According to Bolaji Akinyemi, the former Foreign Affairs Minister of Nigeria, the British gave power to a group of persons they could manage in 1960.
According to reports, Professor Akinyemi claimed that the British stayed away from people like Michael Okpara, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, and Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe because they wished to maintain control of the nation after independence.
The former minister said that there has always been a big plot to destabilize Nigeria in an interview with Arise News on Monday.
He made this revelation during a discussion about the claim that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) provided financial support to the terrorist group Boko Haram.
“Nigeria was a target even before we gained our independence, which is why the British planned to transfer power to the least developed region of the country and chose an elite they believed they could control.” Even before we gained our independence, that is.
“The Azikiwes, Awolowos, Mbadiwes, and Okparas were not the ones targeted because the British knew they couldn’t manage them; they had already selected who they would cede power to as early as 1945.
In that sense, they were taught a lesson when Jawaharlal Nehru’s India was able to break free from their rule. Nigeria had been targeted, he added, and they learnt their lesson that going forward, if any of their colonies gained independence, they must make sure the person they are giving power to is someone they can control in order to maintain control over those nations.
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The former minister further revealed that he discovered that the industrialized countries did not want a powerhouse to emerge from black nations during a meeting he attended in Washington.
“I think they’re attempting to destabilize Nigeria by using any agency they can find or establish.” At a seminar I once attended in Washington, it was mentioned that no nation in the global north wanted a black nation to become a powerhouse because it would impact their own racial dilemma. Kwame Nkrumah was one of such people. “Remember Mandela’s statement that no country with a Black population will succeed in this world until Nigeria does,” he remarked.
