By Oladoja M.O
There comes a point in every nation’s existence when it must interrogate the very myths that forged its being, and it appears Nigeria has reached that juncture. “One Nigeria”, a slogan as old as our independence, repeated in classrooms, parliaments and pulpits alike, has gradually morphed from a patriotic creed into a hollow incantation that adorns speeches, but no convictions. A rhetoric that unites in sound but not in substance. And yet, like an overused balm, it is still generously applied to wounds that have long become septic.
When the British, in their cartographic arrogance, decided that the roaring rivers of the Niger and Benue could somehow dissolve the ancestral boundaries of a hundred nations into a single name, they planted both a promise and a peril. The promise was the strength of size, the illusion that numerical vastness equals greatness. The peril, however, lay in presuming that different civilisations, with their own gods, economies, memories, and destinies, could be hammered into a coherent polity without a shared philosophy of being. What emerged was less a federation of equals than a fragile patchwork held together by coercion and cliché.
History is replete with examples of states that mistook enforced coexistence for genuine unity. The Soviet Union once imagined that the subjugation of difference equalled solidarity until it collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions. Yugoslavia thought nationalism could be suppressed by ideology until ethnic passions burned Sarajevo into ash. Even Sudan, our continental cousin, insisted on an indivisible state until the centre could no longer contain the centrifugal cries for dignity and recognition, and the South tore itself free in a baptism of blood. Each of these polities preached “oneness,” but none could manufacture mutual trust. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s situation, though cloaked in democratic pretensions, bears an unnerving resemblance.
Decades after independence, we continue to stagger under the illusion of unity while exhibiting every symptom of division. Our politics remains a theatre of tribal anxieties. Our economy, a contest of regional grievance. Our institutions, battlegrounds of exclusion and suspicion. Every census, every election, every policy debate collapses into the arithmetic of ethnicity. We have created a federation in name, but a feud in practice. The Nigerian state, like a badly tuned orchestra, plays the anthem of unity while each instrument screams in its own discordant key.
What has deepened the tragedy is not merely that we are divided, but that we have learned to romanticise our dysfunction. The myth of “One Nigeria” has been elevated to the level of moral blackmail, as though questioning it were heresy. Yet, the facts are unflinching. From the coups and counter-coups of the 1960s, to the Biafran war that drenched this soil in youthful blood; from the endless agitations of the Niger Delta, to the violent insurgencies of the North, and the secessionist murmurs of the East, we have been a nation perpetually negotiating its own existence.
Even now, in the twenty-first century, the markers of mistrust remain, only deepened by new forms of betrayal. We have witnessed, time and again, how national security efforts are quietly sabotaged by regional sympathies where the pursuit of peace against terror becomes a political chessboard, and those who menace the state are garlanded as champions in their communities. In some quarters, it has almost become an identity to excuse barbarity in the name of kinship, to embrace those who burn the nation’s fabric as heroes rather than outlaws.
There are regions where individuals, through their character and conduct, have dragged the nation’s image into global disrepute, staining the diplomatic standing of millions, and forcing the country to spend years rebuilding bridges of trust with the international community. Elsewhere, the spirit of entitlement fosters a belief that governance is a turn-by-turn inheritance, that “it is our time now,” and so positions of influence must rotate along bloodlines and geography rather than merit. Even the recent rumblings of military adventurism, the whisper of coup sympathies and their architects seem disturbingly traceable to predictable corners of the polity, confirming that our divisions have not merely survived time; they have evolved.
Thus, we remain a country trapped in its contradictions: differential justice, uneven development, selective outrage, and an ever-widening gulf between the governors and the governed.
How then do we continue to recite the catechism of unity with straight faces? When the “one” in “One Nigeria” has become a question rather than a statement. For unity cannot be decreed by constitutions nor enforced by soldiers; it must be earned by fairness, equity, and mutual respect. When a nation’s prosperity is monopolised by a few, when power circulates within predictable bloodlines, when regions are treated not as partners but as provinces, the rhetoric of unity becomes an insult to intelligence.
We deceive ourselves with patriotic songs while ignoring the dissonance in our reality. The world is changing; nations are redefining themselves in pursuit of justice and balance. Ethiopia, after decades of internal conflict, restructured its governance to reflect its ethnic federalism. The United Kingdom, once rigidly centralised, conceded autonomy to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to preserve its union. Even Belgium, split by language and identity, discovered that devolution was the price of stability. In each case, political maturity triumphed over sentimental unity. Why then should Nigeria, with its far deeper pluralities, cling to a system that has neither delivered prosperity nor peace?
It is at this critical juncture that Nigeria must summon the courage to confront itself, not with nostalgia or denial, but with truth and pragmatism. The time has come for an honest national conversation, a sober rethinking of our structure, values, and vision. We must ask: What truly binds us, and on what terms should we continue this union? This is not a call to disintegration, but to redefinition.
If genuine unity is to be sustained, it must be built on a framework that reflects our peculiarities rather than suppresses them. Perhaps it is time to revisit the foundations of our federalism to decide, through dialogue and consensus, whether the present centralised model still serves our collective good.
If what we need is a restructured federation that grants greater autonomy to regions, then let us pursue it with sincerity. If what we require is a return to a confederation that allows each region to govern according to its social and economic realities, then let the people decide it freely. And if, after exhaustive dialogue, it becomes clear that coexistence itself has become unsustainable, then perhaps peaceful dissolution negotiated with maturity and justice may be the truest form of unity left to us.
Whatever the outcome, silence and pretense can no longer suffice. We must choose between a future defined by courage or a decline defined by denial.
It is time to stop pretending that unity is sacred when it has become suffocating.
If we refuse to confront this reckoning, we risk learning, as others have, that when unity becomes a prison, freedom will break the walls. For now, the cracks are visible in our rhetoric, our regions, our republic. Whether they widen into collapse or are sealed with courage depends on our collective honesty. But one thing is certain: the chant of “One Nigeria” will not save us if it continues to mean nothing more than silence in the face of inequality.
Until we replace illusion with justice, and ideology with sincerity, we will remain what we are, a country yoked together by history, but not joined by purpose.
Oladoja M.O writes from Abuja and can be reached via mayokunmark@gmail.com.
