IN January, 2014, what used to be the Colony and protectorates of Southern and Northern Nigeria, now simply known as Nigeria, would be 100 years old, and today, October 1, 2012, the Nigerian nation-space is 52 years old as an independent nation-state. Although the two geopolitical zones of the South and the North were amalgamated on January 1, 1914 by Lord Frederick Dealtry Lugard, and although a unified country called Nigeria attained an autonomous status as a collectivity October 1, 1960, politically independent Nigeria has been confronted by a gnawing search for unity. To get to its destination of national unity, which is proving to be a chimerical pursuit, the Nigerian nation-space has to scale the Golgotha of socio-economic and ethno-religious and cultural briars.Once described by the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo as 'a mere geographical expression', Nigeria comprises a disparate congeries of ethnic nationalities, welded together by a constitution that is an amalgam of irreconcilable inconsistencies: The Constitution is at once federal and unitary, secular and theocratic, democratic and autocratic, civilian and military. To paper over the cracks militating against national unity, the late president of Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, countered Chief Awolowo by asseverating that 'this country, Nigeria, can no longer be regarded as a mere geographical expression. It is now a historical reality'' Continuing, the great Zik said: 'The various communities or nationalities inhabiting this country have great traditions and a rich heritage of culture which, if pulled together, can make Nigeria great and enable her to take her rightful place among the family of nations'Experience has shown that, given plenty of time and favourable circumstances, differences of race, language, religion and culture need not prevent the growth of a feeling of national unity'' Today, 52 years on, Nigeria continues to grope in the labyrinth of debilitating socio-political and ethno-religious Gordian knots.Of the 52 years since Nigeria attained flag independence, the military ruled for almost 30 years, leaving the political stage in May, 1999, with Nigeria ever more divided than before its incursion into politics in 1966. If, before 1999, Nigerians had harboured fissiparous tendencies, after 1999, to date, they have merely been stitched together by the oxymoronic conflation of the concept of 'unity in diversity'.The yawning socio-political and religious gaps between the South and the North have never been wider. In 1978, the Constituent Assembly, put together by the Obasanjo military administration to fashion out the 1979 Constitution, nearly tore the country apart with arguments on the introduction of a Federal Sharia Court of Appeal. For good measure, the effects of the surreptitious and wily induction of Nigeria (a secular State) into the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1986 by the Ibrahim Babangida military administration were cataclysmic.In 2002, the Zamfara State government introduced the Sharia Penal Law into that state in breach of the unequivocal provisions of section 10 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, which stipulate that 'The government of the Federation or of a state shall not adopt any religion as state religion.' The reason the Federal Government could not seek judicial intervention then was because of the Constitution's double-face of Janus that looks in the direction of secularity and in the opposite direction of theocracy: In spite of the said section 10, there is a section 275 of the same Constitution, which provides that: 'There shall be for any state that requires it a Sharia Court of Appeal for that state.' The criminal justice system of Nigeria is dichotomized, the South being governed by the Criminal Code Act and the North by the Penal Code Act.More than a decade ago, a group led by a former Vice-President of Nigeria, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, suggested that Nigeria be re-structured into six geopolitical zones, three in the North and three in the South. The constitution of the ruling party, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) adopted the suggestion, which has been misconstrued by the North as a replacement for the constitutional provisions (section 135 of the Constitution as amended) for a four-year term for the President, subject ONLY to renewal, at the pleasure of the electorate, by another and final term of four years.When the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua was permanently invalided, the then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan had to pass through the eye of the proverbial needle to assume the vacant office of president in spite of the clear provisions of sections 144 and 146 of the Constitution. Even when Yar'Adua passed on, the core North stoutly resisted Dr. Jonathan's appointment as President (in spite of the unambiguous provisions of section 146 of the Constitution) because of the ill-digested, so-called zoning formula, a byproduct of the socio-cultural divergences, of the people's exiguous commitment to the democratic principles and of the near-absolute want of unity in the land.More than anything else, religion, as understood and practised by some sects, has constituted a dead set against the unity of this country. Today, the Boko Haram sect and its sponsors are hell-bent on the balkanization of Nigeria as it unleashes untold mayhem on the people. When you add religious fanaticism to ethnic jingoism and to the pyrotechnical and incendiary utterances of political bloodhounds and their goons ('do or die', 'dogs and baboons drowning in their own blood', 'rig us out and we will rig you out of life', 'we will make Nigeria ungovernable if candidate ABC is declared winner', etc), then you have a situation in which the much-needed unity and the requisite attributes of nationhood become a will- o' the wisp and 2015, the Ides of March!Where do we go from here' There is a crying need for a Constituent Assembly to produce a people's Constitution in which much power, befitting federating units, will be devolved to the states. For good measure, a Sovereign National Conference (not the toothless Oputa Panel type) is a desideratum devoutly to be wished.'Barr. Akiri, a constitutional expect, writer and entrepreneur, lives in Lagos
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