Narrative Change at the Roots: Imagining Peace in Modern Nigeria

Abstract

This paper brings the literature on “narrative change” and “narrative transformation” to bear on post-independence Nigeria, applying an interpretative framework called Root Narrative Theory (RNT) to 1960s Nigeria; In this paper, we analyze selected memoirs of leaders who were key players in the country’s critical political junctures in the first decade of independence, when combatting poverty and economic development on a distinctive African model still seemed viable: Obafemi Awolowo, a Yoruba from the West, Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo from the East, and Tafawa Balewa and Ahmadu Bello, two representatives of the North. This sample of memoirs reflects the discursive post-independence Nigeria in a decisive moment, revealing how these representative visionaries reflected on and responded to the daunting challenges that the newly independent Nigerian State had to contend with after almost a century of colonial rule. The analysis reveals how the clash of visions between these four indigenous perspectives and those of the key members of the international community plunged the nascent Nigerian project into contradiction; these then contingent gaps in the ramifying operational imaginations of key actors have remained almost unchanged, demonstrating how the narratives of that time set the parameters for the possibilities of development and peacebuilding in Nigeria today.

1. Introduction

On July 6, 1967, the Nigerian civil war started, and it was to last for another 3 years. Less than a decade earlier, in October 1960, the country got its independence from British colonial imperialism, agitation for which had started about 3 years before. This independence was widely celebrated since Nigeria was Africa’s most populous country and could serve as a model of African liberation, but only 10 years later, it all seemed like a tragic failure. And yet this apparent failure may well have been little more than an excuse made by powerful interests in a broader effort to keep the status quo—that is, to maintain a new kind of Nigerian colony. This was noted at the time.

Obafemi Awolowo, the influential voice of the Yoruba, accused Britain of promoting institutional incompatibility to preserve a space for them in all future governance (in fact the very word governance was coined in this era). He wrote, “every time we talk about self-government for this country the British people turn around and say if we depart from your country there will be civil strife there will be war, there will be all sorts of things.” As it happened, “all sorts of things” did come to pass in the first short decade of independence and many of them not good for the Nigerian people, including one of the most brutal civil wars in global history. This paper attempts to provide a novel perspective on the sources of civil war and to explain the trajectory of conflict dynamics over time, themselves anchored in purposes—master narratives of a new Nigeria—drawing on evidence from the personal memoirs of critical leaders of rival contemporary perspectives and relying on analytical categories drawn from a new morphological-performative theory of the imagination called Root Narrative Theory (RNT).

We rely on RNT, in part, because it helps to understand how to bridge rival interpretations of abusive power, which are taken to lie at the root of any moral-political stance: “all stories can be classified in terms of their depiction of abusive social power” Solon Simmons [1]. And for most Nigerians at the time, the most salient mechanisms of abusive power were in the hands the British and the abuses of the colonial oppressor were close to mind. Awolowo’s address to British representatives at one of the Parliamentary sessions inveighed in cadences of righteous indignation for the violation of his people’s dignity: “they came to buy slaves and they supplied gunpowder and relations and other things to our people and said to them, go into the interior and bring slaves…same now today they are claiming that they brought peace to this country.” Of course, the British and their allies had quite different concerns about what sort of social power would be abused in post-British Nigeria, and these early postcolonial concerns shaped the moral imaginations of rival visionaries of a new Nigeria. They continue to shape them today.

2. Narrative, moral imagination, and the root narrative theory

A narrative is among other things, a tool; a medium for expressing our experiences. We perceive external expressions that we internalize from our emotional core and respond accordingly. We use narratives to describe and express emotion and what in our universe is considered acceptable or not. Solon Simmons describes narrative as “a general mode of thought that unites the two aspects of human nature, the angelic and the bestial, the comic with the psychological, then it will be a great advance if we could find a way to reduce the complexity of the narrative we encounter into political data” ([1], p. 7). This is consequently intended to address the concept of moral imagination on which most of these thoughts were drawn. The paper contributes to the literature on imagining peace since the exercise is not for developing just literature but also offers recommendations that would be useful for donor and government agencies that are currently committed to interventions in the Global South.

The methodology and the ‘tooling’ of the Root Narrative Theory contribute to the science of conflict analysis in a way that draws from and yet departs from Lederach’s ideation of the ‘moral imagination.’ In his Art and Soul of Building Peace, [2] states that moral imagination is “our capacity to recognize turning points and possibilities in order to venture down unknown paths” to create something new. Lederach’s suggestion situates peace somewhere in our moral imagination and is likely the starting point for this paper’s recommendations. In effect, root narrative is one way of representing the natural categories of the moral imagination.

Before we narrow the scope of our thoughts to Nigeria, scholars have engaged the notion of moral imagination in the sphere of policy and social engineering; [3] in art, [4], in business [4, 5] taking these into account Lederach suggests “we could without stretching the truth or the metaphor, propose that the capacity of the moral imagination dates to time immemorial” (p. 26) that we have the capacity to reach the turning point.

Mark Johnson [3] likewise challenged the view that “morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason.” He argues that what is missing “is any fundamental role of imagination in our moral reasoning.” (p. ix). About the complexities of the nature of the conversations on moral imagination, especially from the angle of experience Edmund Burke [6] assumes that we all possess a sense of what is right and wrong. One can draw from this the idea that what is conceived as right or wrong is tied to the overarching universal conception of what is right or wrong in an interpretive community. That itself could still be relative to space and time and context.

Experience contributes to the process of our evolution, as such part of evolving is, for instance, an individual who has thought that his village is where the world starts, and ends must have that notion about his cosmos because that is just how far the individual’s experience could carry. If he steps out to an urban space where everything moves fast, that orientation about the other worlds then helps him to see things differently. For instance, at what point was colonialism unacceptable? or any other forms of oppression? One cannot assume that the ‘universal’ code of morality was okay with slavery at the time. This only demonstrates the complexities of Lederach’s notion of moral imagination. Simmons on the other hand depicts moral imagination as a filter or a strainer, of some sort that determines responses for even seemingly similar scenarios. Thus, the response to an external factor by an individual might may vary depending on the context and personality of the individual involved. One of the ways to interpreting Lederach is that we all possess certain moral ideations which we activate whenever we get to the critical point of decision-making, however, Simmons ideate it as a filter because even the idea of what is moral is still relative to every possible condition.

