WHAT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED IF THE COUP 52 YEARS AGO DIDN'T OCCUR?

Today is the 52nd anniversary of the coup that set us back a century. Like most of us, I keep wondering where we would have been without the  15 January 1966 coup.

Perhaps a COR region would have been carved out of the Eastern region as the alliance between Akintola party in the Western region and NPC grow stronger. Perhaps AG/NCNC opposition would have given the UMBC the steam they needed to eventually carve out the Northern minorities into a Middle Belt region.

In all, Nigeria may have had 6 regions in a slightly amended 1963 republican constitution by 1970 instead of having a counter coup, an Igbo pogrom and a civil war that ended four years later on 15 January 1970.

Nigeria might have succeeded in preserving its  federal structure and the arrangements made in its 1963 constitution.

Nigeria wouldn't have had an Ironsi, Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Obasanjo, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha as head of state of Nigeria.

Perhaps we wouldn't have had 36 unviable, wasteful states.

Perhaps it may have kept its parliamentary democracy and its unique federal arrangement.

Perhaps Trump wouldn't have included Nigeria in the list of shit hole countries.

52 years is enough to correct a mistake. Let us go back to the solid foundations Nigeria people  laid in the 1963 constitution.

Let us restructure Nigeria back to its original master plan. We will not make an inch of progress until we restructure the country back to its original structure!!

WRITTEN BY: MBE NWANIGA