Nigeria didn’t start on a clean slate in 1960.
It inherited cracks from 1914 — over 250 ethnic groups forced into one map, weak institutions, and an economy built to serve Britain, not Nigerians.
Yes, leadership failures since independence are real. But to ignore the colonial blueprint of division, dependency, and broken foundations is to tell only half the story.
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Nigeria, Independence, and the Colonial Legacy: Why Context Matters
There’s an ongoing debate about Nigeria’s trajectory since independence in 1960. Many argue that 65 years later, Nigerians must look inward and take accountability for leadership failures, corruption, and systemic inefficiencies. This is true, but it is historically incomplete to detach Nigeria’s present struggles from the colonial structures it inherited.
Independence in 1960 did not mean Nigeria started on a clean slate. Far from it. The foundations of the Nigerian state were built on shaky, divisive, and extractive systems designed by colonial rulers, frameworks that continue to shape outcomes today.
As Chinua Achebe bluntly put it in The Trouble with Nigeria (1983):
“The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.”
Achebe’s words remain valid. Yet they tell only part of the story, because that failure of leadership unfolded within a state deliberately designed to fail its people.
- Artificial Borders and Ethnic Fragmentation
Nigeria was not a natural nation state. In 1914, the British amalgamated over 250 ethnic groups, Hausa-Fulani in the North, Yoruba in the West, Igbo in the East, and hundreds of minorities into one colonial entity.
This was done for administrative convenience, not for the long-term stability of its people. The British applied a classic “divide and rule” strategy: ruling the North indirectly through Emirs, while centralizing the South under a Western style administration.
The consequences? Decades of ethnic rivalry, suspicion, coups, and eventually the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970), in which over three million people died.
Frantz Fanon, in The Wretched of the Earth, foresaw this problem when he warned:
“Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip…. It turns to the past of the oppressed people, distorts, disfigures, and destroys it.”
When some say that countries like China, India and Singapore have gotten over colonialism and are now growing, the forget that countries like Singapore, India and China never had to contend with the same kind of arbitrary fragmentation. Nigeria did.
- The Extractive Colonial Economy
The British structured Nigeria not as a diversified economy but as a raw-material supplier for Britain’s industries. Palm oil, cocoa, groundnuts, rubber, coal, tin, etc….. were exported, but little to no investment was made in industrialization or value addition.
By independence in 1960, manufacturing accounted for less than 4% of GDP. Contrast this with India’s steel and textile base, or Singapore’s strategic role as a global port city.
Walter Rodney, in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), explained this legacy:
“The only positive development in colonial economies was geared to the servicing of the metropolitan capitalist economy.”
Nigeria’s dependency was by design.
- Weak Institutions — the “Gatekeeper State”
Perhaps the most crippling inheritance was the institutional framework. Colonial Nigeria was never designed to serve citizens; it was built to extract resources and remit profits abroad.
Institutions such as the police, judiciary, and civil service were not meant to be inclusive or accountable. They were designed to suppress dissent, enforce colonial order, and protect British interests.
Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, captured this dynamic well:
“Neo-colonialism is the worst form of imperialism… The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent… In reality, its economic system and political policy is directed from outside.”
Nigeria inherited this exact problem, sovereignty in name, dependency in practice.
- Comparative Context: Why Others Leaped Ahead
It is often said that countries like India, China, and Singapore “looked inward” and rose, while Nigeria stagnated. But comparisons need context:
India: Inherited an industrial base and rail infrastructure. Despite partition, it had a dominant Hindu majority providing some cultural coherence. A separate country, Pakistan was created to accommodate the Muslims. Without being discrimatory, I strongly believe this is the biggest advantage India had.
China: Retained sovereignty and continuity; never fully colonized. Its political and cultural systems remained intact. Western education and the curriculums designed to degrade, control and destroy its culture was rejected by the Chinese.
Singapore: A tiny port city with limited fragmentation, already embedded in global trade. Having so few people, and being an established Port city set them up for success.
Nigeria, in contrast, began independence with fractured identity, zero industrial base, and hollow institutions.
- Post-Independence Leadership Failures
All this does not absolve Nigeria’s post-independence leaders. Leadership failures are undeniable: corruption, military coups, and missed opportunities during oil booms entrenched dysfunction.
Achebe was right to highlight leadership. Yet, as Rodney and Fanon remind us, those leaders were operating within a structurally flawed colonial inheritance.
In other words: Nigeria’s leaders inherited a loaded dice. They played badly, but the game itself was already rigged.
Conclusion:
Yes, Nigerians must take accountability for governance failures since 1960. But accountability must be balanced with historical honesty. Colonial rule left behind artificial borders, ethnic divisions, an extractive economy, and weak institutions. Independence was not a clean slate — it was a handover of a system designed to exploit, not to serve.
The way forward lies in recognising these roots, reforming institutions to serve citizens (not elites), diversifying the economy, and healing ethnic fragmentation with genuine nation-building.
To say “stop blaming colonialism” without acknowledging these foundations is to tell half the story. Nigeria’s future depends on understanding the full picture.
As Fanon warned, and as Achebe reminded us — the truth is both external inheritance and internal failure. To fix Nigeria, we must confront both.
Hon. Chief Joseph Chukwuma Ikunna.
26/08/25
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