"THE QUESTIONABLE NIGERIAN CITIZENSHIP FROM 1914 TO DATE"

Nigeria's citizenship has never been given or accorded its true worth and real value in all reality in the 99th year of the existence of the Nigerian nation, either as a British colony from 1914 to 1960 and later as a sovereign or an independent state from 1960 to date. The Nigerian citizenship was never officially recognized at the amalgamation of the Northern and the Southern protectorates together in 1914 to become one single political entity or union that was named as Nigeria by the then British colonial authority led by Governor General Lord Lugard.

The union of all the ethnic nationalities, the many religious faiths and the diverse cultural groups in the amalgamation of 1914 was built on the colonial political ideology or policies of divide and rule. This political agenda of the British Empire directly encouraged and actively promoted ethnic loyalty, regional identity, religious affiliation and cultural zealousness above the true spirit of patriotism and nationalism from the new Nigerians toward their new colonial nation that was created by Britain in 1914. The British refused from the onset to give this new colony a single and a uniform national constitution as the supreme law of that new colony. The two former protectorates of the North and the South respectively were made to be political autonomous and had two different constitutions that ran side by side in one colony. As time went by, the British went further and divided colonial Nigeria into more politically autonomous regions of the North, West and East. The politics in the colonial Nigeria and the entire economy were regionalized and were built around ethnicity and regional lines. These political and economic precedences continued into October 1, 1960 when Nigeria officially became an independent nation from the British rule that lasted for 46 years.

The leadership that fought for the Nigerian independence from the British built their politics and political parties along their different ethnic, religious, cultural and regional divisions. Nigeria became an independent nation on October 1, 1960, but was already heavily divided and polarized along regional and religious loyalties or identities. Nigerian leadership in the last 52 years of Nigerian independence have also refused to address the issues of regional and religious divisions that have underrated the true worthy of the Nigerian citizenship despite all the different constitution conferences held to date and the various constitutions that Nigeria as a nation has used from1960 to 2013. 

The post independent Nigerian leaders and governments have all directly continued to expand and to promote the worthless Nigerian citizenship through their adopted national policies of the Federal Character and the Quota System that are used to date to primarily govern how Nigeria is administered or run for the last 52 years at the federal level of government. The Nigeria’s federal civil service and all the federal political appointments from 1960 to date were all based on ethnicities, religious identities, regionalism or geopolitical zones which have all continued to put ethnicity, religious and regional identities of Nigerians above their Nigerian citizenship.

Most of the Nigerians that are either dead or alive in the last 52 years who climbed the ladder to the top of their careers at the federal level (federal civil service and federal political appointments) did it primarily on the backs of their own ethnic nationalities, religious identities and regionalism and never through their track records, academic achievements, high degrees of professionalism and merit .The national pride in the Nigerian citizenship from all Nigerians from all walks of life will never see the light of the day in our lifetime in this 21^st human universe until the game of merit or meritocracy and equal treatment of all Nigerians become the adopted national order of the day for doing business in Nigeria at all levels.