THE CRISIS OF NATIONHOOD IN NIGERIA: AN ASSESSMENT OF SELF-DETERMINATION IN L. K. YEW'S FROM THIRD WORLD TO FIRST

Abstract

Since 1914 when the Northern and Southern protectorates of Nigeria were amalgamated by the erstwhile Governor General, Lord Lugard, and down to the 1960 independence, the situation, and the question of our Nationhood has remained not only questionable, but at the same time uncertain owing to the pernicious patronization and the imposition of imperial policies by the West and found our past and present leaders naïve to conceding to their demands. In the colonial period, Nigeria, amongst other African countries provided raw-materials for the industrialization of the West, while in the post colonial era, Nigeria ranks tops in the countries in Africa, serving as dumping ground for the marketing of goods, many of which are sub-standard products, manufactured in Europe, America and Asia. Nigeria is widely known for the marketing and consumption of goods and services produced in the West, but do not consume nor patronize locally manufactured goods. Collapse economy, poverty, low standard of education, insecurity, outright disregard for rule of law, tribalism, political instability, and imperialism, amongst others are usually attributed to Nigeria in the comity of nations. It is against this background, that this work, hermeneutically explores the idea of self-determination in Lee Kuan Yew's From Third World to First and thus, proposes it as the bane of the crisis of nationhood and development in Nigeria. In the 727 pages of his masterpiece, Lee, the father of Singapore's emergence as a nation state, x-rayed the factors behind Singapore's sudden economic and political boom, hence moving from a third world country to a first world country in spite of the circumstances surrounding the Singaporean independence in 1965. It is the finding of this work that the substitute of natural resources with selfdetermination, superior intelligence, discipline, ingenuity, nurturing and attracting talents, multiple tongues and languages amongst others are the steps to be taken towards solving the crisis of nationhood in Nigeria. This work concludes that, unless this position is taken, Nigeria would keep groping in the crisis of nationhood that presently bedevils it.