Forget all the lovely myths of great African empires and how your own lookalike dudes ran those. The fact on the ground is that Nigerians are not man enough to run states, not to speak of empires. Paradoxically, Nigeria as currently is, is an empire, a rump of the greatest empire in human history. The British Empire
First, Nigeria has all the trappings of an empire. There are many ethnics and separate languages peoples bundled into the Nigerian Empire union by arms, that is by banditry. In other words, their coming together was not consensual, was not negotiated. By one account, about 300 ethnics make up the Nigerian geographic union.
Unfortunately, and understanding this is both important and urgent, the building of the Nigerian Empire was external to Nigerians or any ethnic nation within the Nigerian nation. Fact is, it was an external force, the British who had the ‘’presence of mind’’ and the Maxim guns to conglomerate largely unrelated peoples into a Nigerian mega-nation or mini-empire.
Historically, the British intended to rule for a thousand years and more. However, Hitler and other exoteric forces didn’t let them. Slammed by the ‘’Wind of Change,’’ the British fled their Nigerian redoubts, abandoning fractious natives to themselves.
In plain terms, the empire that the indigenous Nigerians inherited, was not created by them, their fore or present fathers. It is thus safe to state that, historically no Nigerians or their ethnic sub-nations have had the historical credit or experience of ever building or running a mini or mega empire. In other words, running empires, is an exotic and bewildering existential experience for any Nigerian. Of course, it is indicated that no group can run a system it has no historical or existential experience of, no appreciation of.
Perhaps, many will push for a caveat. What of the Sokoto, Oyo, Benin etc. Empires. But the question is was there any real such things in historical reality? A historical audit admits that the so called Sokoto Empire had no resources to run any centralized mega-state or empire. What they did to circumvent this resource deficit, was to run a string of related but independent kingdoms. They ran an archipelago of independent cousinly kingdoms, not a consolidated empire. Perhaps, what it was, was a ‘’Cousinate,’’ certainly not an empire.
But independence is anathema to empires. So, Sokoto, the nearest any Nigerian group came to things mega – by the way nothing mega – was thus not an empire, perhaps couldn’t have been. Sokoto was a loose federation of independent kingdoms united, not really, but linked by blood.
This last point is important and needs elucidation. There are five minimum conditions for an empire to run sustainably as a centralize unit. Empires are by definition centralized units. The first, is the presence of Rosetta Stone/multiple written languages and translations thereof. The second, is the Apian way/ability to construct highways, in modern terms railroads, airports etc. In other words, that is a marker that the empire can easily project power to pacify any restive natives of the hinterlands. The third, is best symbolized by Luca Paciolo/the ability of the empire state to innovate as to generate newer income or face a Malthusian collapse. Paciolo is a Roman monk and mathematician. The fourth, is to have manufactured empire-wide god/s or ethos, or failing to have commandeered foreign ones and independently domesticated same. No empire may thrive, led by foreign led Gods or scriptures, or by offshore pope or imam. By the way the Iran-Saudi Arabia ‘’cold war’’ is a variant of this playing out. The fifth, is the all pervasive Mandarinate – a cadre of bureaucrats using these other assets to administer the empire state and report to the central power – the emperor.
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