Thus, moral imagination is relative if Lederach assumes that we all possess it, and with the capacity to activate it when we want would There was a time that slavery was acceptable when humans were part of the ‘spoils of war’ as it was with the Danish Vikings is known to be politically organized so was it in precolonial Africa, where the value of a warrior at the time was in the numbers of his slaves and kills. That was a moral value, in fact, the notion of protectorates in the colonial era was indicative of the society at the time. The colonies were being protected from those with greater firepower. Communities in the continent were being protected from the vices of civilization at the time, the unquenchable thirst for empire expansion. Samuel Huntington [7] does not suggest that there is a convergence of civilizations into one but that they operate concurrently, and the power dynamics determine the civilization that the world adopts.

Powerful societies are universalistic; weak societies are particularistic. The mounting self-confidence of East Asia has given rise to an emerging Asian universalism comparable to that which has been characteristic of the West. ‘Asian values are universal values. European values are European values,’ declaimed Prime Minister Mahathir [of Malaysia] to the heads of European governments in 1996. Along with this also comes an Asian ‘Occidentalism’ portraying the West in much the same uniform and negative way in which Western Orientalism allegedly once portrayed the East. (p. 132.)

Similarly, Huntington succinctly captures this clash of civilizations with western civilization stating “alone among civilizations the West has had a major and at times devastating impact on every other civilization. The relation between the power and culture of the West and the power and cultures of other civilizations is, as a result, the most pervasive characteristic of the world of civilizations” (p. 224).

Emerging literature in the field of peacebuilding has suggested ways to rethink peace by the likes of [8, 9] to mention a few. The ideation of Lederach’s turning point moment that yields constructive change, suggests Zartman’s hurting stalemate; [10]. He states, “the concept is based on the notion that when the parties find themselves locked in conflict from which they cannot escalate to victory and this deadlock is painful to both of them, they seek an alternative or a way out.” (p. 8). It is not all conflict situation that requires that level of moral imagination to function. How about cases of disparate opinions that have nothing to do with violent conflict where morality seems neutral? Colonial Nigeria experienced disagreements at every critical moment in its history, during the colonial era, into the post-colonial era, from the type of economic system. Disagreements like the one captured here; “Government has not succeeded in producing a bold development program for the prosperity and happiness of our people, with the result that economically we just drift and become more and more dependent on foreign aid times, it is not likely to be in the long-term interest of Nigeria” does not require a moral imagination in the thoughts of Lederach. Therefore, one would assume that the limit of our moral imagination is informed by the civilizing culture. And as such that “the heart and soul of social change should inform peacebuilding.” ([2], p. ix). That rings social engineering, which evokes the ‘organic’ nature of a peace process.

3. The spectrum of moral imagination

Let us assume that humans act with a sense of purpose even when that purpose is not generally acceptable. For instance, there is a purpose to truancy in the mind of a teenager that should be in school, but rather chose to hang out with his friends. He is inexperienced, has no idea about what skipping school can cause over time. That idea of purpose contradicts the assumed universally acceptable behavior that could propel toward academic success. But there is another idea of success on the street where loyalties are defined by the rules of the street, where trust is identified in the language of the street. That is a form of moral imagination that dictates its core. A narrative presents us with the dilemma that moral imagination eases us into. The question of what morality is however universal the concept, in reality, is relative to individuals and societies alike.

To further illustrate, let us assume that morality is universal, then it is from the pool of morality that we decide how we want to ‘script our actions’, to whom and where for what purpose. Deliberate calibration of our actions in the order of how we interpret or what signifies morality. Our thoughts and actions are aligned in a way that reflects what the core emotion stems from as part of the ongoing social process. It was the disagreements that led to the violent conflicts because they were fundamental. In relation to Nigeria, it is the capacity to recognize the various Root Narrative Imaginations as a form of abuse of social power. It neutralizes the effect of thinking of morality as positives and negatives. The Root Narrative Theory recognizes these turning points with the notion that there is a general understanding of where the ‘other’ operates from, and consequently, generates ideas that push the union forward. That will be toward peace reimagined since ‘turning points must always transcend the cycles of destructive violence while living with being relevant the context that produces those cycles.” ([2], p. 29). Contrary to the idea that amalgamation was forced on both the North and Southern protectorates, Awolowo noted that when other communities realized that there were benefits to the in-direct rule, they willingly agreed to the indirect rule. He states, “realizing from the Benin example the accretion of his power and prestige which the application of the ‘indirect rule’ to his domain will import, voluntarily requested the Governor General to apply this system to his area.” These were turning points that really never yielded peace, and the actions were informed by their moral imagination at the time. For Lugard, it was the best way to save his country and concentrate on the war while the colonies are given the ‘Greek gift’ of ‘self-governing’ under imperial supervision. In light, of the RNT, that makes sense. One can represent every action from the point of view of abusive social power. “The story structure of a root narrative is quite primitive, incorporating a protagonist and an antagonist function, both with plot and character elements. The simple form or grammar of a root narrative is as follows: the antagonist used abusive power to cause injustice to the protagonist [1].

By using Root Narrative Theory, we hope to show how devastating it can be when rival visions come into conflict and the parties fail to even really see the imagined world that the other so clearly see. In the course of Nigeria’s development, social power and its abuses have been subject to wild gaps in interpretation. History has made clear that the supposedly benevolent leadership of the developed world dealt a devastating blow to equitable development in the Global South, [11, 12, 13] but there were a variety of interpretations of what the specific ills of colonialism were and what remedy they required. It is the task of this paper to attempt to link these distinctive stories to their imaginative worldviews—their root narratives—in order to provide a systematic way to represent the sources of the perennial violence that continuously rippled from the North of the country where the Hausa dominate.

Take the example of a well-known warning that Awolowo made about the gap in education between the North and the rest of the country. He spoke of economic inequality as a central challenge in Nigeria and spoke about it in a way that is called an equality narrative in root narrative theory, a narrative form favored by socialists but often detested by industrial interests in the West. Awolowo’s idea was not simply to borrow western idea but to chart a different course, an indigenously African course. He advocated for a specifically African Socialism, one that was “a kind of socialism which is native and indigenous to Africa, this is the so-called African socialism which… is more suited to Africa than the so-called Russian or Chinese socialism” ([14], p. 151).

