o topic generates as much excitement and an instinctive gut level agreement as the issue of the supposed accident of our nationhood. There is no easier way to establish one's credentials as a socio-political commentator of the fiery type than through the complete verbal and intellectual dismemberment of the Nigerian nation, the pronouncement and amplification of its flaws, and the declaration of the myriad reasons why it should cease to be. The Nigerian nation in the minds of these commentators is the bane of the constituent ethnic nationalities that make up the union. It is because Nigeria exists that the Yoruba, the Igbo, the Ibibio, the Izon-Ijaw and the Birom fail to progress. Their words make it seem as if once Nigeria ceases to exist, a burst of light will emerge from the heavens and celestial sounds will herald the sudden dawning of progress for Nigeria's ethnic nationalities.

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When these proponents of Nigeria's dismemberment commence their analysis, the starting point is always the amalgamation of 1914, when the Northern and Southern protectorates of Nigeria were combined - amalgamated - into one. They quote Lugard and virtually every single one of the nation's founding fathers, whose writings and speeches are replete with statements about the unlikely nature of the entity called Nigeria. These commentators write, and speak, as if the act of amalgamation itself was a magical act, an alchemical process that occurs spontaneously and at the end of which the member states lose their separate identities to become one composite whole. The act of uniting a nation within that analytical viewpoint occurs in one spontaneous step. If a nation fails to demonstrate unity following a declared process of unification, then the experiment in unity has failed. There is no allowance for any process of conscious effort towards the promotion of unity. Unity in the opinion of these intellectuals of dismemberment is not something that is worked on. It must occur spontaneously, without effort, organically. To attempt to cultivate unity, to promote it, to nurture oneness out of disparate parts is verboten. There is a certain air of fatalism inherent in this notion. Whatever should be, it is assumed, occurs naturally. And whatever does not occur, or emerge naturally is therefore not meant to be. Interestingly, these intellectuals forget that not a single one of them was born with the ability to speak and to write. Those skills were cultivated through a lifetime of learning. Yet, they fail to see that like the learned skills of reading and writing, or like a couple who through deliberate acts of courtship seek to get to know each other better in order to foster a closer and more complete union, nations must also deliberately nurture and cultivate unity.

The second element of the analytical toolkit of dismemberment and disunion requires the identification of certain parts of Nigeria that are the alleged drawbacks to progress and development. If these portions of Nigeria were excluded from the Nigerian nation, then these intellectuals surmise that there might be hope for the Nigerian nation, or whatever the remnant of that surgical excision would be called. The natural object of their attention is Northern Nigeria. With its millions of illiterate Almajirai, its traditionalist and conservative outlook, it's seemingly feudal leadership structure, the supposed docility of the Talakawa (the Northern masses), the penchant for politicizing religion and the incessant crises that occur within its boundaries; those who blame the North for the non workability of the Nigerian promise could be forgiven for their thoughts and conclusions. But like the myth of organic unity that underlies the primal analysis of disunion, this idea of a problematic north, is a simplistic reduction of the Nigerian problem.

CHALLENGING THE MYTH OF ORGANIC UNITY

As I earlier indicated, the fact of Nigeria's struggles for unity since the amalgamation of 1914 is taken by the self declared intellectuals of Nigerian dismemberment as evidence of the fact that the Nigerian experiment is one which does not deserve to survive. But to impose such onerous conditions of organically emerging unity on the Nigerian nation is to put upon Nigeria a hurdle that no nation before us has ever had to overcome. Some discussions in history would be useful to demonstrate how absurd such views are. The American nation, it should be remembered, was birthed in revolution in 1776. The blood of slaves and slave owners, of blacks and whites, of Northerners and Southerners mixed freely on the battlefields of the American Revolution. The first man to die in the epic battle for American Independence was the African American hero Crispus Attucks, who was martyred in the Boston massacre in 1770. Yet, it was another hundred years before blacks were emancipated from slavery, and over 200 years before a black man could reach the highest office in the land. About 100 years after the American nation was birthed, a brutal civil war was waged (1861-1865) between the more "progressive" North and the "conservative" South. Well into the latter half of the 20th century, colored Americans could not use the same restaurants, rest houses, recreational facilities or attend the same schools as their white counterparts. When the Civil War broke out, Black Americans led by the able Frederick Douglass literally begged for the right to be able to lay down their lives for a country that still continued to deny them their humanity, but which they loved with all their soils and their being. Unity did not occur organically and magically in America. It took sorrow, tears, and blood. The path to unity was paved with the blood of martyrs and nationalists.

