DEMANDS FOR NIGERIAS DISSOLUTION AND THE UNITY QUESTION EBERE NDUKWUcs On Wednesday July 16, a group of Northern youths under the auspices of Arewa Youth Development Foundation, AYDF, protested in Kano State demanding for the division of Nigeria as a political entity. The protest which was held outside the palace of the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, shortly after a courtesy call on the monarch, attracted hundreds of youths believed to be students drawn from tertiary institutions in Kano. This is coming as the National Conference convoked with the mandate to discuss issues affecting the nation and make recommendations on what have to be done for the nation to march on as a better and one united nation is coming to an end. While the confab was asked to discuss anything, it was mandated by President Goodluck Jonathan, not to touch what he, and some Nigerians feel is sacred the unity of the nation. But the recent demand by the Northern youths throws a fundamental question on the rationale for making discussion on the nation’s unity, a sacred topic when it was clear that it has become and remained an recurring decimal. In his speech at the opening of the National Conference, President Jonathan said, “Yesterday’s prejudices should die with yesterday. Today is a new day. This is the dawn of a new era. This is an opportunity to think anew. We must jettison the poisonous mind-sets of the past, which were built on unhealthy competition among our diverse groups and peoples. “We need a new mind and a new spirit of oneness and national unity. The time has come to stop seeing Nigeria as a country of many groups and regions. We have been divinely brought together under one roof. We must begin to see ourselves as one community. We are joined together by similar hopes and dreams as well as similar problems and challenges. What affects one part of the community affects the other. “I have always affirmed that our ability to stay together despite our acknowledged differences, when other countries are finding it difficult to meet that challenge, is a powerful statement by Nigeria to the world on the virtues of tolerance and unity. It is a strong and compelling statement in a world much afflicted by strife and violence. We must sustain it. We must not allow the antagonists of unity and togetherness to prevail. We must work ceaselessly to remain one nation bound in freedom, peace and unity, as our National Anthem says.” Despite the resolution by the leaders to have Nigeria remain as one, the continuous demand for the dissolution of the country which has kept resurfacing, throws a serious question on the unity of the country as a nation. If the demand in Kano had been made by Alamajiri’s, many would have thought them to be uninformed and illiterates; if by Boko Haram sect, it would have been assumed to be their continued fight to Islamise the Northern region and purge it of any Western education as they believe to be fighting for, but this time, it’s from their youths comprising both enlightened undergraduates and the literate. While they rage in that protest, the monarch appealed for calm and enjoined them to imbibe the lesson of peace in their entire endeavour considering the critical role they play in nation building, adding, “it is only natural that people of different and divergent culture live in one entity as a nation, and I enjoin you people to imbibe the lesson of peace considering your role in national development”. The secretary general of the group, Comrade Alfred Solomon, addressing his colleagues who were displaying placard with inscription that supported the dissolution of the country, declared that their stand was informed by what he called “continued intimidation of Northerners by the Federal Government.” “Hold your petro dollars, let everyone go his direction, Southerners are not welcome in the North, Southerners must Go, Shegu! We say no to Northern identification in Southern Nigeria,” were some of the messages of their placards. Other messages include, “Southerners are militants, kidnappers, ritualists, armed robbers, drug pushers, terrorists, and their sons/daughters are products of baby factory”. In the speech jointly signed by the national president of the group, Barrister Aliyu Usman, and the secretary general, Solomon, and read by the latter, AYDF urged Northerners to rise and support agitation for peaceful dissolution of the union called Nigeria for every region to go its own way. His words: “We urge all artisans, students, public and private sector servants , traders business holders currently operating , residing or intending to do so in any part of Nigeria to relocate back home within the next two weeks.” He advised non-Northerners residing in any part of the North to relocate to their various states of origin within two weeks to make room for accommodation of their Northern brothers who would be returning home. According to Solomon, this would bring an end to the mutual suspicion that is presently causing some Southern states to demand Northerners to obtain resident permits and perhaps any similar action that may arise from Northern states. This is about the third time the unity question of this country is coming up after it was termed a no go area at the Jonathan’s National Conference. Even if the Northern elders persuade their youths and prevail, if they drop their demand, will it in any way stop the mutual suspicion which has remained a clog in the wheel of unity of the nation? Only in May this year, a coalition of Yoruba group; the Yoruba Assembly, Afenifere Renewal Group, O’dua Foundation, O’dua Nationalist Coalition, Afenifere Youth Forum, Atayese, Agbekoya Reformed Society and Coalition for O’dua Self-determination Group among others, at a joint news conference with the theme, “Regional Autonomy or Nothing”, addressed at Gani Fawehinmi Park, Ojota, said if the region is not granted autonomy, they would have no other option than to exercise its right of self-determination on and up to the right to secede. Chairman of Atayese Yoruba Group, Chief Tokunbo Ajasin, on behalf of the ethnic group, at that conference, berated the Northern leaders who were said to have claimed at the National Conference that 80 per cent of the country’s land mass belongs to the North and that it was the money from the North that was used to develop the oil sector. “We are therefore baffled at the takeit- or-leave-it attitude of delegates from other ethnic nationalities, particularly the Northern delegates who circulated a document full of fallacies a few weeks ago…the Yoruba will have no choice than to walk out of the federation if the conference fails to accede to what he said is the minimum demand of the Yoruba people,” Ajasin had threatened. Recall also that the Lamido of Adamawa, Alhaji Muhammadu Barkindo Mustapha, one of the delegates at the conference told his fellow delegates that he was prepared to secede from the present Nigeria if the country disintegrates. “In the long run, if we are not careful, this conference will flop. God forbid. If it flops, the resultant effect will not be imaginable. If anything happens and the country disintegrates, God forbid, many of us who are shouting their heads off may not have anywhere to go. “My people and the people of Adamawa have got somewhere to go. I am the Lamido Adamawa and my kingdom extends to Cameroun. The larger part of my kingdom is in Cameroun. Part of that kingdom is today called Adamawa State in Cameroun. You see, if I run to that place, I will easily assimilate,” he said. Considering these recurring questions on the unity of the nation, many analysts have continued to wonder if the federal government had not goofed by declaring the issues bothering on the nations unity, a no go area at the National Conference. All these demands bring to mind the statements of the Lagos based lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), who, in an interview, the moment it was hummed that the issue of the nation’s unity will be a-nogo- area at the conference, said, “Why are we afraid of discussing ourselves? Why are we scared of discussing where we are coming from, where we are, and where we want to go? We have never agreed to live together as a nation. There was a time when the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, described Nigeria as a piece of historical mistake. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the late sage, once described Nigeria as a piece of geographical expression. “Before 1914, we had different nationalities in Nigeria; we had the Benin Empire and it is then that the British killed Oba Ovonranmwen. So, we never negotiated to stay together and that is why till tomorrow, Nigerians believe more in their ethnic groupings.” Ozekhome, also in that interview said, “The so-called indissolubility and indivisibility are mere rhetoric that cannot stand the test of time. Nigeria’s unity is negotiable because failure to negotiate it is to postpone the evil day.” https://facebook/groups/paff.789/ Paffcomm paffcomm press@paffcomm info@paffcomm
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 08:10:11 +0000
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