Of course, the objective problem of economic deprivation was not resolved on either a western or an African template, and when a deep concern is ignored or explained away with a different and less apt narrative form, over the decades, the problem fester, expressing itself in an entirely different vocabulary of power. For example, Boko Haram (Western education is heresy) is a movement in Northern Nigeria that appeals to those who are economically exploited and deprived. But to blame Western education is not to tell a class story about economic inequality, but instead, a status story (following what is here called a dignitarian logic) that ignores economic arrangements unless they can be reduced to the fault lines of group difference—economic differences between Christian vs. Muslim groups. Narrative gaps of this kind produce collective action problems. People do not know how to align their activities against what kind of antagonist, and the presence of such a gap can help to explain the political instability that a country like Nigeria has grappled with since its independence.

In the North, the dignitarian logic was dominant but it had morphed from an aspiration for outgroup liberation into a defensive crouch in support of the ingroup. A famous statement by the Sardauna of Sokoto, a powerful Muslim leader, and the Premier at the time in support of what would be called “Northernization” in the 1960s reveals his own analysis of abusive power that is primarily directed against the cultural other, an ethnic outgroup with no interest in the well-being of the broader or non-sectarian community. His worldview, described in root narrative theory as a “securitarian imagination” justified a policy of explicit exclusion against the groups that lived in the western, and eastern regions. He stated, “all important posts are being held by Northerners…if we can’t take a Northerner, we take an expatriate like you [British] or put a Nigerian on contract Bello ([15], p. 226).” The Sardauna’s worldview, securitarian to the point of outright dismissing the legitimate rights of all but the northerner, revealed the state of that union in the 60s, and little has changed since then. The Sardauna’s narrow and sectarian view of Nigerian possibilities has failed to unlock its potential.

But there was potential. The Global South has recorded a few success stories of development propelled by home-grown ideologies. One example is Malaysia where the World Bank reported that “since gaining independence in 1957, Malaysia has successfully diversified its economy from one that was initially agriculture and commodity-based to one that now plays host to robust manufacturing and service” [16]. Could something like that have happened in Nigeria as well? Perhaps. At inception, Awolowo noted in his memoir that “at the very moment, and for a long time to come, the base of our wealth is agriculture. In my view, therefore, the priority should be the bold and rapid development of the agricultural economy in this country.” The South did indeed develop its agricultural capabilities, but the leaders in the north mounted a project of national security that privileged the northerner over the others and left agricultural development to meander on an uncertain path. As Awolowo wrote, “there is no scope for overseas investment directly in agriculture, yet investment in agriculture is inadequate and is rarely in the public eye.”

We can see in the memoirs that a brief moment of hope for Nigerian unity after independence was short-lived, and the implicit agreement of the regions to subject themselves to the unity of a new Nigerian state looks more in retrospect like concessions to individual ambition. This was clear right away as this quote from Azikiwe in 1965 reveals, “it is true that we have trouble in the TIV division [a more marginalized minority in the Northern region that later became Middle-Belt region] and since the election in Western Nigeria last October, we had series of violent outburst, riots so that it could lead to anything…we are five years old ….and so anything could lead to the breakup of the Federation but there are some of us that have made up our minds to preserve the unity of this country.”

The once-promising project of national unification was sacrificed to another project that we might call the “invention of the North.” Sanusi Lamido Sanusi reiterates that “before colonialism, there was nothing like Northern Nigeria. Before the Sokoto Jihad, there was nothing like the Sokoto caliphate. The man from Kano regarded himself as Bakane the man from Zaria was Bazazzage. The man from Katsina was Bakatsine. The kingdoms were at war with each other. They were Hausas, they were Muslims, and they were killing each other.” ([17]:n.d).

This sectarian focus on Northern concerns at the expense of national unity was clear from even the days before independence, and the fears of the British and their political theory of the case only compounded the problem. And once these British visions of dysfunction were internalized by those in the North, they were projected onto the other regions as well. The result was mistrust, stagnation, and ultimately war. We can see the logic of an alternative in Awolowo’s memoir.

It has been suggested by my Northern friends and I’m very sorry that they have fallen victim to the evil propaganda of the British that they are not fit to govern themselves…it shows the extent to which this evil propaganda has gone in this country and we all ought to really weep that people who are as advanced and as civilized as the Northern people can come here and say we are not fit for self-government.

There is nothing fixed in the future of a people, and economic and political development in Nigeria could have traveled a very different path. We see these alternate futures in the memoirs of the leaders of the early days of independence, many of whom anticipated problems that were never addressed. What Nigerians lacked at the time was the curiosity that was required to see the world in a different way, the inclination to respect the irreducible differences among its peoples, and the will to include their novel ideas about the proper parameters of their own futures into its plans for national development and statebuilding. We hope to begin to reconstruct those forgotten futures here.

4. The narrator, the society and the audience: sample selection

The selected memoirs are well-known texts in Nigeria, and some have been recommended texts in local colleges and higher institutions. The methodology anticipates critiques on text selection or the objectivity of memoirs as a data source. As such, the chapter is not interested in the veracity of the claims—the truths or the untruths—but in the types and nature of conversations that occurred, and the progress of their corresponding narrative imaginations, triggered and influential in critical junctures in Nigerian history. The texts are purposively selected by names and region: each represents Northern, Western and Eastern regions; there were only two colonial protectorates; Northern and Southern protectorates. The 1914 amalgamation, of the existing two protectorates, was what produced Nigeria. Nigeria was divided into three regions: North, East, and West; later, Mid-West was carved out of the West, making four regions. Therefore, the texts reflect the thoughts and ideas of the time, the consequential purposes, as a reflection of the narrator. The selections reflect the three geopolitical terrains as well as represent their regional consciousness as objectively as possible: three narrators, one from each of the three regions. Objectivity in this regard is conceived with to an influential author’s purposes, which are assumed to reflective of a much larger community and influential on subsequent influential actors. The analysis will not address every concern contained in the memoirs but will focus on local perspectives on governance, and local knowledge of power and politics. In this sense, the use of root narrative theory participates in the larger turn to the local than is currently popular in peace research [18]. Stability, development, and peacebuilding the bedrock of the liberal peace model stand on these three principles.

