The British gave authority to a group of persons they could manage in 1960, according to Bolaji Akinyemi, the former foreign minister of Nigeria.
Professor Akinyemi reportedly claimed that the British avoided people like Michael Okpara, Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, and Nnamdi Azikiwe because they wished to maintain control of the nation after independence.
According to the former minister, there has always been a big strategy to destabilize Nigeria, in an interview with Arise News on Monday.
He made this revelation while discussing the claim that the US supported the terrorist group Boko Haram through the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Nigeria had already been targeted before we gained our independence, so even the British planned to transfer authority to the least developed region of the country and chose a group of people they believed they could manage. Even before our independence, that is.
The Azikiwes, Awolowos, Mbadiwes, and Okparas were not the ones targeted by the British because they knew they couldn’t manage them; they had already determined in 1945 who they would cede power to.
They therefore learned their lesson when Jawaharlal Nehru’s India was able to break free from their rule. In order to maintain control over those nations, they learnt their lesson and, moving forward, they must make sure that anybody they give authority to in any of their colonies that gain independence is someone they can manage. Nigeria was one such nation, he claimed.
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The ex-Minister also revealed that he learned at a seminar in Washington that the developed world did not want a superpower to emerge from the dark world.
They are attempting to destabilize Nigeria, in my opinion, and they will utilize any agency they can establish or bring about. It was mentioned at a conference I once attended in Washington that the global north does not want a black nation to become a powerhouse since it would impact their own racial dilemma. Even Kwame Nkrumah experienced it. He recalled Mandela’s statement that “no country with a Black race will succeed in this world until Nigeria does.”
