“Such in brief where the antecedents which had given to the North and south their divergent characteristics and policies. In 1906, a further step in Amalgamation was effected in the south. Southern Nigeria and Lagos became an administration under the title of the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. From this date, the material prosperity of the South increased with astonishing rapidity. The liquor duties increased from 3s in 1901 to 3s 6d in 1905–stood at 5s 6d in 1912 and afforded an ever increasing revenue without any diminution in quantity imported. They yielded a sum of £138,000 in 1913.
The North largely dependent on the annual grant from the Imperial Government was largely able to balance its budget with the most parsimonious economy, and was starved of the necessary staff and unable to find funds to house its officers properly. It’s energies were concentrated upon the development of the Native Administration and the revenue resulting from direct taxation. It’s 200 mile distance from the coast rendered the expansion of trade difficult. Thus, the anomaly was presented of a country with an aggregate revenue practically equal to its needs, but divided into two by arbitrary line of latitude. One portion was dependent on a grant paid by the British taxpayer, which in the year before Amalgamation stood at £136,000 and had averaged £314,500 for the eleven years ending March 1912.”
The above was taken from Frederick Lugard’s report on the necessity of amalgamation to the British Parliament in 1919. In the 101 years since this report, Nigeria has propped up this administrative convenience thinking that formed the basis for the existence of one Nigeria: to economically subsidise the North.
One of these, the Quota System, was set up in the 1970s to give educationally disadvantaged states (read Northern state) a chance at education. When policies of affirmative action and social inclusion are enacted, they are usually done from a place of public good. However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The hell of subsidising one part of Nigeria to the detriment of the entire country has led to the worst possible people in important decision making halls. This stems from the fact that a Muhammadu from Katsina who scored 120 in UTME is given consideration ahead of a Rukevwe from Delta who scored 270.
About half a century since the institution of the quota system into our national vocabulary, the question should not be, “what went wrong?”.
Truth is nothing ever went right in the first place because of a faulty foundation. Lugard, faced with opposition from the Sultan, Shehus and Emirs who hitherto were at loggerheads, found his solution in a deal with these Northern aristocrats to ban any form of proselytising by missionaries in the North in exchange for them helping him with tax collection.
You see, even more than the colonial government, the missionaries drove Western education in Nigeria, which the aristocracy in the North saw as a direct threat to their hegemony, culture and influence. The arrangement worked for Lugard as British colonialism existed for one primary purpose: maximum resource extraction.
But what was the result?
The North did not build its manpower to run its own affairs, and had to be subsidised by the British Crown. The South was providing more than twice what the North was producing as annual revenue. So Lugard merged the two to solve this administrative problem, and his successors, Clifford, Thomson, Cameron, Bourdillon, Shuckburgh, Burns, Richards, Macpherson and Robertson, did not do much to change the paradigm because as long as the South produced a lot more than the North, the expectations for the Crown Colony of Nigeria were met, and all administrative conveniences fulfilled. Thus was set the precedent of the South working for the North.
Another dangerous precedent that was set was in 1953 after Tony Enahoro proposed independence “on a date not later than 1956”, the Northern establishment threw its toys out of the pram, and essentially drew the South back in achieving that goal. The Northern elite had every reason to be frightened. By 1960, the North had an English literacy rate of around 2%. However, they settled on a strategy of pulling everyone down to their level, rather than trying to rise to the challenge.
The effects of that result, and the manner of rule it perpetuated, are still being felt today.
Years of socioeconomic neglect, and crucially, minimal investment in Western education, have led to the problems of terrorism, climate induced conflicts as much as the weaponisation of poverty and religion by the region’s ruling elite.
Nigeria is caught in a chicken and egg situation. Northern and Southern Nigeria are two different countries with different needs. The North needs massive investment in human capital development, whereas the South needs massive infrastructural development to help it absorb the caravans of people that are fleeing the carnage up North and coming down South in search of greener pastures. When you have a situation where Northerners are competing with Southerners in Southern territories for scarce jobs, it will lead to unnecessary friction. The pastoral conflict in the Middle Belt and the South (which has led to the formation of regional security networks and adoption of anti-grazing laws) is very much a foreshadowing of what is to come if we don’t change the paradigm urgently.