The crux of this method is to identify areas of departure and determine ideologically informed development and peacebuilding processes in a post-colonial country like Nigeria. Because the purposes of influential actors are consequential for future states of the world, this method can help determine the various paths of departure in national development from their distinctive points of view. Locals are the only ones capable of knowing when trouble brewing will be devastating. So, what were Nigeria’s alternative indigenous perspectives on developments?

The Selected texts:

1. Selected Speeches of Chief Obafemi Awolowo; Obafemi Awolowo, Fagbamigbe Publishers, Akure, Nigeria, 1981.

2. Nnamdi Azikiwe: Respect for Human Dignity: October 1960.

3. Nigeria Speaks Speeches made between 1957 and 1964; Sir Tafawa Balewa, Longmans of Nigeria, 1964.

4. Ahmadu Bello; My Life, Cambridge University Press, 1962.

5. Paden ([19], p. 225).

The selected texts and visuals address colonial issues, independence, post-independence, governance, and other areas that have been responsible for the present narratives that permeate the Nigerian space. It is important to note that, it is almost impossible to separate religion, ethnicism, and politics in any serious discourse in Nigeria.

Each narrator locates specific critical junctures within the stories at various points in Nigerian history. For instance, the civil war of the late 1960s was a critical juncture in the memoirs for the Nigerians at the time, pitting one defense root narrative against another. “Ojukwu was all out for secession, needed more time for his preparations and a few more constitutional powers for the furtherance of his designs under the cloak of legality.” It is important to add that this narrative resonates with the rest of the country. The Eastern region members would not have agreed to this. Hence, while it can be assumed that this was the general tone in the country toward the civil war, it is because at this juncture, the Federal Government, through its minister of Finance, decided to change, control, or even “own” the country’s narrative; it was now Biafra against Nigeria; the North will side with the rest of the country on this subject matter. On another case like the famous election of June 12, 1993, that might not be the case because the North hardly recognized that date as significant. The selected memoirs reflect age, experience, prevailing thoughts, conflicts, and ideas within the scope of this study. The provided narrative data are sorted into their appropriate space using RNT, to address the following:

1. The scope of the conversations or narratives around development.

2. In the case of development, to assess development and its strides as locally perceived.

3. The discursive temperament at the time against the realities of lived experiences of the people. Are they reactive or proactive? Or what issues or areas?

The texts are not intended to explain the root causes of conflict, per se, but to help us understand the premises, purposes, and the state of the narrative imagination on which and from which influential individuals or groups were operating from.

To maximize comparability, we focus on individual accounts of similar events; For instance, Obafemi Awolowo, Ladoke Akintola, and Herbert McCauley to mention a few, were among Yoruba leaders from the Southern protectorate that later became the Western Region a few years into independence. Their Eastern counterparts were Michael Okpara (who became the first Premier of the Eastern region,) Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ozumba Mbadiwe and Akanu Ibiam to mention a few. Their Northern counterparts were Ahmadu Bello and Tafawa Balewa. They have other memoirs, but the ones selected for this chapter specifically addresses the rhetoric of the period; colonialism, education, and globalization to cite a few. They informed the current curiosity to understand 1960 Nigeria’s experience with independence and during self-rule who became the ‘villain.’

The coalition of the union to negotiate independence from the British imperialists evoked narratives that portrayed Britain as the villain. Awolowo opines “political independence is the ineligible right of man. It is therefore not subject to negotiation or even debate” the presentation of what we call a “dignitarian narrative” extends further here, “the mere fact that we Nigerians stand up here today to debate this question is evidence and at once of our national humiliation and degradation.” One cannot lose sight of the collective choice of ascribing Nigeria as his. Awolowo embodies the pain that the experience brought upon the union in statements like the following “it might be said that we did not rule ourselves well enough but foreign rule however benevolent is not as good as self-rule”.

Some of the texts were referred to by other memoirs in the study while they were being studied. Certain individuals in the narration were referenced at some point, and the referents have related stories to the narration, but from their narrative lens at the time. This triangulation or intertextuality and intratextuality of statements and events are helpful possible validation of data for the present study.

5. Layers of meaning and the root narrative profile

In a previous work, one of us has made the claim that “Narrative theory, and in particular Root Narrative theory, has the great advantage that it draws its solutions from data hidden in plain sight, namely ritualized and relevant public discourse, which provides us with answers that we could have always known if we were just willing to accept what we can plainly hear” [1]. Of the Igbos, Sardauna of Sokoto opines in 1962 that “the Igbos are the type of people whose desire is mainly to dominate everybody. If they go to a village, they want to monopolize everything in that area. If you’ll put them in a labor camp as a laborer, they would try to emerge as head man of that camp Bello ([15], p. 161).” Let us note the positioning of the narrator there and his views about the “other,” also a Nigerian, but from a different region, whom he describes as less cohesive. This is what is called a Securitarian logic or narrative imagination because it puts the blame on his group’s experience as a direct responsibility of a dangerous outsider.’ This is the perception of one group about the other and many like that abound in the memoirs that were chosen for this study, thus giving insight into the aspects of globalization that seem to have set the Global South on its present trajectory.

If the villain of the north was the Igbo, that of the southerner was more likely to be the colonist. The horrors of colonial rule are obvious enough. Shashi Tharoor, [11] describes British colonialism in India as “over 200 years of exploitation, depredation,” that “reduced it to a poster child for poverty. Ninety percent of the population were living below the poverty line when the British left in 1947.” British rule in Nigeria left the North in a similarly unfortunate position. Lamido Sanusi Lamido a former Emir of Kano similarly stated that “the British came for 60 years, and Sir Ajayi talked about few numbers of graduates in the North (two at independence). What he did not say was that there was a documented policy of the British when they came that the Northerners should not be educated. It was documented. It was British colonial policy” [17].

The two narratives are similar, however, with two different villains. The Northerners’ story had its villain as the Igbos. They were a ready-made internal foreigner for those in the north. The southerner says the villain was colonialism and the division that imperialism thrived on. Consequently, the work here is in mapping rhetoric like this in the narratives that influenced or informed policy decisions on development initiatives as a nascent democracy at the time. Root Narrative and the state of the imagination is important to note to determine where on the spectrum of root narratives the representatives of the regions are and to track this with respect to development milestones, briefly comparing these patterns and their trajectory in narrative space.

