Nigerian Celebrate Her 55th independence anniversary.

Nigeria marks its 55th independence anniversary today. In a very fundamental sense, Nigeria’s story is also the story of my life, because I was born in the very last month of colonialism in our country, on September 5, 1960.

We grew up in those early years of an independent country and found consciousness against the backdrop of the hopes generated by freedom as well as the anxieties that were associated with the problems of underdevelopment and the inability of the post-colonial ruling elite to find the consensus to build the new country, leading almost inevitably, if tragically, to the years of the Nigerian Civil War (NCW).



Elections and an orderly transfer of power are the heart of the matter, to the extent that for much of our history, and all over the continent, they remain un-mastered assignments and obstacle courses. Looking back, our history has featured an alternation of strong presidents and weak presidents. Strength may yield purposeful governance in some respects, but is often associated with a huge dose of self-regard, know-it-all and vanity.

In the period since 1999, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and former President Goodluck Jonathan can be regarded as “weak” while former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammedu Buhari can be characterised as “strong”.

Interestingly, it was Yar’Adua that set the nation on the road to electoral sanity by frankly recognising that the election that brought him to power was vastly flawed; while Jonathan it was, that terminated the jinx of massively compromised elections.