Colonial Shoes Doesn’t Fit

Before the colonial masters came into Nigeria and turned things upside down, different regions or tribe were managing their own affairs peacefully. Their coming brought a lot of positive change actually like stopping the killing of twins. Even if that was the only good thing they came along with, I must say that I am happy they came.  

It is normal in this world for one person to influence another, people to influence other people, nation to influence other nations, etc. This influence however, depends on who is being affected. If I admire and am understudying someone, it is my responsibility to copy those qualities in that person that is relevant to me, do away with mine that are irrelevant and ignore those qualities in that person that are not relevant to my purpose. But Nigeria’s case is different. We copied almost their lifestyle and are gradually doing away with our culture. Their most precious culture, which is timeliness, we overlooked. After many years of independence, Nigeria still staggers in the shoes of its colonial masters, their shoes that don’t fit us.

Why are we still struggling in colonial shoes; the shoes they are no longer forcing us to wear? It is true that colonialism left a confused country, civilian unfriendly polity, elite based economy, nepotism fuelled bureaucracy, Victorian era legal systems, and a god-father political system but we are not foolish to continue with all their fragments. We have the will to take the ones relevant to us and do away with the rest. If it is easy for us to copy them, then it should be easier for us to weigh the effects and come to a reasonable conclusion after 57 years of independence.

Postcolonial governments had the opportunity of pulling down the colonial structures and starting afresh but they were busy fighting religious and personal wars, and dragging among themselves who should wear the colonial shoes; the shoes they ought to reexamine, to figure out how it can fit. For instance, they could have redrawn the national maps, questioned and renegotiated the basis for uniting the three tribes that are distinct from each other, etc. They were so eager to step in and enjoy power that they sold their values. This of course gave birth to the bloody civil war, genocides, coups and counter coups that followed independence.

The clock for restructuring is still ticking. It is not too late to fix things. Many things have gone wrong that it will be very difficult at this time to pull down the existing structures and erect a new one but it is better done than not. If this country must survive, something different must take place and that is restructuring.

Written by Olive Chinyere Amajuoyi

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