6. Areas of radical disagreement

Root narrative theory classifies political arguments in relation to the abuse of social power that is implied in the structure of the story—who the protagonist is and what they have suffered, and who the antagonist is and how they caused the protagonist to suffer. It assumes that all political arguments follow one or some combination of a small number of schematic narrative templates. The protagonist is the person or group who has suffered abuse of social power and/or the person or group who will rectify it, and the antagonist is the person or group who was the source of the suffering. The antagonist or villain is very important here; The person or system that wields social power determines the root narrative imagination.

We use the memoirs of the four representative leaders of the early Nigerian Republic to explore divergences in fundamental ways of imagining how the political world works. If these leaders from the three regions which appear distinctive to us in worldview even today saw their world through different lenses, it might help to explain how those who improvised on the models they presented still find themselves unable to understand one another.

For example, to see Nigerian problems primarily as the result of imperialism follows a dignitarian root narrative logic. Those who are colonized (the outgroup) are subject to the abusive power of the colonist (the ingroup). This schematic template influences everything about the narrative orientation of the person who opposes imperialism, per se. The focus on human dignity denied because people are members of a minoritized outgroup explains why this worldview is called a dignitarian orientation. It is about resorting basic human dignity. Another example, is the libertarian root narrative imagination, valorizing individual human rights, rational citizens, and the rule of law. Here the villain of the story is an abusive state or state-like apparatus—some entity that makes the rules of the game. Its abuse lies in rigging the rules to its advantage, making any game played by unconnected individuals unfair. Both of these moral orientations to Nigerian politics were prevalent in the early days of the First Republic.

The structure of root narrative theory is fairly technical. The best way to see how it works is to consider all combinations of antagonists and protagonists together in a single table. In the table, we can see the big four root narratives (security, liberty, equality, and dignity) arrayed in the first column. These are the primary root narratives, which can be thought of in terms of a metaphor like primary colors. When these primary colors overlap, protagonists maintain their definition as victims of a certain type, but the villain is substituted from one of the other primary narratives. This results in 12 secondary root narratives, which all fall into four major categories. For simplicity, in this analysis, we will restrict our attention to the big four categories (Table 1).

Primary Root Narrative	Secondary Combinations	Antagonist		Protagonist
Security	as Defense	Dangerous	Enemy	Innocent	Civilians
	as Unity	Selfish	Elites	Innocent	Civilians
	as Stability	Ignorant	Masses	Innocent	Civilians
Liberty	as Consent	Bad	King	Rational	Citizens
	as Property	Ignorant	Masses	Rational	Citizens
	as Merit	Dangerous	Enemy	Rational	Citizens
Equality	as Reciprocity	Selfish	Elites	Virtuous	People
	as Nation	Dangerous	Enemy	Virtuous	People
	as Accountability	Bad	King	Virtuous	People
Dignity	as Recognition	Ignorant	Masses	Undaunted	Outgroup
	as Liberation	Bad	King	Undaunted	Outgroup
	as Inclusion	Selfish	Elites	Undaunted	Outgroup

Table 1.

Basic root narrative cognate concepts.

Root narrative theory becomes useful for conflict analysis because of the leverage it provides in the analysis of divergence in worldviews. The same data will appear as different facts for two people looking at the world through the lenses of two root narratives. And because the root narratives are such expansive and morally resonant points of view, the parties with different worldviews will see each other as villains in their respective story, each one abusing power and deserving punishment.

In Table 2 we present our analysis of the memoir data. The profiles developed here are only the most basic, but we can already see the way in which various regional stories might have developed into the distinctive worldviews that anchor protracted conflict in Nigeria today. Keep in mind that we are trying to provide a basic characterization of where the features of the worldviews from those in the western region and eastern region) might diverge from those in the north (largely Hausa political leaders today). Our claim is that we can find these divergences already in the early reflections of the representative characters of the First Nigerian Republic. In this, we follow Tocqueville’s analysis of American democratic nationalism.

Representative Figure	Securitarian Worldview	Libertarian Worldview	Egalitarian Worldview	Dignitarian Worldview
Obafemi Awolowo (Premier Western Region)	“Politically the independence of the country can be viewed from two angles the corperate and the individual. A country is said to be free only when it has unqualified control over its internal affairs.”
	“in the times of national crisis or emergency, it is legitimate for the government to call upon the citizens to surrender, for the duration, some measure of their independent individual freedom in order for the freedom of the country and its citizens to be preserved.”
			We have these groups (G0, G8, AU) all of which seek not to promote the overall common interests but to advance their sectional, economic greed…and supremacy…the virus and evils of capitalism cannot be cured by adopting a capitalist approach to them…as long as greed or self-interest remains the prime and main motivation of any social system.
Sardauna of Sokoto (Premier Northern Region)				“The Igbos are the type of people whose desire is mainly to dominate everybody. If they go to a village where town, they want to monopolize everything in that area. If you’ll put them in a made by camp as a laborer. More than a year they would try to emerge as head man of that camp.”
				“How many Northerners are employed in other regions? In fact, maybe ten”
	“In actual fact, what it is, is, a Northerner first! If not, we employ an expatriate temporarily or a Nigerian. It will be rather dangerous to see all our boys coming out of colleges not knowing what to do.”
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (Prime Minister, Northerner)		“it is the desire of Nigeria to remain on friendly terms with all nations and to participate in the work of the UN.
		““We do not intend to align ourselves with any of the power blocs.”
		“We in Nigeria feels for Congo, Africa must not be allowed to be a battleground in ideological struggle, the Congo situation should be allowed to be dealt with by African States in the political level”
Nnamdi Azikiwe (President, Easterner)				“in the checkered history of our nation, this is the second time that a person of African descent has had the distinction to assuming the gubernatorial post.”
				“have analyzed insofar as a kennel of the two oaths taken by me today, relate can be summed up in Word in four words: Respect for human dignity.”
				There are many states who deny their citizens equality of opportunity and deprive them of fundamental human rights for the simple reason that the color of their skin is black or that they are natives of Africa.”

