Ango Abdullahi’s Distasteful Falsehood —Solomon Asemota 
Published on August 30, 2010 by TheNEWS · No Comments
I read with amazement the falsehood contained in the Ango Abdullahi interview published in TheNEWS Vol 35, No.07 of 23 August 2010 to wit: ‘‘I say, where was the South-South in 1914? And where was the South-South in 1945, 1960? Where were the eggs being laid and hatched? It is in the record that, farmers in the North produced the groundnuts and resources that supplemented the various budgets of the West and East up till 1970. Recently, Adamu Fika put down the figures, year by year in terms of federal budgets and regional budgets and how much resources had to be wired from the northern areas to other parts of the country to run their governments. Simply because some new ducks are laying eggs now, the chickens of previous years are no more important.”
I have no doubt whatsoever that Adamu Fika could not have put down false figures and to suggest that resources had to be wired from the northern areas to other parts of the country to run their government. I challenge Ango Abdullahi to publish the said report.
For the record, I shall refer to authorities to show that the North, as beneficiary of amalgamation, should be thankful to God for the good fortune. Let “politicians of the stomach” keep quiet because they, as Ryszard Kapusciki wrote in his book titled The Shadow of the Sun, My African Life, constitute: “a new ruling class, a bureaucratic bourgeoisie that creates nothing, produces nothing, but merely governs the society and reaps the benefits. The twentieth-century principle of vertiginous speed applied in this instance as well – once, decades, even centuries, were needed for a new social class to merge, and here all it took was several days. The French, who were observing the struggle for positions with some wry amusement, called the phenomenon la poilitque du ventre (politics of the belly), so closely was a political appointment connected with huge material gains.” [Page 36]
It must be appreciated that a few of the northern elite who constitute the new social class do not want change and have reduced independence to a curse rather than a blessing. The reasons for 1914 amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria are contained in the Introduction by A. H. M. Kirk-Greene in the book Lugard and the Amalgamation of Nigeria, where he wrote:
“Not only had the Northern Protectorate been running at a substantial operating loss – in itself a direct contradiction of one of the traditional British colonial maxims that every territory must be self-supporting – but its treasury has been subvented by heavy grants-in-aid form both Great Britain and the Southern Protectorate, at the very time when the prosperity of the South was increasing rapidly; thanks to the high duties imposed on liquor imports, especially ‘square face’ or trade gin. Such a source of revenue was unknown to the Moslem North. Ironically, as Crowder observes, the much-vaunted Northern line from Baro to Minna was built with funds diverted from the revenue of the Southern Protectorate. With the completion of the Baro-Kano railway line in 1911, the financial position was to be completely reversed, for, within a matter of months, the North was showing an enviable surplus from its export earnings now that it had access to the coast. Indeed, the economic consideration of the land-locked North searching for an unimpeded outlet to the sea has twice since, in 1953 and again in 1966, taken on a vivid significance in any rethinking of the country’s administrative structure.” [Pages 29-30]
Lugard, himself, wrote that the reasons for amalgamation were (a) Finance and (b) Railway
(a) Finance
“In 1906, a further step in amalgamation was effected in the South. Southern Nigeria and Lagos became one Administration under the title of the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. From this date, the material prosperity of the southern increased with astonishing rapidity. The liquor duties – increased from 3s. in 1901 to 3s.6d. in 1905 – stood at 5s.6d. a gallon in 1912, and afforded an ever-increasing revenue, without any diminution in the quantity imported. They yielded a sum of 1,138,000 in 1913.
“The North, largely dependent on the annual grant from the imperial government, was barely 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. Its energies were concentrated upon the development of the native administration and the revenue resulting from direct taxation. Its distance from the coast (250 miles) 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 an 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 11 years ending March, 1912.” [Pages 58-59]
(b) Railways
“To the financial dilemma, there was now added a very pressing difficulty in regard to Railways policy and control. The North, to ensure the development of its trade and secure its Customs duties, commenced a Railway from Baro, a port on the Niger to Kano in 1906. The South responded by pushing on the Lagos Railway to the frontier and obtained the Secretary of State’s sanction to carry it on in the North, to effect a junction with the Baro-Kano line at Minna. Immediate unification of control with a view to checking extravagance was recommended. The advent of the Railway, moreover, accentuated the need for a review of the appointment of Customs duties collected at the port. The growing divergence of administrative methods, as the interior became opened up in the South, also called for a common policy. In a long memorandum, dated May, 1905 (while still High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria), I advocated amalgamation, a policy supported by the then High Commissioner of Southern Nigeria and the Governor of Lagos, and there was increasing evidence that it could no longer be postponed.” [Page 59]
The online publication of Nigeria Muse displayed a table adopted from the book by F.O.A. Scwharz. The table for 1959/1960. 1960/1961 and 1961/1962 are as follows:
“There are a number of rational methods by which Federal Revenue could be allocated to the regions. One is to return Tax Revenue to the Region from which it can best be estimated that it came. A second possibility is to give each Region a share equal to its share of the Country’s population. A third method is to ensure balanced development between the Regions by helping the backward more than the advanced.
