Past, Present, Future ??
D E L I V E R E D  B Y :
PROFESSOR DELE LAYIWOLA (FNAL)
Director, Institute of African Studies,
University of Ibadan
DATE: SATURDAY, JAN. 18,2014 j TIME: 9.30A M
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The Nigerian Nation and Her Centenary: 
Past, Present, Future
Lecture delivered by Professor Dele Layiwola, FNAL 
at the 2014 Junior Chamber International Forum 
in honour of their Grand Patron, Senator Tunde Oshobi, MON.
I. Preamble
It is customary, in a lecture which is intended for both the general public, the media and students of culture and society to make preliminary comments on methodology and style. It is imperative when such a lecture contents with 
judgments of facts and value over a terrain which is diverse and a frame which is 
telescopic: a very, very long century. This invokes history and its historicist other: 
memory. After 'all, the traditional maxim by Hippocrates is still true in the context of 
history and memory: 'Ars longa, vita brevis' meaning 'time is short but art is long'. 
But I shall like to play the moderate iconoclast: 'Time is indeed long but the art of it is 
in short supply’ why did I sound so pessimistic? In spite of our relative affluence and 
what might be termed the modernization of poverty, why should anyone be so 
skeptical of a century that is still as pregnant as a cloud at the end of a dry season? 
Time is indeed short but its memory is long!
I must warn you that I am not a millenarian nor do I enjoy millennium studies 
because a millenarian must be interested in the building of empires: their rise and 
fall, and the fate of men and women who rise and fall with them. In the context of 
twentieth century Africa, it is difficult to write 'A brief history of Time' without 
making presumptions.
It is difficult to discuss the 1914 amalgamation of the protectorates of 
Northern and Southern Nigeria without making reference to the larger African 
Context of the colonial enterprise. Essentially, this involves a larger picture of the 
20th century and the inevitable blurring of boundaries between that century and her 
preceding century. It was really at the Berlin conference of 1884 that European 
powers divided Africa as a spoil of war. The territories were uneven because Africans 
were not on the negotiating table. That absence made Africa a victim in real and 
virtual terms. The size and definition of each nation state was a fait accompli, non- 
negotiable and fixed. They actually became nation states by proxy and by legislative
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fiat; nations without historical and cultural self-determination. Prior to that 1884 
conference, Egypt had been occupied by the British from 1882-1914, approximately 
for a generation. As British colonialism ended in Egypt, it began in Nigeria with the 
Amalgamation which now marks the centenary that is being recalled. In a sense, Bill 
Freund(2006:94) is right in suggesting that the period from 1914 is a 'post-colonial' 
phase rather than a fundamentally new era on its own. It is also true that the colonial 
intervention by which we now define our history and our coming of age is significant 
for what it is worth. Freund describes it thus:
I continue to believe that the colonial period does represent, on 
the whole, a big historical break that changed material life 
progressively and substantially caused the integration of Africa 
into the wider world. Indeed until this point, it is strongly 
arguable that Africa was only a geographical expression. It did 
acquire a kind of unity and its articulate elites acquire some sense 
of communality in the world, precisely through the colonial 
experience and what followed. (2006:95).
It is logical to affirm that the colonial intervention and act of amalgamation is the 
basis for Nigeria's centenary. Indeed, this is contrapuntal because the amalgamation 
marks Nigeria's historical century as much as its reminder of self-denial and 
abnegation.
Both Michael Crowder (1978) and Tekena Tamuno (2013) have reiterated 
that Nigeria's population is not only highest on the African continent but that her 
natural resources are equally vast-crude oil, natural gas, palm oil and other agro- 
based assets. They equally echoed the fact that Flora Shaw, who later became Lord 
Lugard’s wife first suggested in a newspaper article that the hosts of British 
protectorates on the River Niger be collectively known as Nigeria. It is patent that, as 
a people -  whether as a historical, geographical or anthropological expression -  we 
have always existed on and around the banks or creeks and estuary of the Niger river 
and that our peculiar identity or name was invented by a British lady whose country 
then colonized us and directed our affairs for nearly half a century. But, in a 
preceding era, we have always had our empires and kingdoms: Ife, Oyo, Benin, 
Nupe, Kanem-Bornu etc. There had been other city states of the Niger Delta and the
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politically decentralized Igbo speaking peoples of the Southeast. In size and 
aspiration, each of these subgroups have recorded quantifiable achievements in art, 
culture, technology and heritage. Outside of this natural creation, colonialism 
invented, by artificial means, a country and sovereign nation state thereafter named 
into existence by the word of a British woman.
