Irreparable damage done to Nigeria from the colonial era to present

By Dr. Sonsat Tom-Quinn

The historical, political, economic, social, cultural, socioeconomic, political economic, and remedial accounting of the history of Nigeria from the colonial era to present. The trajectory of a potential prosperous nation with a cumulative destructive colonial inheritance. This historical inheritance transforms what could be a prosperous nation into a perpetual paradox. To break this destructive trajectory, Nigeria requires a fundamental restructuring away from its extractive and dependent origins toward an equitable, nationally integrated system that dismantles elite impunity and re-engineers the social contract. The 1914 amalgamation was a British colonial administrative convenience designed to foster their imperial interest, but the indigenous elite cemented it, to maintain their power at the expense of political integration. The disparate tribes and the elite have fostered ethnic, religious, corruption, zoning and federal character as the foundational principles that drive the political and economic development of the country. The over centralization, reliance on oil rents, and the revenues sharing formula incentivizes the creation of states that are not viable on their own revenue sources for survival, The fiscal illusion encourages systemic corruption, and the Delta region states where the oil rents originate from bear the brunt of the revenue derivation formula. For 66 years the elite and the British, the real owners of Nigeria have resisted paradigm shift, using incremental policy changes rather than structural reform to keep the country persistently underdeveloped, and lastly removed the broad universal distorting petroleum subsidies without immediate targeted interventions to cause the multidimensional insecurity and poverty that the country has never seen before. Given the current circumstances of Nigeria, with the Yorubas and Fula alliance to control the federal government, the strategic instrumentalization of identity frameworks, which is the main hinderance to political integration, just like the lack of technical human and skilled workforce is the greatest obstacle to industrialization in Nigeria, there seemed to be no chance things can be turned around in the next millennium. The elite manipulation, the north lack of formal education and backwardness, the south ethnic and animism culture, lack of science mindset, not heavily investing in education, no sense of material civilization in the north and over reliance on oil rents, and the treatment of economic resources as shares to be extracted rather than developed have cumulatively ensured that primitivity will remain intact in Nigeria forever. The elite and the masses are still wearing their native attire, agbada forever. The literacy rate is very low, the society is still knee deep in animism and occult phase of human behavior, have no science in their way of life and there are no plans of changing that pattern of belief system ever. The country has no public safety, political stability, sure economic production, agricultural activities and the economic, social and political stagnation is off the charts. The hope of getting industrialized, is little to none because the elites are benefiting from the dysfunctional political infrastructure, and the ignorant masses know no better. The dysfunctional structures the British colonial state imposed on the country and the elite inherited are continuously moved forward to higher levels, rather reduced on each chance they get, and the country is worse off today than it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago; each year it deteriorates more than the last, the debt to pay debt trap cycles, multiple overlapping budget cycles, ghost projects and agency, always new ways of corruption pups up to achieve illicit gains. Neither the southern educational gap nor the Fulani nomadic pastoral and primitive aristocracy about to be turned around anytime in this century because the ingredients and background factors to make it happen are nonexiste...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H9M5TXH3
• ISBN13: 9798187509317
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 412 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"