“The constitution reflects all these principles: derivation, per capita distribution, and balanced development. Though the ratio varies from year to year, approximately two-thirds of the money is distributed according to the principle of derivation and the remainder is distributed under a formula which was designed to take into account population as a broad indicator of need and the balanced development of the Federation.
“Of the taxes that must, under the principle of derivation, be returned to the Region from whence they came, the most important has been the export duty on produce (basically agricultural commodities) and hides and skins for the fiscal year 1960/1961.”
Where on Earth did Professor Ango Abdullahi or Adamu Fika get figures that made the North the chicken that laid the Golden Eggs in 1940, 1945, 1960? Evidence of Exclusion, Injustice and Conquest is aptly stated in Chief Olaniwun Ajayi’s latest (November 2009) book titled Nigeria: Africa’s Failed Asset? Part of the book reads:
“In the final analysis, as at 2005, Northern Nigeria had held the Presidency and ultimate executive leadership of Nigeria for 39 years while the nationals of Western Nigeria had held the position for 9 years and those of Eastern Nigeria had held the office for 6 months (half a year) and none from South/South Nigeria had had a shot at all. That is to say, North-Central 18 years, North-West 15 years and North-East 6 years (39 years) whereas South-West 9 years, South-East 6 months and South-South Nil years (9 years and 6 months for the whole of Southern Nigeria).
“Similarly, as at September 2005, with respect to revenue generation by each zone in Nigeria and the contribution and allocation to each zone by Federal Government arrangement, the unfairness and injustice to the zones in the South were as clear as crystal. See the table hereunder
“Whenever the race to the Presidency of Nigeria was about to begin, it was initiated and prosecuted with violence, chicanery, deception and stratagem. For most of the time, the end of the struggle would be in favour of the nominated Northerner. In civilised countries, such race would be run with determination to make the country great and to guarantee the citizenry a better and fuller life. In Nigeria, the goal had always been to get to the Presidency and promote parochial hegemony. In the case of Northern Nigerians so far, to promote Hausa-Fulani hegemony or Northern hegemony had been the objective.
“One appropriate illustration of this was the situation in Nigeria as at August 2007 when of the thirteen top echelon of officers and leaders in Nigeria, ten were Northerners and three were Southerners.” [Pages 146-147]
The above statement sums up the philosophy of politics of the stomach. Exclusion still persists despite the fact that the Niger Delta has been made to shoulder the burden of Nigeria over the years. The implication is that while other sections of Nigeria have gained from the Union called Nigeria since independence, it is only the Niger Delta that has persistently recorded recurrent losses. While other zones make gains of between 2 – 9 per cent, the Niger Delta makes a loss of 75 per cent. We cannot have one country where some are winners and others are losers.
Conclusion
It has become very clear that some Nigerians see themselves as the neo-colonialists and have used the young and undiscerning military to fight their cause(s). Peter Enahoro in his book, Then Spoke the Thunder, writes:
“I believed at the time, and I would say the same today, that the revenge killings in May 1966 were instigated more by the intelligentsia than by the politicians of the North.
“The top civil servant wonders if this is the end of his meteoric rise. He will tell you that his reaction to the military takeover is conditioned by his sympathy for the ‘young Northerner in the civil service’. One very highly-placed civil servant said to me that ‘if we open the gates to everyone, southerners will take all the jobs.’ On the other hand, the young civil servant will tell you that it is the fear that the northern senior civil servants will not get ‘a fair chance in the Unified Service’ that concerns him.
“It is not enough to protest, it is necessary for Northerners to struggle…It is necessary for northerners to note that about 5000 graduates will come out this year from the University of Nsukka. Another thing noteworthy is that all land in the East has been occupied while there are some people still coming up and there is no room for them to build. In the North, while northerners … were given plots they used to sell them. In future Northerners must know what they should do.
“What is amazing is how what is clearly tantamount to incitement against sections of the Republic can continually appear in newspapers owned by the government of the Northern provinces. The defence is that the new regime permits Freedom of Speech and that both the editors and their correspondents are taking advantage of it. My feeling is that certain powerful figures are hovering somewhere behind the scenes – and they are not necessarily politicians.” [Page 247 – 249]. The above led to what A. H. M. Kirk-Greene referred and suggested in 1968 to wit:
“In brief, there is little evidence to indicate that either party undertook any sincere, objective, political attempt to see beyond the stereotype image of each other as reflected to the outside; the myopia of the Hausa by the Ibo and of the Ibo by the Hausa has been one of the most tragic elements in the holocaust of 1966-1967. Such mutual difference and total failure to communicate culturally, and hence societally, appear to have marked the past fifty years.” [Page 2]. This lack of understanding, I believe, is responsible for Prof Jubril Aminu’s memo to Babangida ostensibly to stop the growth of education in the South, when it is the funds of the South that runs the federation. Part of his memo reads:
We must all rise up to challenge these characters, who having succeeded in creating nothing, produced nothing but merely govern the society. They contend that they are born to rule and reap the benefit to the detriment of the country and future generation. We must give credit where credit is due, such as thanking the Niger Delta for her generosity to the country. This is not done by ascribing generosity to the North where such did not and does not exist.
– Solomon Asemota, SAN, is the National Co-ordinator, Ethnic Nationalities Movement.