The centuries which preceded the invention of Nigeria showed that the 
kingdoms and city states traded internally and also across the Sahara desert. Contact 
with Europeans had been largely through Arab traders who acted as middle men.
II. Exploratory Beginnings
erodotus kept records that Phoenician Seamen successfully navigated the 
HAfrican continent returning by the Pillars of Hercules about 612 B.C. He also recorded that ancient Carthage traded in Gold with West Africa. It is 
also further known that the two great Hannos in Carthaginian history had made 
references to Africa. Hanno, the great, the Carthaginian statesman who lived in the 
third century B.C. and a contemporary of Hannibal had opposed Hannibal in his wars 
with Rome. Instead he advocated peace with Rome and for a Carthaginian empire in 
Africa. Equally, Hanno, the Carthaginian navigator explored the Atlantic Coast of 
Africa and went as far as Sierra Leone in 500 BC. These are of historical interest but 
trade in hinterland West Africa and the Maghreb went on between West Africans and 
Arabs who were the middle men between Africans and Europeans (Bovill, 1955). 
These were all before the fifteenth century.
By the fifteenth century, however, Europeans were eager to gain direct access 
to the source of supply so that they could avoid the use of Arab middlemen (Crowder, 
1978: 48). The curiosity was more in countries like Portugal and Spain who would 
also like to avoid trade with India through Arab middlemen. They would, therefore, 
explore the coast of West Africa in the bid to find a route to India. Prince Henry of 
Portugal, better known as Henry the Navigator, was the champion of this new 
enthusiasm. He equipped himself to undertake voyages along the west coast of Africa 
in the hope to make both maritime discoveries and economic gains. In addition, he 
hoped that he might find a Christian king in tropical Africa who could be his ally in his 
struggles against Islam and the control of the trade from the East. He succeeded to a
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large extent because by 1462, a large chunk of the West Coast from Senegal to Sierra 
Leone had opened up to trade directly with Europeans. His death in 1462 brought a 
lull and there was no immediate successor to his dreams and enthusiasm. It was not 
until 1469 that a Portuguese trader from Lisbon called Fernao Gomes secured the sole 
rights for coastal exploration for a period of six years. This was, however, on the 
condition that he would explore 100 leagues (a distance of 400 miles) of the coast in 
any one year. By 1471, the gold trade along the West African coast had opened up 
again and it was in late 1472 and early 1473 that Messrs Fernao do Po and Pero de 
Cintra first navigated the Bights of Bonny and Benin (Crowder, 49). A decade after 
this, about 1481, the booming trade caused rivalry between John II of Portugal and 
Edward IV of England over trade rights and monopoly in West Africa, particularly 
around the Atlantic coast of present day Nigeria and her Niger delta and creeks. 
Thereafter began the notorious expropriation of labour and human cargoes known as 
the Slave trade.
The point I seek to emphasize here is that trade, travel and exploration had 
discovered the peoples of Nigeria either on the coast from the Atlantic sea or from the 
Sahara desert with Arabs as middle men. The direct and indirect contacts with 
Europeans started with trade as articles of production and labour. The various 
cultures and civilizations that are now re-invented, and identified as Nigeria have 
always been in existence under separate forms of organization and governance. From 
available data and evidence, those nations evolved social structures and networks 
which guaranteed their survival. There was evidence of internal trade, conquests and 
colonization but it was the eventual opening to the outside world that gave rise to the 
development of the idea of a corporate nation invented as a country called Nigeria four 
and a half centuries after the Spanish and Portuguese traders first began frequenting 
the coast of West Africa.
As early as 1483 John II of Portugal declared himself Lord of Guinea even 
though that country did not exist at the time and his treaties were signed with local 
chieftains along the coast. The Portuguese merely established strategic posts and 
settlements along the coast. For instance Portugal had a small settlement on the 
Island of Sao Tome, which had no indigenous population. It was from there that it 
traded with the kingdom of Benin from about 1485. Apart from the trade in pepper 
from Benin, the Portuguese outsourced labour from there to work the plantations in
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Sao Tome. The Portuguese effectively colonized the Island and the Benin labourers 
were joined by deported Portuguese Jews, exiles and convicts. This instance of slave 
trade was second to a first phase when African slaves were first sighted in Lisbon in 
1441.
