October 1st, 2013, makes it exactly 53 years since the Union Jack was lowered and Nigeria’s Green-White-Green flag was hoisted signaling her independence. Indeed, so much has happened in Nigeria’s 53 years of independence; we have been through hell and back; suffered the indignation of a mindless, avoidable civil war, bloody coup d’etats, ethno-religious and internecine wars and brutal dictatorships that have combined to push the nation to the brink of disintegration.
Similarly, in the epoch under review, there have been spells of unanimous euphoria, genuine backslapping and general appreciation of individual achievements and successes. So, it’s an ample time to again take stock and measure our progress as a nation as against the frenzied expectations and lofty promises of October 1st, 1960 and recent democratic experiences. It is indeed time to critically examine the journey so far from the prism of individuals, events and issues that have contributed to or stymied the growth of this nation.
By Adeshina Oyetayo

Goodluck Jonathan – As I write this, the wall clock in my SoHo (Small office, Home office) chimed 3pm. It is Sunday, September 29th. In four hours, President Goodluck Jonathan would hold another edition of the Presidential media chat. As much as I look forward to it, the predictability and monotony of the chat are a dampener. Not even the opportunity given to twitter users to ask the President questions excites me. You know why? The questions would most likely be censored and cheaply so too. Alas, also, the answers to the questions would be delivered jejunely and listlessly. President Jonathan is not a compelling speaker; his eloquence is at best bland and at worst razor-blunt. Neither did he come to office with the political dexterity a leader needs at times like these.
More than any Nigerian president in recent memory, the Otuoke, Bayelsa State indigene, waltzed into power under a whirlwind of goodwill and groundswell of expectations. While the goodwill has long dissipated, the expectations have devolved into deep-seated disappointments; what buffet the mere mention of the president’s name are collective disillusionment, despair and distrust. Yet, the story of his political ascent on one hand, and rise to Presidency on the other hand remains the stuff fantasies are made of. But like the Yoruba cliché goes, the world would not forget a King whose territory imploded and remained impoverished under his reign and that whose territory was peaceful and prosperous. Either way, Nigerians would not forget President Jonathan.
 
Olusegun Obasanjo – This is one Nigerian many love to hate. Whatever you think of former President Olusegun Obasanjo however, you can’t take away God’s special grace on him or his frontline role in the evolution of our nationhood. Nigeria’s Head of State between 1976 and 1979, Obasanjo retired to his Ota, Ogun State farm where in the intervening years, he evolved into a statesman.  In 1995, he was arrested and imprisoned on trumped up charges of planning a coup by the Sani Abacha regime. But he outlived Abacha and became Nigeria’s substantive President in 1999. He ruled for eight years. In spite of the relative successes of his administration, many still feel that Obasanjo’s greatest injustice to Nigeria was foisting a terminally ill Umaru Yar’Adua on the nation.
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua – Foisted on Nigeria by the outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo in a flawed 2007 presidential elections, Umaru Yar’Adua, however, tried to turn the tide in his favour by implementing policies that appealed to the generality of Nigerians but his ill-health was an impediment from the outset. A two-term Governor of Katsina State, Yar’adua’s sickness, admission in a Saudi Arabian hospital, the secrecy with which it was shrouded and the interregnum in the presidency eroded whatever sympathy Nigerians had for him. Sad as it was, his eventual death in May 2010 cooled the heated polity.
MKO Abiola – Like the rose that grew out of concrete, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola was born into abject poverty in his native Abeokuta, Ogun State. The first survivor of his parents’ initial 23 children, Abiola’s academic brilliance helped him attain immense prosperity and global reverence. Abiola was a éminence grise wherever on the planet he found himself because of his philanthropic activities and business interests straddling all sectors of the economy. But that is not why he merits a place on this list. Abiola’s sojourn in politics is one of the catalysts for Nigeria’s democracy. As the presumptive winner of Nigeria’s fairest and freest presidential elections on June 12, 1993, the subsequent annulment of the election, his arrest in 1994 by the Sani Abacha junta and death in July 1998 have become a watershed in Nigeria’s history. In Nigeria’s southwest states, every June 12 is celebrated with a public holiday.
Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida – Back in 1985, Ibrahim Babangida was a young, starry-eyed officer whose blinding ambition led him to stage a coup that ousted the then Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari. His administration flailed and faltered, stockpiling different degrees of crimes against the nation and people’s psyche. Perhaps the singular most obnoxious offence of Babangida as Nigeria’s military president was the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election. For an election that was widely hailed as Nigeria’s freest and fairest, the annulment cemented IBB’s place in the global nay Nigeria’s hall of infamy.
Sani Abacha – Effortlessly vicious General Sani Abacha redefined the meaning of despotism during his five-year reign as Nigeria’s Head of State. State-sponsored assassination reigned supreme; the deaths of Pa Alfred Rewane, Suliat Adedeji, Kudirat Abiola and Harry Marshal among others too numerous to mention, are still unresolved. Those who were not killed escaped into exile. The media wasn’t spared the Abacha onslaught as the like of TELL, Guardian, TheNews and Punch among others suffered different degrees of harassment and abduction of their staff (ask Nosa Igiebor and Onome Osifo-Whiskey of TELL, Kunle Ajibade of TheNews and Chris Anyanwu of the defunct The Sunday Magazine; they are still alive to tell the story). The Abacha years were indeed the years of the locust. He died in office in June 1998.
Odimegwu Ojukwu – The son of a multimillionaire businessman, young Emeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu shelved the appurtenances and easy life his parentage and Ivy League education offered him to join the Army! He was one of the first graduates to join the Army. An assertive and articulate speaker, Ojukwu came into national prominence in 1966 when he was appointed the military governor of the Eastern Region. A year later, he led the Igbo people in a civil war that would last three years. With the benefit of different accounts of the pogrom, its expediency or otherwise followed Ojukwu to his grave. If Ojukwu was a bit compromising and less belligerent, could the civil war that led to the death of millions and eternally fissured the psyche of his people been avoided? After his return from a 12-year exile in Cote D’Ivoire, the Ikemba Nnewi, as he was also known, remained a permanent fixture in the socio-political arena. He died at the age of 76 in 2011
Muhammadu Buhari – The place of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) in Nigeria’s chequered history is indubitable. Following the truncation of Nigeria’s second republic headed then by Shehu Shagari in December 1983, Buhari was appointed Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Known for his Spartan lifestyle and sprightly gait, Buhari became even more renowned for his draconian rule. Since democracy returned to Nigeria, Buhari has unsuccessfully run for presidency on three occasions. Even now that his party, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, has merged with other parties to form the All Progressives Congress, his ambition to rule Nigeria has not wavered.
Yakubu Gowon – General Yakubu Dan-Yumma Gowon was 31 when he became Nigeria’s Head of State in 1966. He has the unenviable record of presiding over Nigeria when the civil war broke out in 1967; a war that saw millions of civilians dying from hunger and thousands of soldiers perishing at the war front. Over the years, Gowon, now 78, has evolved into a statesman, a Christian and a humanitarian.
Kaduna Nzeogwu – Nigeria’s independence was barely six years old when Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu led some young military officers to organise Nigeria’s first coup on January 15, 1966. About a year later, Nzeogwu, who had just turned 40, was killed in the civil war as a Biafran soldier.
Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi – Nigeria’s first military Head of State, Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, was the ultimate beneficiary of the Nzeogwu coup. But only for a short while. He was Head of State between January 15, 1966 and July 29, 1966. In a counter coup initiated by Northern military officers, Ironsi was killed in Government House, Ibadan, alongside his host, the Military Governor of Western Nigeria, Adekunle Fajuyi. Ironsi was 42 at the time of his death.
Sir Ahmadu Bello – Between 1954 and 1966, Sir Ahmadu Bello reigned as the first Premier of the Northern Nigeria region. Until his death on January 15, 1966 in the hands of the Nzeogwu-led bloodthirsty coup plotters, Sir Ahmadu Bello was the Sarduana of Sokoto and leader of the Northern Peoples’ Congress. Though a regional leader, Sir Ahmadu Bello was a prominent figure in the run up to Nigeria’s independence and throughout the First Republic.
