Even the conqueror regime is honest enough, right from the outset, about the entrenched differences in the key sociological and historical markers of the constituent peoples in the contraption that it knows exists soley for its optimum expropriation indefinitely

(Hugh Clifford)

IN DECEMBER 1920, Hugh Clifford, the British conquest and occupation governor in Nigeria, makes the following contribution to a “Legislative Council Debate, Lagos”:

[Nigeria is a] collection of Independent … States, separated from one another by great distances, by differences of history and traditions and by … racial … political, social and religious barrier.[1]

Today, Thursday 20 October 2016, 96 years on, would Hugh Clifford conceivably make these same assertions? If so, why? If not, why not?

(The New York Contemporary Five plays Don Cherry’s composition, “Consequences” [personnel: Archie Shepp, tenor saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; John Tchicai, alto saxophone; Don Moore, bass; JC Moses, drums; recorded: live, Jazzhus Montmarte, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15 November 1963])

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[1]Quoted in George CE Enyoazu, “Sovereign National Conference – Will the people have their say at last?”, African Democrat, 30 October 2013.

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe