A Look at Nigeria's Journey Since Independence

Nobody asked for my opinion, but here it is anyway.

Oh Nigeria, What Happened to You?

I have always been curious about the small acts of power.

Who sits where. Who stands where. Who walks through which door. Who is welcomed on the tarmac. Who is welcomed at the entrance. Who gets the red carpet and who uses the side entrance.

At Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in 2022, most visiting leaders took shared buses to Westminster Abbey. President Biden was different, arriving in the presidential limousine. China’s representative, Vice-President Wang Qishan, also came separately, in a Chinese motorcade.

Think about that for a moment.

Ceremonial protocol tells us a lot about international relations. Countries spend a lot of time deciding who sits beside whom, who greets whom, and which motorcade gets police escorts.

I remembered this when I saw Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed at Andrews Air Force Base by President Trump earlier this week.

That video took me back to another airport, 65 years ago.

Nigeria had been independent for less than a year when Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa visited the United States on an invitation from President John F Kennedy. When Balewa arrived in Washington, he was welcomed by the American Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Nigeria was just a young, independent African country trying to understand what independence meant. Yet, the American vice president came to meet its prime minister at the airport. No one sends the VP to meet a country they see as unimportant. America believed Nigeria would matter. The country had so much promise! Balewa went on to meet Kennedy at the White House, speak to Congress, and travel around the United States.

These small acts of power also show us what countries have become.

Look at China.

Over a century ago, philosopher Bertrand Russell spent much of 1920 and 1921 in Peking, where he lectured and observed Chinese society closely. He left with a view that was different from the common Western belief that China was just an inferior, backward society needing guidance.

Russell thought the Chinese had much to learn from the West, science, technology, and industrial organization, but he also believed the West had much to learn from China.

“We have quite as much to learn from them as they from us,” he wrote in The Problem of China in 1922.

At that time, China was weak, divided, and under the influence of foreign powers that thought their technology meant they were superior. Russell saw that as a dangerous belief. He also predicted that the Chinese would eventually demand respect and equality from the West.

He could not have imagined what China would become.

China spent much of the twentieth century getting what it needed to become powerful, industrial capacity, infrastructure, scientific knowledge, military strength, and a government capable of pursuing long-term goals. It made big mistakes along the way. The Great Leap Forward caused famine, and the Cultural Revolution disrupted institutions and society.

But after 1978, China began a period of economic growth that changed its status in the world.

Today, an American president goes to the airport to meet the Chinese president. “PERSONALLY,” as we say around here.

And then we have Nigeria.

In 1961, the American vice president went to the airport to meet our prime minister. What happened between then and now is a much bigger story than I can share in one opinion piece.

The coups started in 1966. Balewa was killed. Military rule replaced parliamentary government. Then came another coup, the civil war, and years of political power changing hands outside democracy. Somewhere along the line, we became used to leadership that expected very little from itself. (You know the story.)

Institutions that should have grown from experience were often interrupted. A civil service develops habits. A diplomatic service builds relationships. Universities form traditions. Businesses learn to plan beyond the next government. Political parties gain memories. Each time a country tears everything up and starts over, some of that knowledge disappears.

China kept building, while Nigeria kept going back to the last saved version.

Nigeria turns 66 on 1 October. Sixty-six years is enough time for a country to make mistakes, waste opportunities, surprise itself, and start over several times. It is also young enough for a nation to change direction.

I am not giving up on us. We are still Africa’s most populous country. We are still a major oil producer. Nigerians have built amazing careers in science, medicine, business, academia, and the arts, often outside the country.

Bertrand Russell published The Problem of China in 1922.

It took 104 years for a Chinese president to be welcomed at an American military airfield by an American president. The Chinese president arrived in Washington as the leader of a country the United States has to treat as an equal.

Just as Russell predicted.

Nigeria does not need to become China, but we can build, we can grow, and we can change direction.

And maybe, if we get some things right, the Nigeria of the future will not have to wait 104 years to have someone important come to meet us at the airport.

Happy Independence Day, Nigeria.