A Nigeria united as one would be one of the most formidable forces the world has ever known. Appreciating or conceptualising this would cast to mind the cataclysmic events that ensued in the Roman empire which spelt the beginning of the end of the great Roman civilisation. Right before the Roman Empire had a downward decline they had always thrived by making sure the border tribes were never united. They kept this stratagem by sowing seeds of distrust and discontent between the border tribes (destroying the only thing that could make the borders unify and become stronger).

That ignoble seed the Romans sowed always worked, until Fritigern (a single man) observed this phenomenon and using his influence as a local gothic chieftain, united the tribes of the goths and the Alans against the Romans. The result of this coalition was disastrous for the Romans, as the battle that ensued took the life of a Roman emperor which was the second time in the history of the Roman Empire that this ever occurred.

The Roman Empire had to make concessions to Fritigern. Same way, if Nigeria is united as we’ve been in time past, we would grow strong and no elite or individual will be able to sow seeds of discord among us Nigerians. We will become the ubermensch, unable to be brought down by any external or internal force. As we are now glaringly uncovering, the game plan by the super elite is to sow seeds of discord so we the masses are not powerful enough to take the initiative.

This tactic has been the work of deleterious men masking themselves as Nigerian patriots who we know are the super rich politically classed elite. They have decided to give our reality a false hope and a frail existence under

In order to keep our minds in despair. They want us thinking about our kids and whether they would live in fear and better traumatised about how the future of Nigeria would be.

I know for a fact that Nigeria is not merely a geographical location; Nigeria is Nigeria because of the peoples that coexist in it, and that is our reality. Our future is in jeopardy if we do not protect the innocence and mental health of our reality and accepting same. Our reality is clearly pregnant of being totally unified. We’ve lived as one in Nigeria for more than a century. Which European country can boast of such feat with so much ethnic diversity? Even the Europeans that speak the same language and have the same culture war against each other and are not half as united as we are.

The morality of the average Nigerian has been eroded, and this is as a result of the games the elite and ruling class are playing. Using its citizens as pawns to achieve their own selfish ends. I looked at our founding fathers and I saw the qualities that made them great, which is what the present leadership lacks. The primal qualities I found in those great leaders are:

Virtue

Fidelity

Discipline

Perseverance

Dignity

And without these qualities, which I know we mostly possess, Nigeria would be in a steady state of decline till the Nigeria we once knew is no more. If you look at all of history, most great empires are brought to their knees from within. It usually starts with a little decadence, ignoring just one of the values founding fathers bequeathed unto the people. And the rot begins, just like a toad which is in a pool of cold water not realising that the pool is heating up gradually till it gets to the boiling point. At that point, it is too late for the toad to jump out and it eventually dies in the pool of hot boiling water. To avert that sort of calamity, we have to rediscover our morals and thread the path our founding fathers took.

I often hear that the northern part of Nigeria is the problem. Any one that makes this statement can’t be blamed because it is a misjudgment of the character of the north. The northern masses as part of their culture are loyal people, of which quality has shown throughout our history from the great legacies of Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa and so on. I greatly admire in them their loyalty to the cause of Nigeria and bonding to their ruling class and elite. Just like during the Nazi era, the Germans’ loyalty was to Hitler, and the world was not surprised when the citizens played the dictates of his will. Northerners exert the will of the rulling class but this has never been the problem. Do you see where I’m going with this? If the northern elite have a good heart and love for their people, most definitely you will see the trickle down effect on the masses. But as we can see time and time again they have a sinister heart, and of course those loyal to these so called northern elite would bring that evil idea to reality. So you see the problem of the north is not as complicated, the problem resides with just a few individuals trying to cause mayhem.

The present day Nigeria is advantaged with the bliss of population and diversity. This advantage as radiant as it views, is callously being dismembered by the petty little talks of secession and division. 

The advantage our country bears to an ordinary entrepreneur is gloated with immeasurable opportunities, the individual is gilded with the warmth that he has access to a teeming customer base, and such individual works hard to put it to fruition. The United Kingdom’s economy with all its human intellectual prowess and historical antecedents cannot be ranked with economies like that of the United States and other populated countries. In a little perspective, products and services exported from the United States are first consumed and utilised by its citizens even much before such product or service is exported to other nations. 

In any case from all available case studies, there has never been any country that has seceded that benefitted more from the division. In context, the recent Czechoslovakian split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, was a prime example that showcased a sharp plummet in both countries’ GDP. Population size as we all know has always been incredibly low for advanced European countries. A feign theory would have it that if these european countries had stayed together and worked out their differences they would be stronger collectively as one, and even be a greater European power. But now any major economic activity in those regions don’t really affect the status quo on the international stage.

We as humans have always let petty issues prevent us from forging a way to work out existing issues. Painting a picture, using Nigeria as the case study, if Nigeria secedes into the three geo-political zones, It is expected that within a matter of years which may not even reach a decade, these geopolitical zones will start to feel the winds of discontent blow from spilt factions. 

From personal experience this phenomenon has played out severally. In the West, there has been this not-so-muted discontent amongst other Southwest states, that Ogun State has produced most of the political leaders that ruled the region and the larger national entity as Premier, Presidents, Vice President and Speaker of House of Representatives. The current Vice President hails from the west is from Ogun State. Also on another level of abstraction, within Ogun state there is agitation that there has never been a governor produced by the Yewa zone of the State. What is obvious here is that the human nature has never been satisfied, internal contradictions that are fiercer than exogenous ones will still play out no matter the setting of the polity at play. If we as Nigerians can rise above this base human instinct, we will truly become the master Nation. No one tribe or region is the problem, just as incompetence does not have race, tribe or skin color and any individual’s machination dividing us along these tribal lines are out for their selfish gains and not for betterment of the people.

• Femi Kawonise, a software engineer, wrote from Abuja