Nigeria is 58 today but the cry for independence didn’t just start yesterday, it neither isn’t an agitation that started in the year 1960 but a pre-colonial days cry which became more vehement in those days when the rights of the black men were disdain.
It has been an issue of continuous tears, dripping the eyes of young folks today, when we visit our museums to see slavery antics and images of how men were tied with chains and muzzled so as not to feed on sugarcane in the sugar cane plantation privately owned by white slave masters.
The slave trade was engaged in, by European state and non-state actors such as Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal and private companies, as well as various African states and non-state actors. Africans were made into slaves of European merchant running tedious errand machines would done much faster.
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Historical accounts made us understand the fact that coming by slaves wasn’t all a big deal as our local chiefs and ancestors were the catalyst who after receiving a stipend, hands over their precious sons and daughters to the hands of strange men who appear friendly.
The cry of enslaved men in the famous film Kunta Kinte creates a good graphical image of what slavery was in the 1900 and had helped date back our memory to how treacherously, our fathers were treated in the hands of their slave master. The aftermath of slavery according to the film was loss of identity and human right breaching and ill-mannered treatment. However, later in the film which was first published as a novel titled “Roots” by Alex Haley, Kunta stood up to his right and wouldn’t accept the name given him by his master, Master Waller.
Through slow reform or violent struggle, most African nations won independence in the 1950s and 1960s among which our darling Nigeria was on top of the list.
The Federation of Nigeria was granted full independence on 1 October 1960 under a constitution that provided for a parliamentary government and a substantial measure of self-government for the country’s three regions.
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However just as the country turns 58 today lots of questions have been left unanswered or simply put, unattended to.
In the face of depleting economic situation, Insurgency, agitation and corruption management, “still under construction” one question that has been lingering in the heart of some Nigerian is; Are we really due for the independence we have today?
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