Table 2.

Root narrative analysis of select memoirs.

Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first words which arouse within him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of his prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life. The entire man, so to speak, comes fully formed in the wrappings of his cradle Tocqueville [20] (DiA VI.C1).

What do the data in Table 2 teach us? First, we see that the two northerners, Sardauna of Sokoto and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa have gross root narrative profiles that are quite different from the two southerners.

The Sardauna (Premier of the Northern region) of Sokoto’s worldview is largely securitarian, which reflects the fact that the Northern oligarchy was left to take charge of the country in the aftermath of independence. Their problems concerned national unity, the probability of chaos, and threats from military sources of all kinds. And yet, his primary point of orientation was not general criminality or disorder; it focused on the threat of the Igbo, and was therefore as much a “dignitarian” claim about an intergroup grievance as security per se. The Sardauna views the challenges of policing his territory in terms of the threat of a supremacist ingroup from the south. The Igbos are a cultural oppressor as much as the lawless elements of the territory are security threats.

Here is an example of Sardauna’s rhetoric about Nigerians in the Eastern region;

The Igbos are the type of people whose desire is mainly to dominate everybody. If they go to a village where town, they want to monopolize everything in that area. If you’ll put them in a made by camp as a laborer. More than a year they would try to emerge as head man of that camp (Paden ([19], p. 225), Bello ([15], p. 162)).

It is not unlike a populist narrative of immigrants ‘taking our jobs,’ but it has a special locus in historical grievance. The Igbos are presented here as people who are supremacists. They want to be better than everyone else. They are almost as bad as the British racists who have just been kicked out of the country and for the same reason. If they are allowed to play a key role, they will dominate the country and impose their folkways on it at the northerners’ expense. He worries about the chances of northerners to compete in a level fight—what in root narrative theory is called a “security as inclusion” narrative: “How many Northerners are employed in other regions? In fact, maybe ten” Bello ([15], p. 162). The Sardauna’s overall orientation here is Securitarian because he focuses on military and criminal threats, but it is dignitarian in its exclusion of the cultural oppressor, the Igbo. The villain of the story is a domineering cultural oppressor. This view is still resonant in the north today, irrespective of all the history that has worked against Igbo independence (and hence also potential dominance) since those early days.

The Sardauna would rather employ all else but Nigerians until they have a right Northern fit. “The North would rather take an expatriate first than take Nigerians.” The North was a relatively closed community to which the Yoruba southerner Awolowo thought should have been broken into regions: “I strongly advocated the breaking up of the north into more states to have true federalism in Nigeria and to preclude the permanence of servants of the people of Nigeria to the aristocratic ruling caste in the north.” What is widely known a securitization of policy followed a securitarian worldview flavored by ethnic suspicion.

Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister from the North, had a different point of view from the Sardauna. He too had a dignitarian suspicion of the southerner, but he channeled his worldview into a point of focus on peaceful relations with other African states and with the international community as a whole. In essence, he was a libertarian who viewed international issues from the perspective of reason, respect and compromise. Balewa’s narrative orientation was in stark contrast with the Sardauna’s, suggesting that northern leadership could have taken a very different course. While the former operated at what can be described as a macro level, the latter saw only the regional interest. Balewa tended to refer to Nigerians and Nigeria as a whole, while the grievance-laden securitarian lens of the Sardauna could only reveal people from the north versus people from the east. Where Balewa sought peace, individual freedom and reasoned interaction with other African states, the Sardauna pursued a policy of what he himself called “northerners first.”

We can see this northern complexity in Balewa’s comments. He was supportive of the concept of the United Nations and of working within its confines.

It is the desire of Nigeria to remain on friendly terms with all nations and to participate in the work of the UN ([21], p. 89).

He was opposed to using state or supra-state power to coerce other actors to support policies and agendas that were not in their interests.

We do not intend to align ourselves with any of the power blocs ([21], p. 89).

Finally, he was willing to walk the walk in the sense that he did not want impose Nigerian state influence on other emerging African nations, even if it might serve Nigerian interests. He did not want to engage in the ideological power struggle of the cold warriors on either side.

We in Nigeria feels for Congo, Africa must not be allowed to be a battleground in ideological struggle, the Congo situation should be allowed to be dealt with by African States in the political level ([21], p. 89).

This more inclusive libertarian (classical liberal) influence is clear as well in Balewa’s internal actions. It was on the recommendation of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, that Nnamdi Azikiwe had the opportunity to advance to the presidency of Nigeria. Nnamdi Azikiwe acknowledged this in the spirit of unity, stating “I was appointed to this post of high honor by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, on the advice of the Prime Minister of Nigeria to succeed my predecessor in office” ([22], p. 1).

Colonel Emmanuel Nworah Nwobosi, the Igbo general famous for his role in Biafra and the civil war, opined that the first military intervention was a result of the political instability in the country and the failures and violence of the politicians [23]. Nwobosi stated that the military “acted because of the Saudana’s carelessness and statements, on planning to Islamize Nigeria.” Awolowo’s view aligns with this, he reiterated his antagonism to this view at the General Assembly in 1968 where he stated that “we proclaim neutrality and yet you refrain from participating in the Belgrade Conference non-aligned-nations, we proclaim neutrality and yet the Sardauna of Sokoto, with the express consent of Balewa moving heaven and earth to drag Nigeria into a commonwealth of Muslim states” ([24], p. 9). Whatever Balewa’s desire for liberal governance, in the north, security and ethnic chauvanism would win out. Northerners told the same old independence story, but swapped out the British and put in the Igbo. They would wage a war for independence but with the very apparatus of state power in their control. The tragic results are clear enough.

If events in the north would follow a line of securitized ethnic grievance, in the south things were a good deal more complex. We can see this in the dynamic between Obafemi Awolowo’s root narrative orientation and Tafawa Balewa’s. This calls for a closer look.

Balewa was a classical liberal thinker. He believed in reason, international cooperation, and compromise. At Nigeria’s acceptance into the United Nations, he downplayed any hint of nationalist expansionism:

I wish to make our position clear, beyond any measure of doubt that regards the African continent, we Nigeria have no aggressive intentions. We shall never impose ourselves upon any other country and will treat every African territory, big or small, as our equal.

