taiwoliu:

The southern and Northern Protectorate under the colonial control of Britain were being governed by Lord Fredrick Lugard, who was finding the task challenging. In 1913, Lord Lugard in one of his dispatches to Britain suggested the amalgamation citing the following reasons: He said the North is poor and they have no resources to run the protectorate of the North. That they have no access to the sea; that the South has resources and have educated people. It should be noted that the said amalgamation was solely for the purpose of ‘ease of governance’ for the Britons. The amalgamation later took place in 1914 but did not put into consideration the huge difference in culture, belief, religion and mindset of both regions as rightly stated by Sir Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in 1952. The late Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was reported in 1952 in a speech in the Northern House of Assembly, Kaduna, that – “the Southern people who are swarming into this region daily in large numbers are really intruders. We don`t want them and they are not welcome here in the North. Since the amalgamation in 1914, the British Government has been trying to make Nigeria into one country, but the Nigerian people are different in every way including religion, custom, language and aspiration. The fact that we`re all Africans might have misguided the British Government. We here in the North, take it that `Nigerian unity` is not for us`. After the alleged maltreatments of Northern legislators in 1953 on Independence motion by the late Chief Anthony Enahoro of the West, the Sardauna of Sokoto and the leader of the Northern People`s Congress (NPC) was quoted as saying, `the mistake of 1914 has come to light”. He elaborated further that, `Lord Lugard and the amalgamation were far from popular among us at that time. There were agitations in favour of seccessions; we should set up on our own. We should cease to have any more to do with the Southern people. We should take our own way`.
The statement credited to the sadaurna indicates that the Northerners as we know them now as never and will never be in support of the amalgamation that took place in 1914. The effect is what we see in today’s Nigeria.

True amalgamation would consider the existing difference and make necessary efforts to erase them by creating communication and inter-relation between the various tribes in the protectorates. It is reported that after the amalgamation, the occupants of both protectorates were allowed minimum contact for about 46 years, leading to lack of tolerance and poor understanding of culture and difference.
It’s now 99 years after the 1914 amalgamation, the country has experienced a lot of difficulties in the form of war, coup, crisis and insurgency, all of which stem from the difference in all aspect of cultures and religion. If the northern protectorate were not merged with the south, 99 years is enough to have found and developed ways of sustaining growth and development on their own terms and not forced into co-habitation with the southern people who are not welcome in the North.

The government of this country wouldn’t need to send scores of its citizen to death in battle fronts all in the name of protecting unity in the Biafran civil war. Although the government succeeded in that war, survivors and sons of the region still clamour for freedom and sovereignty. There wouldn’t be a need for the call to Islamize the country by Northern militia group referred to as Boko Haram. This group as claimed not only lives of men of the Nigerian Armed Forces but also innocent civilians (both Muslims and Christians) have lost their life just because they are not on the same page as claimed by the group. Boko Haram is not the first militia to be heard in Nigeria, there were also the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND), who claims to be protecting the crude oil found in the region from the Federal Government, and MASSOB, fighting for the sovereignty of The Biafra, a recurrence of the civil war.

Militancy is not the only vice to have faced Nigeria, many ethnical and religious crisis have happened in the past claiming a lot of innocent lives, incidentally, those crisis occurred in the Northern part of the country – a way of northerners showing their displeasure and intolerance of other tribes and religion in accordance to the statement of Sir Tafawa Balewa in 1952. Victor Moses is a name known to virtually all Nigerian soccer loving fan but not everyone knew that he lost both parents while at a young age to one of the religious crisis in the North and only surviving by the whiskers himself. He was taken abroad by a relative and brought up in England. There are many more casualties to have suffered in the hands of Northern tribalism, most recently was during the 2011 presidential election where a lot of corp. members lost their lives because an Hausa man did not emerge as president, leading to pressure that students should not be posted to particular states in the North.
Another election is around the corner, and ethnical politics is the order of the day. Since the death of President Umar Musa Yar’adua, tension has been between Hausa and Igbo with both claiming to be entitled to the presidential sit with the Northerners saying, a little short of threat, that one of their own must be president come 2015 and the Igbos debunking the claim. Tension mounts as Nigerians await 2015 general election with the proverbial attitude of ‘sleeping open-eyed’.

The interest of the Europeans in Africa and indeed Nigeria was economic and it's still economic. Palestine, India, and Sudan, all of which were former British colonies and all of which have split along tribal and religious lines since the British left. However in Nigeria, we continue to deceive ourselves and live a lie of unity every day. The 1914 amalgamation has done more harm than good and hence putting it in the category of ‘a mistake’.

Sources: Nairaland.com – Nigeria’s amalgamation was a sham and the root cause of all our woes.
Vanguard archives – 1914 Amalgamation – A mistake?