Ewuare 'the Great', as he was known, might have been the first indigenous 
monarch to encounter an European explorer, Ruy de Sequiera, when the latter arrived 
in Benin in 1472, but there are other accounts which claimed that Joao Affonso 
d'Aveiro was the first Portuguese explorer to reach Benin in i486. Whichever is 
correct, the entry of Europeans hinterland marked a major turning point in Nigeria's 
history and politics. Hitherto Benin, Ife and Oyo had always traded among the 
various ethnicities indigenous to Nigeria away from the Atlantic coast. External trade 
came from across the great Sahara desert. The homelands of Ife, Benin and Oyo were 
the last depots for the caravans across the Sahara and the Sahel regions of Northern 
Nigeria. The Portuguese arrival in Benin and the national and economic resources 
they saw encouraged further adventure hinterland along the river to the creeks of the 
Niger Delta. This robust trade eventually led to the establishment of British 
Protectorate over Northern Nigeria between 1900 and 1906. This marked the end of 
the trans-Saharan trade and the beginning of export of goods by road and rail to the 
Atlantic Coast. That was the real birth of Nigeria and the background to the nation 
state now known as Nigeria and whose history and centenary begs our attention and 
contemplation.
It is necessary to point out at this juncture that much as exploration leads to 
trade and prosperity, wealth and riches generate the invention of crime, kidnapping 
and brigandage. I shall like to cite an instance of very early incidence of kidnapping of 
expatriates before alien traders began cultural and material expropriation of which 
the Benin expedition was a prime example. In 1830 Richard and John Lander, the 
successors to Mungo Park, who had earlier met his death in Bussa in 1806 trekked 
from Badagary to Bussa. Mungo Park and his contingent tried to trace the course of 
River Niger to the Sea. This would eventually open up the country for access and 
trade. The Lander Brothers arrived to continue with his work. At Bussa, they secured 
two canoes. They sailed down via Lokoja through to Asaba. When they arrived in 
Asaba, they were kidnapped by local Igbo vigilantes. They later negotiated to deliver 
them to the master of an English boat anchored at Brass on the estuary of River Niger
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BJf
(See Crowder, 1978:10)
Their indigenous captors took them downstream to Brass where they were 
happy that they had at last discovered the mouth of the Niger river. Here the captors 
released only Richard Lander to go on board the British boat to negotiate the 
payment of a ransom after which John Lander would be released. Thomas Lake, the 
captain of the ship, hesitated to pay up the ransom. The Igbo men held on to John 
Lander as hostage. Later, he agreed to pay only on John's release. He tricked the 
local captors. As soon as he secured John Lander’s release, he set sail without paying 
the promised ransom. The kidnappers had thus suffered a double jeopardy because 
they not only helped the British to navigate the Niger from Asaba to Brass, they lost 
out on their expected dividend of an illegitimate trade by barter. This unusual trade 
became an epidemic in the lives of Nigerians nearly two centuries later. We all know 
what the governors of Edo and Imo states have recently done to stem the tide of that 
menace called kidnapping. My strong point here is that the menace had emerged as a 
game and a pastime feature of trade in the Niger Delta a long time ago. What we are 
now witnessing in the Niger delta and Southeastern Nigeria is a recurrence of the 
trade game invented in the 1830 encounter with British explorers.
The discovery of the connecting route of the Niger from the hinterland to 
the Sea thus opened up awareness for access and trade -  legitimate and otherwise. I 
should emphasize that it also led to the conquest of Nigeria and her re-invention as a 
nation rather than as a mere natural and geographical expression. This has not only 
led to greater interaction with traders across continents, it has also begun a process of 
consensus building as a comity of nationalities within a pluralist nation. In other 
words, a profound interaction of cultures especially through trade, linguistic 
interaction and renegotiation of mores, in a historically verifiable and a 
geographically diverse space. In the last one hundred years -  a long century indeed -  
the trial period is, and must be over, so that national growth may translate to national 
development. I shall now proceed to articulate what I have referred to as a game 
feature through a well known mathematical dictum -  the appreciation of game 
theory. Increasingly at this point also, I shall talk more about Nigerians than about 
Europeans who have left us to govern ourselves from about i960.
