What If 14 Other Countries Joined Nigeria As New States? NAIJ.COM COLUMNIST

The Naij.com columnist, Mawuna Koutonin, opens the discussion on the pan-Africanism movement. In this latest opinion piece, he talks about the possibility of fourteen other West African countries voluntary abdicating their sovereignty to integrate into the Federal Repubic of Nigeria.

Two years ago, on August 16, 2013, a small group of Nigerian soldiers from the northwestern state of Kebbi entered the small city of Iloua in the Republic of Benin territory.

The reason why the Nigerians soldiers entered into the Benin republic territory remains unknown. The event triggered an uproar of Beninese nationalists who accused Nigeria of attempting to make Benin “the 37^th state of Nigeria”.

Beninese pan-Africanists, on the contrary, seized the opportunity to call on Nigeria to annex the small neighboring country and effectively make it its 37^th state. Beyond their pro-African unity arguments, they pointed to the fact that it was Nigeria that built and paved the Benin side of the border road Bodécali-Iloua.

“One nation, one Nigeria”

On May 13, 2015, while hosting the newly-elected Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, the president of the Republic of Benin, Yayi Boni, publicly declared his country as the 37^th Nigerian state, on the grounds of the strong economical ties and because 55% of the Benin population originated from Nigeria.

That official declaration was welcomed by all pan-Aficanists worldwide and quickly interpreted as a strong signal for the revival of the African Union dream.

Following President Boni’s declaration, I’ve declared the Republic of Togo as the 38^th state of Nigeria and called on the other thirteen West African countries to declare themselves as new states belonging to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

On the social medias where I’ve made my declaration, people from Cameroon declared their country as the 39^th state of Nigeria. People from Sierra Leone declared their country as the 40^th state of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Citizens of many West African countries joined the chorus to declare their countries as new states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, making the new virtual Nigeria a federation of 50 states, or 36 + 14 states.

The fourteen new “states” are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.

The integration of these new states would transform Nigeria into a country with a population of 340 million, covering over five million square kilometers, a GDP of 752 billion dollars. Nigeria would rank as the 19^th biggest economy in the world (from its current 21^st position). It’d become the third most populous country in the world (from its current seventh position), and also become the seventh biggest country by area in the world (from its current 31^st position).

We, the citizen of West Africa, believe Nigeria is the future of West Africa, and therefore demand President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria to take all necessary steps to ensure the gradual and smooth integration of the new 14 states into Nigeria.

A difficult journey ahead of pan-Africanists

Unfortunately, the pan-African dream of a Nigerian Federation integrating 14 existing countries in West Africa is carried only by a small group of people, mostly pan-African activists with very little influence over the current political apparatus in the region.

Additionally, the matter of uniting existing countries into a federation is not simple, and the challenges and difficulties had been well-documented by the late Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first president of the Nigerian Senate, in his 1962 address, “The unity of newly-independent African states“.

In a recent documentary, “Pan-Africanism: Testing Ideas on relaity,” produced by the Nigerian filmmaker Obehi Peter Ewanfoh, we’ve got a rare glimpse into the difficulties ahead of the pan-Africansit movement.

When Ivory Coast (now Côte d’Ivoire) got its independence in 1960, Kwame Nkrumah was already the president of Ghana, which gained independence in 1957. President Nkrumah, leader of the pan-Africanist movement, went to talk to the Ivorian president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny: “Can’t we form one federation among us so as to start building the pan-African project?”

In front of the people gathered, one could see Félix Houphouët-Boigny with suit and tie, a westerner. He was a minister in the previous French government. He had worked in the French’s secret service. He was a “France’s child,” like President L. Senghor of Senegal. After Nkrumah expressed his point, Houphouët-Boigny said:“We belong to France, you belong to the English, if you have divorced from your fathers, we have not devoiced from our fathers so we cannot form a unity government with you”.

The then-ideas and today’s opportunities

That was in 1960/63. What is new in the President Boni’s proposal of uniting the African people is the “coalition of will” approach, which means the West African countries would voluntary abdicate their sovereignty to integrate into a federation led by the strongest party involved — something similar to what had happened between the East and West Germany.

The idea would be to stimulate the emergence of pan-African political parties in the 14 West African countries, which would include in their agenda the abdication of their respective countries’ sovereignty in favor of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and pledge to govern their territory as a state inside the Nigerian Federation, following the laws and regulations of Nigeria.

With this new approach, a pan-African activist said: “If the politicians are unwilling, the people must march to the borders and take down the walls”.

Another activist continued: “We should be practical and work diligently to make this a reality. Conscious Nigerians should start pan-African parties or think tanks to push the idea of integration among their elites”.

The overall harmonization effort would involve identical constitutional and electoral procedure in each state. Elections would be held simultaneously under uniform electoral regulations in all the states. Each state would agree to have an identical organization of its armed forces, identical administrative organization, identical taxation and tariff policies, use the Naira as their new currency, and transfer their foreign policy to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which would run a common diplomatic corps for all the 50 states. Defence, economic affairs, judicial matters, higher education, cultural relations, civil aviation, postal and telecommunications, central bank would be the domain of the federal goverment.

“Agenda long overdue”

Now, for Nigeria to be able to play such a leading role in uniting the West African populations, it has to dedicate much more attention to the elites and political parties in the current western African countries, build solid ties with them, and actively sponsor their acquantance with the Nigerian elites, and the political and administrative culture of Nigeria.

In fact, the unity of the African people is an overdue agenda. Already in 1963, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah said: “There is no time to waste. We must unite now or perish. I am confident that by our concerted effort and determination, we shall lay here the foundations for a continental Union of African States.

“We in Africa who are pressing now for unity are deeply conscious of the validity of our purpose. We need the strength of our combined numbers and resources to protect ourselves from the very positive dangers of returning to colonialism in disguised forms. We need it to combat the entrenched forces dividing our continent and still holding back millions of our brothers. We need it to secure total African liberation. We need it to carry forward our construction of a socio-economic system that will support the great mass of our steadily rising population at levels of life which will compare with those in the most advanced countries.

“A whole continent has imposed a mandate upon us to lay the foundation of our union… It is our responsibility to execute this mandate.”

To conclude the whole discussion, a pan-Africanist has said: “I’m looking for the day the whole of the West African region will become one country with a robust military and economy setup, to propel the continent into the future. One love, one people”.

PS: Don’t tell the French about this secret plan.