Awolowo was a securitarian not unlike the Sardauna in some respects, but a securitarian in support of the idea of Nigeria not his own region.

The first major act of the government took place on the very day of our independence. It is an act which, in my considered judgment, detracts very seriously from the sovereignty which was that day conferred upon us…a country is only said to be free ([24], p. 9).

Independent of its root narrative schema, Awolowo’s narrative often projects Balewa as an antagonist on some specific point of policy. This is reflected in positions on education policy of the Western region which had been pitted against the North and also on positions on infrastructural development. In Awolowo’s stories, there is an overarching narrative orientation that the Sardauna holds sway as a divisive villain. Usman Suleiman, a curator at the Arewa House, the center for historical documentation and research of the Ahmadu Bello University, supports that interpretation but from the perspective of a northerner.

Sardauna realized that the North was backward in every area, it was his way of trying to ensure that the North could catch up, so he came up with several policies including the unpopular Northernization policy. It only allows Northern public service to employ only Northerners.

Suleiman’s perspective reveals the nagging sense of being behind that haunted the north, one that would overwhelm the liberal tendencies of leaders like Balewa. The Northernization policy suggests a recurring theme in a north’s securitarian root narrative, threats to civil peace arise from an internal other in the south. If the north is to thrive, it must be by protecting itself from the supremacist tendencies of the Igbo. If we are sympathetic to the worldview of Awolowo, the Sardauna’s rhetoric about the Igbos was not only consistent but also unfair, careless, even as antithetical to the idea of Nigerian independence as a whole. When the Sardauna and Prime Minister Balewa were killed with other key military and political leaders in the coup of 1966, it was described as the ‘Igbo’ coup. The divisions had taken hold, and the very concept of a unified Nigeria was in jeopardy.

The Sardauna’s root narrative imagination was amplified by his actions on the days leading to his assassination, even when he was aware that the military (mostly Igbos) were planning a coup, he was not going to try to escape: “I won’t leave my people in their hour of need to run away and take shelter somewhere else.” The two leaders at the Federal level (President Azikwe the Igbo and Prime Minister Balewa the northerner) were from two different ethnic groups. The Sardauna’s rhetoric about the Igbos relentlessly emphasized this distinction and projected a dignitarian agenda onto northern leadership. His Northernization agenda would become unpopular and would be his undoing, but it was the result of his conception that other regions were biased in favor of themselves, that these other regions were better positioned than the north, and therefore that a policy agenda was needed to redress the imbalance. His agenda was never truly Nigerian but northern. Like Awolowo, the Sardauna was a dignitarian but the colonial/cultural oppressor for him was the Igbo in the place of the British. The truth or untruth of the assertation is not as important as the master narrative that fed that narrative loop. North turned against east. The Igbo officers would be demonized. It was a counter-coup from the Northern military leaders and its eventually led to the, civil war that would paralyze the country. The outline for this sad story is already contained in the root narrative templates of these critical leaders.

But what was the worldview in the South? How did it differ in the east and west? If we begin in the East with Azikwe, we witness a quite different view of Nigerian independence and what it meant in that era. Today we take the trajectory of African independence for granted, but in 1960, very few countries had attained it. As the most populous African country and one with obvious natural resources and potential for future economic development, Nigeria was an important symbol of what was possible. Its plight was indicative of that of other colonies and its success was a marker for their aspirations. In this context, Nnamdi Azikiwe spokesperson for the African ‘protagonist,’ a symbol of hope for every Black nation seeking freedom from imperialism.

Make no mistake; he was a dignitarian. His stories always emphasized respect for human dignity and opposition to the colonial oppressor. He had the resolve to identify human actions that had perpetually robbed the ‘black race’ of its honor. But he was an African universalist but also a humanist full stop. One can see this in his memoir and select speeches, in which he constantly impresses on this audience the need to be tolerant of others within and outside the country. Nnamdi’s position as Nigeria’s Governor-General at the time was significant and still is today, especially in the wake of a new election season in Nigeria. The villain in Azikiwe’s narrative imagination is Western imperialism and as such, he sees in him and his country the duty to serve as the voice, the representative of that population of Africans in his homeland and abroad facing all kinds of injustice.

But we must jealously guard our new freedom to live like free men and free women in a free republic and we must defend with all our might any attempt, no matter how subtle or from any source it may emanate (p. 3.)

His worldview touched on problems of economic inequality as well, especially as it might be abused to imprison whole nations to one another. He emphasized his resolve to not align with any world power at the time stating that there was no gain in doing that hence “to no person, no matter how wealthy, should we sell our soul. To no nation, no matter how powerful we should mortgage our conscience” (ibid.) …that is how Azikiwe defined ‘true national freedom.”

Although an Igbo from the south, he consistently defined himself as an African as presented that as something to be proud of.

“in the checkered history of our nation, this is the second time that a person of African descent has had the distinction to assuming the gubernatorial post.”

As he assumed the office of president, he recognized the stakes of his rise and the values which it represented.

“I have analyzed insofar as a kernel of the two oaths taken by me today, relate can be summed up in four words: Respect for human dignity.”

But as wide as his vision extended, he never lost sight of the source of social power that defined his root narrative: race prejudice on a global scale.

There are many states who deny their citizens equality of opportunity and deprive them of fundamental human rights for the simple reason that the color of their skin is black or that they are natives of Africa.”

This is a dignitarian worldview with very broad dimensions and one quite different from the narrower view that would emanate from the beleaguered north.

Unlike Azikiwe who was charged as president on the recommendation of Tafawa Balewa with overseeing the affairs of Nigeria as a whole in 1960, Obafemi Awolowo’s narrative worldview was more pragmatic and concrete. Where Azikiwe was the president of all of Nigeria, Awolowo was the Premier of the Western region, and although Nigeria adopted a parliamentary system in which the regional heads were like governors, they served in a largely independent role, running the affairs of their regions in broad brush. These regional governors had quite fundamental duties to protect their societies, almost like sovereign entities in themselves. These broad responsibilities produced in Awolowo a broad worldview as well.

For Awolowo, the first step for Nigeria was to secure the nation as a whole, and this would require action and investment in a wide range of areas, from education to infrastructure, to defense. In a word, you could summarize Awolowo’s worldview as “development.” His passion for development reflected his pragmatic interest in African liberation and his concrete sense of what this new contraption, Nigeria, needed to survive, as he wrote.

