On Nigeria’s future…

I was having a discussion with a few people on Twitter earlier today, and I think you should read it. Geopolitics is what I do for a living, and Nigeria is a very interesting case study.

The first thing is to understand the place of geography in determining how people behave, and how it shapes their interactions with the world. I have given this presentation many times. I always start with the map below:

You see, Russia may be the largest country by area, but geography has dealt them a bad hand in terms of location. Asides the Crimea (Azov) all of Russia’s ports are located in areas that are frozen for a good portion of the year. Since sea trade is vital, the Crimea is vital.

When you consider this, then the actions of the Russians in seizing the Crimea from Ukraine back in 2014 suddenly make sense. The ports in that region are essential if Russia is to have anything resembling an independent economy.

So, where does Nigeria come in in all of this?

This is the global HDI map.

Notice immediately that Nigeria is in a very bad neighbourhood. The worst neighbourhood in the world actually, and trust me on this, the data used to make this map was from 2016. Things have gotten worse…

The next HDI map is Nigeria’s states.

Notice the part of the country that trends worse. It’s the North. Place that side by side with the global HDI map, and it immediately becomes clear that Northern Nigeria is geographically contiguous with the worst parts of the planet!

This brings me to the next question — asides people (and even that is debatable given the quality of our education), what is Nigeria’s most important resource?

Many would say crude oil. They are wrong.

Maritime transport is essential as more than 90% of the world’s trade is carried by sea. Moving goods over water is, by far, the most cost-effective way to move stuff around the world. Northern Nigeria needs access to the sea, or they immediately become Chad. They know this.

So when I see assorted Southerners saying stuff like, “let the North go”, I laugh.

We may like each other in Nigeria (scratch that, we hate each other’s fucking guts), but the North (at least) will fight to keep this union because sea access is vital for their survival.

Why do you think they didn’t secede in July 1966? Remember, in July 1966, Murtala Mohammed’s aim in his coup was to kill all the Igbo officers, bomb Lagos, and then take the North out of Nigeria. David Hunt and Kashim Ibrahim sat him down and explained why his plan was stupid. That is why the plan changed.

The thing about geography is this — the actors may change, the variables may change, but the geography does not change. Access to the sea is still in the South of Nigeria, so the North will hold on to this contraption tighter than their true love.

What I think we need to do, all of us, is to figure out how to make this forced union work. It won’t be easy, it’s not meant to be easy. But if we are really as smart as we think we are, and with some honesty, then it can happen. That will be all for now.