists by that which exists not!                             
–Daniel Defoe (1660– 1731)

A scene at Nigeria’s Independence Day Celebrations

 On October 1, 1960 (pix: nigeria.gov.ng)

Last week, I came across an elderly man (real name withheld) who told me he fled Nigeria in 1960 following the attainment of Independence that year.  He claimed he feared we might not be able to govern ourselves in what he described as a “cobbled union”.  He saw only a future of crisis in the land of incompatibles being put together as compatibles by a departing imperial power.  He, a 23-year-old, did not want to be part of the cataclysm his oracle was presenting as the tomorrow of newly Independent country.

From the way he put it, the crystal ball literally landed him in that future.  In a word, he time-travelled into that era.  It was not a salubrious trip, he said.  He did not wish to experience the reality of the years ahead.