Nigerians at home and in the diaspora celebrated the 66th Independence Anniversary on October 1, 2026. Across the country and on social media, patriotic citizens marked the occasion with messages of goodwill, reflections on the Nigerian journey, and colourful displays of the national flag.
The Independence Day celebration began with a national broadcast by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In his address, the President declared that the period of painful sacrifice was coming to an end and that Nigeria was entering a new season of prosperity.
The President’s speech was a message of hope and an assurance of a better tomorrow, intended to lift the spirit of weary Nigerians and acknowledge the pains associated with the reform policies implemented by his administration since its assumption of office in 2023. The President argued that the reforms were necessary to correct longstanding structural weaknesses in the Nigerian economy and place the country on a more sustainable path.
In reality, the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration has presented itself as an administration determined to reposition Nigeria and put the country on the path of sustainable development. There are genuine efforts to address some of the country’s economic and infrastructural challenges. However, irrespective of the efforts of the current administration, certain fundamental problems will continue to expose the fragility of the Nigerian state. One of those fundamental problems is the question of the structure of the Nigerian Union.
Recently, the Concerned Citizens Assembly, a non governmental organization, held a conference at which representatives of different ethnic groups and communities within Nigeria presented their positions on the possibility of returning to an semi autonomous regional administrative structure.
The feeling among many Nigerians is hardly confusing. Many have grown tired and hopeless about the Nigerian state because they have lost faith in the ability of the existing political structure to deliver the country they desire. While many are economically depressed, others have become increasingly critical of the Nigerian Union. This situation has contributed to the emergence and persistence of various separatist movements, including the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Odua Nation Movement, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Niger Delta Republic and Arewa Republic movements, among others.
Despite gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria, after 66 years, is still searching for the right model of government capable of delivering sustainable development. The country continues to face enormous infrastructural deficits while struggling to create sufficient opportunities for its rapidly growing population and teeming youth population.
Independent Nigeria began with three regions: Western Nigeria, Eastern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria. In 1963, the Mid Western Region was created. The January 15, 1966 military coup and the subsequent military takeover fundamentally altered Nigeria’s political structure and eventually brought an end to the semi autonomous regional system. The military intervention marked the beginning of a highly centralized political order that has continued to influence Nigeria’s political system across successive military and democratic administrations.
The journey of Nigeria has not been a spectacular one. The country has experienced prolonged political turmoil, including a civil war shortly after independence. It endured decades of military rule before the eventual return to democratic government in 1999. Despite 27 years of uninterrupted democratic rule, the country continues to fall short of the expectations of many of its citizens, many of whom have either become tired of the Nigerian experiment or now reserve little or no faith in the Nigerian Union.
An old adage says that only a fool does the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different result. This adage provides a useful context for understanding the recent conference organized under the auspices of the Concerned Citizens Assembly. The organization appears to recognize that Nigeria must confront the fundamental question of what political structure can produce genuine development and accommodate the diverse interests that make up the country.
The effort of the Concerned Citizens Assembly is a laudable and noble initiative. However, times have changed. The autonomous regional system that existed between 1954 and 1966 cannot simply be resurrected and expected to solve the problems of contemporary Nigeria. The circumstances that produced that system have changed dramatically, and the realities of 21st century Nigeria are substantially different from those of the 1950s and 1960s.
The Lyttleton Constitution of 1954 provided for regional governments with substantial autonomy. The regions were largely structured according to geographical and administrative considerations rather than being perfect representations of ethnographic and ethnolinguistic identities.
Northern Nigeria contained numerous nations and communities with different historical and cultural identities. The same was true of Eastern Nigeria, where historically and culturally distinct peoples such as the Ijaw, Ikwere, Ibibio and others were incorporated into the same regional structure with the Ibos.
The Western Region was somewhat different because a significant proportion of its population belonged to Yoruboid groups with historical and cultural connections to the core Yoruba nation. Yet even this relative cohesion did not eliminate political disagreements and demands for restructuring. The creation of the Mid Western Region in 1963 though maliciously conceived by individuals intimidated by Chief Awolowo and Yoruba’s influence, it demonstrated that regional arrangements could themselves generate demands for further political autonomy.
This is an important lesson. The history of Nigeria demonstrates that whenever political power becomes concentrated within a particular structure, communities outside the dominant bloc can develop fears of political domination. Such fears do not disappear simply because a new map is drawn.
Isaac Adaka Boro and his Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF) proclaimed the Niger Delta Republic on February 23, 1966. The declaration emerged from grievances in the Niger Delta, including opposition to the political and economic circumstances of the period and perceptions of Ibo domination within the former Eastern Region. The episode demonstrates that the problem of political domination did not begin with the current federal structure. It existed even within the old regional arrangement.
The lesson remains relevant today. The fear of domination has not disappeared from Nigeria. Every ethnic nation and community is conscious of its political vulnerability and, understandably, seeks mechanisms through which it can protect its interests from domination by another group.
