Nigeria at 100 Years: The Process and Challenges of Nation

A one Nigeria nation came to being in 1914. And when Nigeria is compared with most third world countries, Nigeria is more developed than then these other third world countries. Even though some modest achievement has been made, there are still some policy, human attitudinal contradictions and other challenges which have made Nigeria State unable to provide all that Nigerian citizens are expecting from the Government, to move it to the club of developed countries. As such some people argue that the colonial policy which resulted in amalgamation of kingdoms into Southern and Northern Protectorates and in particular the later amalgamation of Southern and Northern Protectorates into Nigeria was a mistake. Some groups from the South have argued that Nigeria was formed without the consent of the respective tribal groups and kingdoms that make up Nigeria and so it should split into their desired independent States. Another group appeared from North to reject the secular nature of the Nigerian nation and preferred that if Nigeria must remain one it should be an Islamic country governed not by the existing Constitution of Nigeria as amended but by Sharia law and would make that possible even through violent means. Though other reasons have also been advanced as the cause for instability of Nigeria like regional resource control and religion, this paper is of the view these other ones are tools for mobilization of mass support while that the crux of the matter is the dream to actualize individual politica