In Northern Ireland, a battle of a strange kind has been waged for well over a hundred years. In that all white, all Christian nation, Catholics and Protestants have waged a scorched earth campaign against each other. Today, the rumblings of war have given way to hymns of peace. For the first time in generations, a Northern Irish parliament exists, and both Catholics and Protestants sit side by side in the assembly at Stormont. But this new found peace did not magically emerge. It took decades of delicate diplomacy, it took sanctions and threats, imprisonments and seizures of arms caches, but above all, it took a love for country and a desire for a nation worthy of all its children to move Northern Ireland firmly on the path to unity.

So whether we look at the Basques in Northern Spain, the Flems & Walons of Belgium, or the legacy of Apartheid in South Africa; every nation has its own unique challenges to face. Nigeria is no different and like all other nations, it faces its own unique challenges. Where national unity is concerned, there are no quick fixes, or magic elixirs. In the quest for national unity, as with much of life, the goal is achieved only with the dedication and commitment of patriots.

It was the phenomenally gifted Nigerian historian Professor Adiele Afigbo who best captured the challenge of interpreting the amalgamation and all that has come with it in his superb work "The Amalgamation: Myths, Howlers and Heresies" [1]. Professor Afigbo identifies three stages in the evolution of the Nigerian state. The first stage, which he calls "the substructure of the emerging state", includes all of prehistory up to 1861 during which time the families of states or spheres of influence that were the prototypes for Nigeria's later regions emerged. The emergence and establishment of the Kasar Hausa states in the North, the Aja state system in the South West, the Apa (Jukun) family of states in the Middle Belt, the Aro sphere of influence in the South in pre-colonial times, and the fact of their mutual knowledge of one another and the significant contacts between them underscores the argument that integration at some level amongst Nigeria's peoples was not the invention of the British and the amalgamation. Afigbo calls the second stage in the evolution of the Nigerian state "the superstructure". This phase coincides with the colonial century that spanned the period from 1861 through to 1960, and of course includes within its purview the mechanical act of the amalgamation in 1914. The third and final stage in the emergence of the Nigerian state, and one which Afigbo insists is an ongoing and still unfolding process proceeds from the amalgamation onwards. It is this third and final phase that includes the birthing of the soul of the nation, the emergence of its motive force and the animation and transformation of both the substructure and superstructure into a "pulsating living nation". I have retained much of Afigbo's original language because I find his word play and arrangements particularly apt and illuminating. I will add however, that no serious student of Nigerian history and politics can elect to ignore Afigbo's works - especially his intellection on the amalgamation, the emergence of the Nigerian state and the ongoing challenge of national unity.

THE MISANALYSIS OF THE CHALLENGE OF NORTHERN NIGERIA

There is a certain reductionist tendency by commentators that purport to analyze the challenges of Northern Nigeria that overly simplifies the problem, thus stripping the questions not just of their complexity, but of any meaning as well. Questions that lack meaning cannot yield answers that make any sense.

The conventional reductionist analysis lays the challenge of Northern Nigeria at the feet of the Talakawa and the Almajirai. The latter are the quintessential bad boys who bear the brunt of any intellectual appraisal of the northern challenge. They are at the same time pictured as ignorant and gullible. Any reader of the copious treatises that are produced on the northern Almajirai imagines them to be stuck in a time warp, and they are portrayed as an army of urchins, beholden to no one, and respectful of nothing. In the past, the northern leaders have been forced to share the blame for the problems of Nigerian Nigeria, but I have noticed a trend lately that appears to reduce the burden of guilt, if not completely exonerate the North's political class. It does appear that having been convinced that all regions of Nigeria share the same burden of inept, self centered and corrupt leadership, analysts have begun giving exculpatory passes to the northern. There is however no such respite for the Talakawa and the Almajirai. Someone must bear the blame for the North's stasis and if the leaders are not to blame, then it must be the people's fault.

To be so dismissive of the North and its peoples is to do that region a great disservice. To assume that the Northern masses, the Talakawa and the Almajirai (who are a subset of the Talakawa), are not desirous of progress and change is to do them a grave injustice. But beyond the injustice that is served, that dismissive tendency prevents an accurate analysis of the problems, and in that misanalysis lies the possibility that the solutions that are proffered will be ill suited to the problems at hand.

No region of Nigeria has fostered as much revolutionary ferment as Nigeria's North. What many southerners imagine to be one monolithic Hausa-Fulani north, is in fact a heterogeneous collection of many peoples. The Birom, the Gwaris, the Nupe, The Okun-Yorubas, the Kanuri, the Tiv, the Ebira, the Igala and of course, the Hausas and the Fulanis are only a few of the many groups that make up the Nigerian north. The story of the Nigerian north has been the story of the conflicts between these groupings. None of those conflicts has been more pronounced, both in terms of its intensity and its socio political ramifications, as the conflict that ensued between the Hausa and the Fulani. Shehu Dan Fodio's jihad of 1804 was primarily the culmination of that epic conflict. Dan Fodio's jihad was as much a socio-political revolution as it was a religious one. Scholars and historians of the Jihad emphasize the movement's socio-economic appeal as one of the major reasons why what began as a minority Fulani revolt came to receive such massive appeal amongst the majority Hausa peoples.

THE UNDERCURRENTS OF NORTHERN POLITICS

The assumptions that the North has since Dan Fodio's time assumed a single identity is however false. There was not one caliphate, but two caliphates in northern Nigeria, even in Dan Fodio's time. The Kanem Bornu Caliphate was never subdued by the Fulani and it has retained to this day a stridently unique identity and worldview. Northern Nigerian Islam also has many faces. The constant strivings between the Sufist Tijjaniya and Quadriyya brotherhoods and the Wahhabi 'Yan Izala reformatory movement which stands in opposition to the 'innovations' intrinsic to the Sufi traditions, are a few of the major movements in Northern Islam. The contestations between these traditions have oftentimes been beyond mere rhetoric and have sometimes involved violent, even deadly confrontations. At the root of the crises is the nature of politics in Northern Nigeria and the reality that for the most part political legitimacy proceeds through religion.

Because colonialism left the political structures created during the Jihad intact (the emirates were retained as Native Authorities in the colonial era and they were appropriated by the British to serve as the local administrative centers during the colonial period), the Masu Sarauta (title holders) that derived their legitimacy from lineage to the titled families that emerged following Dan Fodio's jihad were the natural bloodline successors to the Jihad. These men also tended to belong like Dan Fodio did to the Quadriyya brotherhood.

In 1949, the first political organization in the North was formed. The Northern People's Congress (NPC) was founded by Aminu Kano, Ahmadu Bello and Tafawa Balewa. As the Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello was a Mai Sarauta (title holder) and a direct descendant of Shehu Dan Fodio. It was not long before the conservatism of the Masu Sarauta and the progressivism of the Talakawa scholars led to the cleavage of the NPC. In 1951, Aminu Kano and others of the same ideological bent left the NPC to form the NEPU (Northern Elements Progressive Union). NEPU had existed since 1950 as a tendency within the NPC, and some scholars indicate that the original intent had been for the NEPU to remain as a progressive pressure group within the NPC [2]. However, the ideological differences between the conservative guard in the NPC and the more progressive NEPU elements and the resulting schism introduced centrifugal political forces that forced the groups apart. The ground was set for an epic battle for the soul of Northern Nigeria. While the NPC argued for the retention of the status quo and for the recognition of the Masu Sarauta as the legitimate successors to Shehu Dan Fodio's Jihad, NEPU argued that the Masu Sarauta through their collaboration with the colonial authorities and the corruption of their courts could not be legitimate successors to the principles of the Dan Fodio Jihad. They argued for a contextualization of the Jihad as a people oriented movement for political reform, which they (NEPU) were best positioned to carry forward.

Although the two groups were fairly evenly matched as of 1951, several factors contributed to make the NPC's worldview become dominant. Firstly, the British had a preference for the more conservative NPC. The socialist inclinations of the NEPU were bothersome to the British and its goal of overthrowing the Masu Sarauta and empowering the Talakawa was an all too radical agenda for the monarchical British. In 1950, three years before Enahoro's famous motion for independence was moved, NEPU had already published a declaration of principles that called for Independence from Britain and an end to Fulani hegemony. The British, masters in political chicanery and subterfuge came up with a myriad of schemes that sought to empower the NPC at the expense of NEPU. They introduced an Electoral College system to which Emirs selected 10% of the members. So absurd were the results of these elections that in Kano "not one of the twenty persons elected to the House of Assembly by the final electoral college had been elected by the voters at a lower stage" [3]. With their headship of the Native Authorities and by implication control of the courts and law enforcement agencies, the NPC rode rough shod over NEPU. Extra judicial arrests, banishments and censorship were rife. Workers in the Native Authorities who expressed solidarity with NEPU were fired from their positions. The instrumentality of the state was used by the NPC to dispense favors and to consolidate their hold on power. There was also in this period, an alignment of the two major Sufi brotherhoods with one or the other party: NEPU/Tijjaniya and NPC/Quadriyya.