We must strive to transform this land of ours into a modern, prosperous, and self-supporting developed state within the next decades. ([14], p. 15)

His commitment to development would also rub up against the individualist premises of classical liberalism. In the language of root narrative theory, he was securitarian.

In the times of national crisis or emergency, it is legitimate for the government to call upon the citizens to surrender, for the duration, some measure of their independent individual freedom in order for the freedom of the country and its citizens to be preserved.

And tellingly, Awolowo was not a regional chauvinist like his counterparts in the north. He challenged the rest of the regions to close the wide education gap between the Western region and the remaining two regions.

In the Western region, 1.2 million are attending school, in the Northern region only a quarter of a million…that is a dangerous gap…the government attaches very little importance to things that matter…that Federal government must take the step to close the gap.

This story resonates with what was quoted above from the former Emir of Kano that it was a deliberate policy of Britain to not educate the Northern region. Education and economic development went hand in hand. Awolowo argued that independence from Britain’s imperialism was a political move, but to achieve true independence economic independence. Most important for this story, Awolowo dreamed of this concrete independence not just for the west for the rest of Nigeria as well.

The sooner the people in the House realize that I am not here to represent the western region, but to represent the country as a whole, the better for them and for all concerned.

Unlike Azikiwe, who saw his duty as one that affects the black community globally, Awolowo was more streamlined, he picked his battles first, as the part of the people, he fought colonialism the foreign villain in Britain, “we are debating it today simply because we want to be realistic in the sense that we have not got the guns, the planes not the atomic bomb to force British out of this country.” For him, independence was not something to be negotiated but something to be won. As the north began to assert its dominance, Awolowo shifted his attention to them, even as his root narrative stayed the same. He was critical of the orientation to British capitalism that the northerners accepted as necessary. He argued that capitalism infused into the Nigerian system at the time was a poison that was inconstant with Nigerian antecedents.

We have these groups (G0, G8, AU) all of which seek not to promote the overall common interests but to advance their sectional, economic greed…and supremacy…the virus and evils of capitalism cannot be cured by adopting a capitalist approach to them…as long as greed or self-interest remains the prime and main motivation of any social system.

Little wonder that in the context of the Cold War, Awolowo would be seen as a threat to global stability and to the national interests of Anglophone countries.

The understanding of root narrative imagination in a conflictual situation is only consequential toward imagined peace. Where Lederach thrives is in his operational analysis of moral imagination. There is no classification, he assumes we all have a moral core where desires and decisions emerge. However, the application of the root narrative theory stems from the acknowledgment of these various accounts; to consider them all as variables in understanding the emotional core. So the Root Narrative Theory (RNT) is designed as a tool to diagnose “conditions of radical disagreement.” There is no imagining peace without figuring out these areas of disagreements and conditions for them. The reason that factor is critical to analysis is that moral imagination is not exclusive of exposure, experience, and values. In fact, Lederach asserts that peacebuilding requires a process based on “specific situations and context.” ([2], p. x).

One of the authors in a previous work have described morality as a “complex phenomenon that builds on our biological capacities as well as our social experience (p. 23). As a social experience it is established within the visible and invisible group boundary. Likewise, the universe where that is established determines what the value of an action or inaction is. Initially, we established that the RNT is one such tool that aids the analysis of our very emotional core. The Root Narrative Theory establishes the link between the experience of abusive power and how this informs the structure of our moral intuition. With the RNT you both understand yourself by the reason of the experience of abusive power and more importantly; you understand that of the ‘other’ party in a conflict. The utility in that is the ability for one of the parties to have a deeper understanding of the workings of that ‘other mind.’ How within the four quadrants identified, the ‘other’ party in the conflict is able to navigate the peace initiative fairly well. That is where the thesis of this paper locates the place of imagining peace. It agrees with Lederach in a way that suggests that we do not necessarily have to wait till when everyone has come to the ‘turning point’ and in cases where there is no need for a turning point, before we assess, it is capable of unlocking the potential of our moral imagination.

The moral imagination of the Northern leader was indicative of the limitations that their experience created. It informed the policy that Lugard chose to run in the region and the reason it was replicated in the Southern regions, influenced by the conditions of things at the time. It brings to mind what Lederach described as the ‘moments of surprise” unplanned but consequential except Lederach posits a positive turn of events at the turning point. “He suggests that violence and the moral imagination point in opposite directions” then it foregrounds the inherent complexities but before violence, there are pointers. The moral imagination suggested by Lederach does not factor this in, hence the application of the Root Narrative Theory (RNT).

In reference to our “capacity to imagine something rooted in the challenges of the real world yet capable of giving birth to threat which does not yet exist” (Lederach, p. 29). Nigeria has been described as a unique example of one of the countries in the Global South, reeling in the consequences of Britain’s colonizing policies and act. We have attempted to address the nuances of the amalgamation of the Southern and Northern protectorates, for ease of colonial administration and economic exploitation. We gave the context that gave rise to the governing model.

In effect this paper has engaged the early history of the Nigerian state with a view to critically examine the narrative data drawn from memoirs of representative leaders of the period of independence. They were drawn from the three original regions, the north, the west and the east. It uses a new theoretical perspective, the root narrative theory (RNT) to tease out areas of radical disagreement among these early leaders to argue that the narrative premises of these leaders are reflected in the popular politics of our own time. The narrative trajectory of leaders from the north focused narrowly on security but did so in a way that emphasized inter-ethnic grievances, encouraging national fragmentation and contributing to political instability, overwhelming a demonstrated commitment to principles of liberal internationalism. In the south, the stories diverged with Igbos in the east placing broad emphasis on cultural and racial liberation and stories in the west that balanced concerns with Nigerian national development with a critique of British capitalism. Even though the stories from the north came to dominate the Nigerian narrative ecology, traces of these early divergences in worldview are still evident in the regions, which can help to explain the broad patterns of misunderstanding and serve as a recipe for conflict flash points that lie at the heart of Nigeria’s plight to this very day.

The Root Narrative Theory is not a method for the Nigerian people to understand or implement, rather we propose it as a framework that could guide the decisions of stakeholders that are already working in the Global South.