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III. Game Theory and the Nigerian Paradigm
igeria as a nation has lived for a century, at least half of it, under the 
Nrulership of her own citizens and indigenous wards. By all standards, a century old man or woman is a vers' old person indeed. But in the lives of 
nation states, a hundred years is not quite as long, though it is considered long enough 
to give a demographic, fiscal or historical account. Hence in a December 13, 2013 
edition of The Punch the columnist, Ayo Olukotun, taking a cue from the 2013 Human 
Development Index (HDI) reports as follows: that though Nigeria's growth rate of 6.5 
per cent surpasses the global growth rate of 3.2 per cent, we have not made any 
impressive strides in terms pf human development. In fact, this report rates Nigeria 
below hitherto embattled nations such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and the 
Democratic Republic of the Congo. This indicates that in spite of the quantum growth 
of the economy and our natural resources, human and infrastructural development is 
almost nil. Some other global league tables such as the Failed States Index (published 
annually by the Fund for Peace) and the Corruption Perception Index of 
Transparency International have rated Nigeria as a failed state. Nigeria continues to 
witness reports of widespread cases of kidnapping and insurgency. In spite of the long 
century it has witnessed, it has emerged as a weak state and an unfulfilled nation. It is 
the only nation of its size on earth (about 170 million persons according to the 2013 
issue of the Population Reference Bureau) with such a history of dismal performance 
and dysfunctional statistics. The logical question is: what do we do to achieve a better 
performance index?
From the critique and analyses in the Press and in the social media, two basic 
principles are discernible. The first is that there is a basic disconnect between the 
principle of leading and leadership in Nigeria. That is, there s neither concrete 
agreement or social contract between the leaders and the led, if we assume that we 
already have the right calibre of leaders. The second is that the component of the 
resources belonging to both strata of society is so badly managed that the two parties 
in the game of governance live in great poverty even as they wallow in riches. The one 
in material poverty, the other in the poverty of mind and spirit. This is a paradox 
which has led to what Game theorists refer to as a zero sum game. According to the 
Encyclopedia of Information Systems (2002), a Zero sum game 'is a game where the
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payoffs in an outcome to all players is zero. I justify a recourse to Game Theory 
because the art of governance, leadership and service is like a game as they both 
involve interaction and interactive sessions. Let us adopt two representative
definitions:
Game theory is the study of the ways in which strategic 
interactions among economic agents produce outcomes with 
respect to the preferences (or utilities) of those agents, where the 
outcomes in question might have been intended by none of the 
agents (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010).
From the Encyclopedia of Information Systems:
Game theory is the formal study of decision-making where 
several players must make choices that potentially affect the 
interests of the other players.
The definitions are pretty clear especially as we know that we are dealing with 
strategic situations which would benefit from intense thought, alternatives and 
profound interactive sessions, sometimes over an unusually short space of time. This 
is why Game theory is also known as interactive decision theory. It is also obvious 
why the disciplines of mathematics, philosophy and economics have been great 
beneficiaries of this theory. However, it is not unusual that history and literature 
should apply it. Let us borrow three test cases.
A. Socrates remembered an episode from the Battle of Delium. A  soldier is at 
the battle front in a battalion waiting to foil an enemy attack. It may occur in his 
thinking that if the defence would be successful, it is unlikely that his own personal 
role will be crucial. But if he stays on, he runs the risk of being killed or wounded. On 
the other hand, however, if the enemy were to win the battle, the probability of his 
being killed, injured or captured are higher still. Based on this line of reasoning, it is 
better to desert the war front and run away irrespective of who would win the battle. 
In addition, if all the soldiers were to reason this way, since their condition is similar, 
this would certainly translate to a loss or a defeat in the war. The greater the fear, the 
greater the chance of desertion so that they might come to no harm. If the soldiers 
reason that the battle will be won (or lost) without the particular, individual
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dedication of any one soldier, the less reason for any of them to stay and fight. Should 
each soldier be allowed to anticipate this type of reasoning on the part of others, the 
commander will have total defeat on his hands without the enemy firing one shot.
