by Many Nigerian leaders in their official speeches have always addressed Nigeria as a Nation but Chief Obafemi Awolowo in one of his intellectual deepness the foremost politician and a polymath described Nigeria as a ” mere geographical expression.”
The 13th century Latin word can be distinctly defined as a body of people with shared common identity,culture, history,and more often, language.
To amplify the definition, few scholars’ assertion on Nation definition is a desideratum:
Appadorai in his book, ‘The Substance of Politics’ defines it as “a group of persons united by a corporate sentiment of solidarity, based on community of language, territory, history, and often religion and traditions.”
In his book “The Grammar of Politics”,author Harold D.Laski defines Nation thus “a body of men and women united in the desire for social and political self-direction, and able, because of their common history and traditions, to act as a unity.”
Ernest Renan in his work titled ” What is a nation?, (1882) opines that “A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things constitute this soul… One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is the actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue to value the heritage which all have held in common.”
In his 1983 ‘Imagined Communities’, Benedict Anderson writes “A nation is an imagined political community… imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.”
And Anthony D. Smith in his work titled ‘The Ethnic Origins of Nations, 1986’ writes “A nation can be defined as a named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths and memories, a public culture, and common rights and duties.”
The last but not the least, Karl Deutsch in his work titled ‘Nationalism and Social Communication, 1953’ posits that
“A nation is a people who hold in common a set of memories, myths, symbols, and traditions.”
In the submissions of the five authors, a pattern developed and that borders on affinities of race, language, cultures,myths, rights and responsibilities.
The word “Nation” refers to a large body of people who share a common identity, culture, history, and often language, and are associated with a particular territory or country.
For purpose of objectivity, Nigeria’s components ought to be discussed:
As a multinational entity, Nigeria’s sub nationalities consists of diverse ethnicity and each often identifies with their distinct cultures and traditions
As for nationalities, Nigeria is a multinational state, with various ethnic groups identifying with their own distinct cultures and traditions even though they are addressed as Nigerians.
For more clarity, Nigeria’s major languages are ‘Hausa’ which is spoken by roughly 48 million; ‘Yoruba’ about 39 million; ‘Igbo’ roughly 27 million.
Others are ‘Fulfulde’ spoken by an average of 22 million; ‘Ibiobio’ 10 million; and of course Nigerian pidgin English which is a widely spoken informal language.
It is instructive to emphasize that several efforts have been made through the instruments of “National Confabs”, many of such have remained in the cooler that is tightly sealed.
Presently Nigeria is divided along socio/economic,religious,and tribal lines and many solutions have been applied but it is not abating.
Could the false state of one Nation have been our nemeses all these while?
Perhaps the time has come to take the bull by the horns by proffering a regional solutions to the problems of mutual distrust among the nations that make up Nigeria.