Civil War – When agitations for recognition by the Igbos reached boiling point, they decided to secede, rechristening their region the Republic of Biafra. The Nigerian government would have none of it thus occasioning the civil war, which broke out on July 6th, 1967. The war ended on January 15, 1970. It was estimated that almost two million civilian casualties were recorded owing largely to starvation as the federal government cut off food aid.
Crude Oil – The discovery of oil in 1958 has defined Nigeria’s trajectory. The easy, copious wealth that oil offered was too much of an attraction for Nigerians; farmers soon abandoned their farmlands in an unfortunate dash for oil wealth. Those who didn’t had their farmlands despoiled by the rampaging exploration of crude oil. And it was only a matter of time before Nigeria slipped from being a producer nation to becoming an aggressive consumer, spending billions in importation of agro-produce that we once grew while running an economy dependent only on oil.

15.     Abubakar Tafawa Balewa – The son of a nomadic slave, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa overcame the deprivations and limitations of his heritage to become Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister. A trained teacher, and one of the few educated persons in his time, he later became a legislator and minister in the 50s. When Nigeria became an independent nation, he assumed the position of Prime Minister. Revered across the continent and beyond for his robust oratory, Balewa was on January 15, 1966, kidnapped and killed by the Kaduna Nzeogwu-led coup plotters. His image remains on Nigeria’s N5 note.
16.     Obafemi Awolowo – Born in 1909, Obafemi Awolowo was a lawyer, journalist and redoubtable nationalist. He founded Tribune newspaper in 1949, which remains Nigeria’s oldest surviving newspaper till date. He was Premier of the Western Region pre-independence and Federal Commissioner of Finance during the Gowon regime. Apart from the Tribune, one of Awolowo’s lasting legacies is the Obafemi Awolowo University, which at a time was regarded as the most beautiful campus in Africa.
17.     Nnamdi Azikwe – Zik of Africa, as he was also known, was a journalist turned politician who became a revered nationalist and Governor-General of Nigeria in 1960. When Nigeria became a republic in 1963, Zik became the first President and was in office until the military incursion of 1966. He died in May 1996 aged 91.
18     Wole Soyinka – Africa’s first Nobel Laureate; Nigeria’s literary pride; consummate actor and activist, the story of Nigeria is incomplete without ample space being accorded Professor Wole Soyinka. A major participant in the evolution of Nigeria’s nationhood, he was imprisoned at the outbreak of the civil war for meeting with Biafra leader, Ojukwu. Out of the 27months that he spent in prison without trial, 22 were in solitary confinement. Blessed with a commanding intellect and a robust understanding of the English Language that has made many accuse him of grandiloquence, Professor Wole Soyinka, 79, was an intractable opponent of the oppressive military regimes that ruled Nigeria while he has also been unsparing of ineffectual democratic leaders.
19     Chinua Achebe – Writer extraordinaire, Professor Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart holds the record for the most translated book that was ever written by an African. Released in 1958, Things Fall Apart has sold over eight million copies and has been translated into over 50 languages. His rich corpus includes other best selling books like No Longer At Ease, Arrow of God, A Man of The People and The Trouble With Nigeria among others. Achebe died at the age of 82 in March 2013.
20       Aliko Dangote – The biggest petroleum refinery is about to be built in Africa by none other person than the intrepid business magnate regarded as Africa’s first $20billion man and President of the octopoidal Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote. The venture into oil refinery is for many businessmen a no-go area but Dangote, 56, is not your run-of-the-mill businessman. This might seem like the ultimate quest, the magnum opus in a glittering entrepreneurship career, but with Dangote, you never can tell what would be next in his infinite pouch of cutting-edge ideas. Over the years, he has made the business environment his oyster, investing in businesses many would not touch with a long pole. Blessed with a rare humility and an infectious optimism that zero could still come up on a roulette wheel with only one spin left, Alhaji Dangote’s jaw-dropping contribution to the Nigerian nay African economy is legendary.
Follow this link to read more http://epochng.com/independence-anniversary-special-53-people-events-issues-that-have-shaped-nigeria-in-53-years/

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