B. Ages ago before the modern accession of game theory in the 1940s, some 
military leaders had used this kind of systematic reasoning for strategic purposes 
and to advantage. The Spanish conquistador, Cortez (1485-1547) invaded Mexico in 
1519. He arrived with a small fleet which had no chance winning a battle against the 
numerous Aztecs on their own land. To remove the risk of fear, retreat or desertion, 
Cortez burned down the ships on which he and his soldiers landed. With retreat 
having been rendered impossible by his action, the Spanish soldiers had no choice 
but to stand and fight. Not only to fight, but to do so with the determination to win 
and rout their enemies. But even more spectacular was the psychological motivation 
of Cortez. His action had a demoralizing effect on the ranks of the Aztecs. He ensured 
that the ships were burnt in the full glare of the Aztec soldiers. The contending force 
then reasoned that any commander who could be so confident as to willfully destroy 
his own option for retreat must have good reason for his extreme optimism. They 
thought it cannot be wise to attack an opponent who had good reason to be so 
determined that he was above defeat. The Aztecs, under their leader Montezuma, 
quickly retreated into the surrounding hills and Cortez had an easy and bloodless 
victory.
In the above scenario, we have an interactive process of many individuals (or 
soldiers), each of which is a rational decision maker, but which has produced a 
favourable outcome intended by one person (the commander). Most pragmatic 
armies would try to avoid this problem just as Cortez did by raising the stakes. They 
may not be able to make physical retreat impossible but they can make it 
economically impossible by just shooting deserters. In that case, standing and 
fighting is each soldier's rational course of action and perhaps the only option left. 
This is because the cost of running away is at least as high as the cost of staying to 
fight.
C. My final example is taken from William Shakespeare's play, Henry V.
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Henry reaffirmed British claim to the French throne. During the battle of Agincourt 
Henry decided to slaughter his French prisoners in the full view of both his own 
British soldiers and his enemy, the French. This shocked even his own subjects who 
described it as immoral, the strategic reasons declared by King Henry was that the 
prisoners might free themselves and undermine his throne. This was a sure 
possibility given the situation of war and enmity. A game theorist would do a further 
cost benefit analysis, though equally amoral justification, as follows. His own troops 
have witnessed the killing of the hapless French soldiers and know that the enemy has 
observed the same. The only option they then have, in their own interest is to fight to 
win the war of Agincourt failing which they would suffer a worse fate in the hands of 
the enemy. As in the previous example, their boats have been burnt down and stakes 
are higher against retreat or failure.
IV.The Retreat to the Future
f  we consider the situation of Nigeria at the tail end of her long century, the 
Isolutions implied by our resort to Game theory would not be as extreme as they tend to appear, given the prognosis for the next century when, hopefully, the 
youngest of us here would have been laid to rest. The resort to balkanization or 
disintegration is completely ruled out. But before the commencement of the march 
through the next century, we do owe an obligation to the youths of this country. If we 
cannot have effective power supply, then they deserve to have it. If we have been 
denied potable water, then they must have it. If we do not have effective road and rail 
transportation, then they deserve to have it. If we have lacked effective health 
delivery, then they must have it. If we have a degenerate and corrupt public service 
system, they can make do with a much better one. If the educational system has gone 
to the dogs and the hyenas, then we must humanize it for the tasks ahead.
The future of our youths must he one devoid of kidnapping, insurgency and 
genocide, the last century was one beleaguered by colonialism, tyranny, civil war, 
misrule, corruption and crass opportunism. In the spirit of strategic interaction and 
reasoning, we must enter the new century with all the faith granted by the positive 
resources that Game theory promises to offer.
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References
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Clapperton, H. Journal o f a Second Expedition into the Interior o f Africa from the 
Bight o f Benin toSoccattoo. London, 1829.
Crowder, Michael. The Story o f Nigeria. London: Faber & Faber, 1962,1978.
Dike, K. Onwuka. Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830 -1885. London, 1956.
r
Freund, B. "Africa in the Long Twentieth Century" in The Great Divergence: 
Hegemony, Uneven Development, and Global Inequality, ed K.S. Jomo. Oxford: 
Oxford UP, 2006:94 - 115.
Game Theory. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.
Lander, Richard and John. Journals o f an Expedition to Explore the Course and
Termination oftheNiger. London, 1832.
'
Olukotun, Ayo. "2013: A Year o f Unfulfilled Expectations." in The Punch. December 
27,2013.
Stanford Encyclopedia o f Philosophy. Open Access. 2010.
Tamuno, Tekena." Nigeria's First Century: Critical Pluses and Minuses" in Nigeria in 
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J u n i o r  C h a m b e r  I n t e r n a t i o n a l ,  U n i v e r s i t y  o f  I b a d a n .
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