A Professor of International Law at the University of Lagos, Professor Akin Oyebode, has said that Nigeria was a creature of British imperialism.
He made this known while speaking as a guest on Channels Television’s News at Ten ahead of the nation’s 57th birthday on October first.
The erudite scholar said, “When Lord Lugard amalgamated various groups into what he called Nigeria, nobody asked our forefathers, our great great great grandparents whether or not they wanted to live under one canopy.
“So Nigeria was a creature of British imperialism. And if you read Lord Lugard, His Dear Mandate in a Tropical Dependency, which he wrote in 1918, he confessed that the British came specifically for raw materials and market for their manufactured goods.”
Professor Oyebode further explained that religion and developments were incidental to the needs of British imperialism, stressing that the late Awolowo admitted in his book, that Nigeria is a geographically expression.
“So religion and developments to the needs of British imperialism. I believe even when one of our founding fathers, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was writing in 1947, he admitted that Nigeria is essentially a geographically expression.
“You cannot talk of Nigeria as you could talk of the Whales, the Irish, the Scots or the English. So this has been the undoing of Nigeria, bringing into existence a political system that should really address the needs and interest of over 400 ethnic nationalities,” he added.