Religious domination presents another dimension of the Nigerian problem. Nigeria has been a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation since 1986, despite the country’s constitutional framework recognising Nigeria as a secular state. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism and banditry in parts of Northern Nigeria, together with the spread of insecurity into other parts of the country, has continued to reinforce fears among some Nigerians about Islamization and Arabization. These fears remain part of Nigeria’s political discourse, whether or not one accepts every claim associated with them.
Other factors have also emerged in contemporary Nigeria. Cultural renaissance movements have been motivated by the determination of different peoples to prevent cultural dilution and erasure. Insecurity has produced internal mass migration. The proliferation of counterfeit products, including food, medicines and other consumer goods, has created additional challenges. These are modern problems that cannot simply be addressed by reproducing the regional arrangement of 1954 to 1966.
The fundamental truth is that Nigeria is a deeply multicultural society in which trust in the Nigerian Union remains weak in significant sections of the population. The question, therefore, is not merely whether Nigeria should return to regionalism. The more important question is what political structure can preserve the Nigerian state while giving its constituent nations sufficient autonomy to determine matters that directly affect their identity, security, culture and economic development.
The experience of Yugoslavia provides an important historical lesson. The Yugoslav state attempted to suppress competing ethnic nationalisms through a broader ideology of brotherhood and unity. Yet after the collapse of that political order, the country descended into devastating conflicts and eventually fragmented into several sovereign states whose boundaries reflected, to varying degrees, the ethnic, national and cultural realities of the former federation.
Nigeria must therefore be careful about imposing artificial unity on a country whose constituent peoples continue to retain powerful historical, cultural, linguistic and religious identities. Suppressing those identities does not necessarily eliminate them. It may simply drive them underground until circumstances create an opportunity for their reassertion.
This brings Nigeria to another option: a confederation. A confederate Nigeria would provide a framework in which the constituent nations or autonomous political entities exercise substantial sovereignty over their internal affairs while retaining a common centre responsible for matters that are genuinely common to all. Such a system could accommodate many of the features associated with regionalism and federalism while going further by granting the constituent units substantially greater authority over their internal affairs.
Under such an arrangement, matters such as culture, education, internal security, natural resources, taxation, economic planning, immigration and, where constitutionally agreed, border control could be substantially decentralized. The central government would concentrate on responsibilities that genuinely require a common authority, including foreign affairs, defence, currency and other mutually agreed functions.
This would fundamentally change the relationship between the Nigerian state and its constituent nations. Instead of forcing every community into an increasingly centralized political structure, the confederate model would allow the different nations to preserve their identities while maintaining a common political framework where their interests converge.
Nigeria has reached a point where simply celebrating another Independence Anniversary without confronting the fundamental weaknesses of the Nigerian political structure is no longer sufficient. Sixty six years after independence, the country cannot continue to behave as though the problems confronting it are merely problems of leadership or economic policy. Leadership matters, economic reform matters, infrastructure matters and security matters, but beneath all of these lies a more fundamental question: what kind of political arrangement can realistically hold Nigeria’s diverse nations together?
The old regional structure deserves historical recognition, but it should not be romanticized. It was itself imperfect and contained contradictions that eventually generated demands for further restructuring. A return to the exact arrangement of 1954 to 1966 would therefore amount to attempting to solve 21st century problems with a 20th century political design.
Neither should Nigeria continue with an excessively centralized federation that places enormous political and economic power in the hands of the centre while leaving the constituent peoples perpetually competing for access to that centre. Such a system has encouraged suspicion, political struggle, ethnic competition and an unhealthy obsession with federal power.
The answer may lie in going beyond regionalism to confederalism. A confederate Nigeria would recognize an uncomfortable reality: Nigeria is not a homogeneous nation whose constituent identities can simply be dissolved into an artificial national identity. It is a political union of many nations, ethnic groups, cultures and historical communities. The objective should therefore not be to erase these identities but to create a political arrangement in which they can coexist without one being perpetually afraid of domination by another.
Nigeria does not necessarily have to break apart before its constituent nations can enjoy meaningful autonomy. Nor should unity mean permanent centralization. There can be a Nigeria in which Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa, Fulani, Ijaw, Kanuri, Tiv, Nupe, Edo, Ibibio and the numerous other peoples can retain their distinct identities and exercise substantial authority over their own affairs while maintaining a common political and economic relationship.
The choice before Nigeria is therefore bigger than another constitutional amendment or another creation of states. It is a choice about the nature of the Union itself. After 66 years, Nigeria should stop asking only how to preserve the existing structure and begin asking whether the existing structure deserves to be preserved in its present form.
The future of Nigeria may not lie in a return to the past, but in creating a new political compact that gives every constituent nation sufficient space to breathe, develop, protect its identity and determine its own destiny while remaining part of a common Nigerian framework. That is the conversation Nigeria must have now.