Nigeria, Oct. 2 -- On the eve of Nigeria's 65th independence anniversary, I reflected on Harold Smith. He's not widely known in Nigeria. And that's probably to be expected for a man whom the British establishment ostracised for decades for daring to be different, before his death. He was everything the British colonial authorities didn't want him to be, and he paid for it.

But for his book, The Harold Smith Story, published by Lawless Publications four years ago, Smith would have died with the knowledge of how a promising country was sabotaged by Britain, with consequences that would last for generations.

Sixty-five years after the Union Jack was lowered, many still speak wistfully of Nigeria's "potential" for greatness, a potential tha...