When the political clouds in the North settled, the NPC was the clear winner of that contest. NEPU however remained a strident, albeit diminished, voice of opposition. It was later to reemerge as the People's Redemption Party (PRP) in the second republic.

ON THE ALMAJIRAI QUESTION

Now, we proceed to the issue of the Almajirai. There is in Northern Nigeria an itinerant Qur'anic educational system that has its roots in the Timbuktu Scholastic traditions and has been a feature of Northern Nigerian life since the 16th century [4]. This tradition requires that young boys between the ages of 5 and 15 leave their homes to take up residence in Tsangaya (Hausa for Qur'anic schools). There, they are instructed wholly in Islamic studies and their upkeep is almost entirely the responsibility of the Malam (or teacher) to whom they are charged. While this system might have been an excellent way to maintain an educated citizenry in pre colonial Nigeria, it has unfortunately become a breeding ground for delinquency and destitution.

While there is no question that religious instruction is important, the complete lack of any modern component to the learning that these children receive implies that they are completely lacking in the skills that are needed to function effectively in modern society. The imposition of hundreds of children on instructors who are themselves nearly destitute has caused the evolution of the system into one in which the students are required to raise funds for their own upkeep by begging for alms. It is this specter of an organized band of destitute children, roaming the streets and begging for alms that make up the popular image of the Almajirai. When the teenage products of these institutions are released to society, they are equipped for nothing more than menial labor, since they have no marketable skills and no modern education.

To blame these children for their destitute state is to blame the victim of a rape for her misfortune. No five year old child elects to go to a Tsangaya. The decision to attend these institutions is not one that the children have any participation in. The choices are made for them. The parents that send them to these schools often wish for nothing more than to have their children "educated". In the context of northern society, the Tsangayas become the de facto options that these parents have for the "educating" of their children.

It is the governments that ignore these children and the northern leaders who send their own children to posh modern schools while allowing the children of the Talakawa to wallow in poverty and ignorance that are to be blamed. The Nigerian government is deeply culpable in the plight of the Talakawa and their Almajirai children: how is it that after about five (5) decades of independence, the youth of an entire section of the nation are left to wallow in ignorance and destitution? People who accuse these children of indolence and laziness are plain wrong. Go to any market place in Northern Nigeria - and you are likely to find Almajirai who are barely beyond their toddler years, working - slaving away - as porters, cleaners, and errand boys. But there are only so many porters and cleaners that can find gainful employment in a society where even graduates from universities are unemployed. These children number in the millions. Their plight and the attendant crises to which their destitutions makes them easy prey for recruitment as cannon fodder is both the bane and the shame of the Nigerian nation.

The solutions to this problem are simple. Throughout the history of the Tsangaya tradition, these schools, like all other schools, have been maintained mainly through the patronage of the state. The Kanem Bornu Empire and the Sokoto Caliphate supported these schools through an extensive system of patronage that was controlled by a local Emir. Of course there was a certain selfish mien to that support, for given the fact that the educated Almajirai from the Tsangaya were the most "literate" persons with access to the common people, any attempts at radicalizing and heightening the political consciousness of the Talakawa would proceed mainly through the Almajirai and the Mallams that taught them. The Emirs no longer have any such fears of popular uprisings. They stay in office at the behest of State Governors, who are themselves mostly illegitimate usurpers of the popular mandate. Besides, the influence and control of resources that they (the traditional rulers) once enjoyed have since devolved to Federal, State and Local Governments. The Almajirai are therefore the most marginalized Nigerians. They have never enjoyed a day of government sponsored schooling, their education has never been subsidized by their government, their teachers are not paid or subsidized by their government, and their feeding is not supported or subsidized by their government. Their marginalization is total and complete. There is hardly any class of Nigerians that have not received support or funding of one kind or the other from the Nigerian government in their educational pursuits, except of course the millions of destitute and voiceless Almajirai of Northern Nigeria.

