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RE: DR. ALKASUM ABBA'S "THE RIGGING OF NIGERIAN HISTORY:
RESPONSE TO HAROLD SMITH"

r.Alkasum Abba's rejoinder to TELL magazine's stories: "How Britain rigged elections, census for the North", and "The British expected Nigeria to break up", derived from a former British colonial officer, Mr. Harold Smith, was as interesting as it provoked some food for thought.

Why Harold Smith has continued to post sensitive comments on Nigeria close to five decades after he left the colonial service and Nigeria is a matter of conjecture. Smith claims that he was mandated by the then colonial Governor-General of Nigeria, James Robertson, to rig elections in Warri in favour of the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), in the 1956 federal elections; but, if we are unable to unravel the mystery surrounding the "landslide" electoral victory of the Peoples Democratic Party in 2003, it is hard to figure out how many, if any, in contemporary Nigeria may be interested in unravelling the truth or falsehood in Smith's claim regarding the 1956 elections?

In any case, I believe that having played his colonialist's part in the politico-socio-economic engineering of Africa, nay, Nigeria; and now, at 78, having observed and honestly assessed, all these years, the effects of colonialism on Africa, Harold Smith ought to have joined the likes of pop star, Bono, in the various "Make Poverty History" campaigns, rather than continuing the somnolent postings on his website about his unsavoury colonial past in Nigeria.

Dr. Abba contends that the excerpts drawn by TELL magazine from the unpublished autobiography of Smith were "clearly aimed at denigrating the NCNC, its president, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and its federal minister for Labour and Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh". And that "the excerpts also painted a similar picture of the Northern Region and its ruling party, the Nothern Peoples congress (NPC)".

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Thereafter, Abba started a lengthy eulogy of the NCNC and its president, Nnamdi Azikiwe. Among the eulogies are the following:

"The NCNC was the leading political party produced by Nigerian nationalists in the course of the struggle for independence..... its objectives and activities involved, for the first time, the massive mobilisation of the colonised people of Nigeria from cities, towns and villages, to struggle for their emancipation from colonial yoke imposed on them by the likes of Harold Smith". "... the NCNC increased pressure (on the colonial masters) by organising a national mobilisation campaign in 1946 to get the oppressed people of Nigeria to reject the attempt to divide them along ethnic and regional lines through the Richard's constitution". "The campaign was so successful that the NCNC became a household name in Nigeria". "The British were blocking the political ascendancy of the NCNC which was mobilising Nigerians across the ethnic, religious and regional divides". "The success recorded by the NCNC in the mobilisation of the ordinary people of Nigeria to struggle for independence earned the party and its leadership, particularly, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the dislike and hostility of the colonial administration..". "...as a result of the NCNC's nationalist victory in the House of Representatives election held in 1954, the colonial office, the Nigerian government, the AG (Action Group) and the NPC made desperate attempts to cripple the NCNC as a nationalist party in order to entrench tribalist and regional politics. And to prevent the NCNC from leading the federal government, attempts were made to merge the NPC with the AG and other smaller parties."

On the 1959 NPC-NCNC Alliance.

Dr Abba continued:

"The NPC-NCNC alliance to form the federal government of Nigeria in 1959 was a necessary outcome of the realities" (of the Nigerian politics of the 1950's). Many in the North then, perhaps, feared the possibility of an easy alliance between the Southwest-based AG and the Southeast-rooted NCNC hence "...it was wrong for the NCNC as a party with a national outlook to forge an alliance with the AG, which would amount to an isolation of the North. These were some of the reasons that made Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to reject the offer of becoming the first Prime Minister of an independent Nigeria under the NCNC-AG alliance. He was concerned about the unity of Nigeria and was less concerned about holding the office of the Prime Minister. The NCNC and its NEPU ally were determined to prevent what they called the "Pakistanisation" of Northern Nigeria...."

Going through the encomiums Dr. Abba poured on the NCNC and its leader Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and observing the high altruistic and patriotic values of the NCNC and its leadership, one is wont to ask aloud: whither the altruism and patriotism in many of today's Nigerian politicians? Few today may accept the fact that time was when Nigerians played politics very mindful of the stark realities regarding the ethnic configuration of the country. What can those pre-independence politicians make out of today's "it is now or never", "it is our turn", "it is I or no one" attitude toward the race to the presidency of Nigeria?

Let us face the facts. The NCNC was a party deeply rooted in the Southeast of Nigeria, the party commanded a near total massive support of the people in the area, especially in Igboland whose people virtually flew its flag; in fact, the party was often dubbed the Igbo party. The party's founder, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and most of its top decision makers hailed from Igbo land. Had Nnamdi Azikiwe and his party stalwarts allied with the AG to form the independence government in total damnation of the fears of isolation among the people of the North, the reality on the ground then was that the North of Nigeria would have "Pakistanised" and, certainly, a Bangladesh or Bangladeshs emerging thereafter from the Northern minorities.

On the other hand, what if the leadership of the NCNC unmindfully grabbed political power at independence, somehow managed to carry the entire Nigeria along and set about a deliberate programme of redrawing the political equation in Nigeria to favour the Southeasterners?

Do many contemporary politicians from the North of Nigeria drumming up the return of the Presidency to the North in 2007 pause a while to think about some aspects of Nigeria's political evolution vis-à-vis the sacrifices of the NCNC and its leadership to retain the North as part of independent Nigeria?

Alkasum Abba maintains that Harold Smith "has only tried to rig Nigeria's history by throwing about unsubstantiated accusations..." This writer mantains rather, that there is no way Harold Smith can now succede in rigging Nigeria's history from far away Great Britain; those now attempting to rig Nigeria's political history and thus represent the greatest threat to its unity are some of those politicians from the North of Nigeria who in their obsessive quest to regrab political power in 2007 are presenting Nigeria in a North/South dipode structure. Nigeria had always stood on the tripod of North, Southeast and Southwest. Presenting Nigeria on the dipod of North/South in order to regrab political power is outrageous and outrightly and morally incorrect; moreso when one considers the fact that the North had until recently held on to political power for the 36 of Nigeria's 44 years of independence, and the Southeast for about 6 months.

The NCNC and its leadership made selfless sacrifices to retain the North in Nigeria by rejecting offers to form the independence government. The year 2007 is the turn of the North to repay for this kind gesture from the people of the Southeast. 2007 is the year to concretise the slogan "One Nigeria". The slogan must no longer continue to be at the expense of the other group(s).

The North must be endowed with numerous intellectuals like Dr. Alkasum Abba in the field of contemporary history. They must drum it to the ears of those Northern politicians who, in 2007, at the expense of the Southeast, may attempt to regrab political power, that there is the need to apply political correctness when striving for political power especially in a country as ethnically pluralistic as Nigeria. Afterall, if Nigeria is a truly and functional federation, who cares from what corner of the country the rulers emerge after an election?