A Time Traveler's Take on the Nigerian Civil War

Time travel could have been an opportunity that would change a lot of things in our world today, but is it possible? Only if wishes were horses, however, what I will stop if I had the opportunity to go back in time will be the Nigerian civil war that took place between 1967 and 1970.

Now, the reason is that it would have stopped the disruption the war created as a result of disunity in the lives of tribes, religion, politics, and different ways that the country was divided since after that time, with resentment and all that.

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The first thing I believe will be the advantage is the regional resource control, more like a regional government, or what we call true federalism. What it means is that prior to the war, that is, north, east, and west, these regions are kind of independent, generating their resources and revenues. The revenues are totally controlled by these regions, so it would be like an independent region in a holistic state. That's what would have happened if the war hadn't happened.

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Secondly, there would be less dependence on oil, or what we call the mono-economy. Now if this war didn't happen, the northern region, for example, if they don't have oil and they need to generate their own income, they will look at what they have, the lands, agriculture, and they will improve the agriculture in order to generate something for themselves. Remember there are countries that don't have oil, but they are better than countries that have oil because they are maximizing what they have. If the war did not happen and there are regional governments, every region will definitely improve on what they have; the West will improve on cocoa, rubber, and different things they have. The East has palm oil; they have coal and crude oil. Other regions will look inward and maximize what they have. And most importantly, even the talents, sports, and different natural talents that people have to make money will really reduce the dependence on oil.

Let's talk about security... The way it is now is that, if something should happen in the state, the Governor has no control over the security. Sometimes there's an emergency, and you need to get an authorization from the center for you to command the military or the police to intervene, which is very wrong. The security architecture should have changed. Every region should have their own security controlled by the governor or whoever is in charge in the state so things will be tackled on time. Again, security is also better at the local stage; if something is happening in a place, the people around that place will have more information than someone coming from somewhere else. They have their security within the people there. It improves the security if war didn't happen and then having this unitary system where the center controls everywhere.

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Talking about the unity of the people, Since after the war, there's almost zero unity. Each tribe, each state, everyone sees each other as enemies. Up till now, the scar of the war is still there. People are still agitating; they feel not included in the scheme of things, and when you see people from different tribes, they see them as enemies, and it disrupts development.

It's difficult for a country to grow in the atmosphere of disunity and hatred. The benefit that would have happened if that war didn't happen could have been more unity in our world, but then, if only I could travel back in time to change things.

Overall, I am optimistic that without the existence of the civil war, things would have been better, so the change I could make wouldn't in any way worsen the situation but rather make our country a better place than it is now.

This is my response to the #HiveLearners community contest on the topic titled, TIME TRAVEL

Images one was created using Meta AI while image two was taken from canva