The government can start by providing supporting funds to the Tsangayas on the condition that the curriculum is expanded to include modern subjects - English, Arithmetic, social Studies, Vocational Studies, and the like. A supervisory department for these institutions should be established at every level in the Educational sector. The Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme cannot be effective or complete without expressly addressing the Almajirai problem.

The long term aim should be to eventually convert every Tsangaya to a standalone school, or to merge it with a more viable and already established school. As a matter of urgency, because the opportunity for teaching modern subjects to many of the older children has already been missed, vocational training should be provided to them. Short duration internships and apprenticeships should be provided to enable these children develop skills that will assure them of some means of livelihood. It should not be surprising to anyone that an army of undereducated, underemployed young men become willing recruits whenever there is a crisis. It is imperative for Nigerian unity to ensure that the Northern Almajirai are provided with every opportunity to advance themselves. Where the government fails to act, as it has done for the last 50 years, then the Nigerian citizenry must step in. it is in our collective interests to do so. The power structure, the status quo desires an undereducated and ignorant citizenry. That is the only way they can assure themselves of an unchallenged access to power. History suggests that they are right. After all, the very first northerners outside of the Masu Sarauta to receive modern educational training were the first ranks of the radical cadres in the NEPU movement. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and right now, the chain of Nigerian unity is particularly weak at the link where the Almajirai issue sits.

POSTSCRIPT

If my position was unclear before, I think it is now obvious that I am an unapologetic proponent of Nigerian unity. I have stated elsewhere that my support of Nigerian unity is predicated not on any sentimental nationalist notions, but on the fact that the Nigerian union is the best hope for the advancement of the interests of any and all of Nigeria's ethnic nationalities. I am impatient with ill informed calls for the dismemberment of the Nigerian nation and for loud but uninformed tragic denouements of the Nigerian nation and our continuing struggles in strengthening the bonds of our union. It was Frantz Fanon who famously said, that "every generation, must out of relative obscurity, find its mission, fulfill it or betray it". The task of my generation is to take up the challenge of forging a more perfect Nigerian union from where that task has been left off by previous generations. The colonial generation fought the battle for independence. That was their mission. They found it, and fulfilled it. The generation that followed fought the first battle for Nigerian unity. The blood of patriots from the South and North of the Niger was the sacrifice that was paid in the fulfillment of that mission. That generation found its mission, and fulfilled it. Our generational challenge is to move Nigeria firmly into realizing its promise and potential. We must rise to that mission and find within ourselves the strength to fulfill it.

If Nigeria ails, it is our task to bind her, and heal her. We must engage in action and not mere intellection if Nigeria is to be saved. Unity, as I have already argued, is not organic. Not even in marriage where two people who are obviously in love are joined in union is the maintenance of that state of union organic. As all married people know there are constant investments in the relationship that are intended to affirm the love of the parties for each other and to foster their union. Why then do obviously knowledgeable commentators on the Nigerian situation suppose that these rudimentary yet necessary investments in promoting unity will somehow not be necessary when the Nigerian state is under consideration?

A final word on Amalgamation might be appropriate. The process of amalgamation in science is always accompanied by an incredible infusion of energy into two or more disparate materials. For an amalgam to be formed there is almost always the need for either a chemical reaction to occur or for a melting process to be initiated which causes each of the constituent materials to lose all or part of its original structure and form, and then to combine with the other materials to form something truly new and unique. Amalgamation even in its basic definition, therefore presupposes that some significant effort is required to birth something new.

References

1. Nigerian History, Politics and Affairs. The Collected Essays of Adiele Afigbo. Edited by Toyin Falola. Africa World Press, Inc. 2005

2. The Time of Politics (Zamanin Siyasa). Islam and the Politics of Legitimacy in Northern Nigeria, 1950-1966. Jonathan T. Reynolds. University Press of America, 1999.

3. Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an emergent African Nation. NOK Publishers International, 1963.

4. Elements of Self reliance in the Kano Traditional Qur'anic Schools (Tsangaya). Ahmed Yahya. 2007. http://www.amanaonline.com/Articles/art_4510.html

Dr Fabiyi is a former President of the University of Lagos Students' Union (ULSU)