Ahmadu Bello’s Remembrance: Buhari, Northern Leaders Faulted On National Unity

By Alltimepost.com

Nigeria’s President, Retired Major-General Muhammadu Buhari and Northern leaders have been chastised for allegedly turning the remembrance of the assassination of the late Sarduana of Sokoto, Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello into a rallying point for ethnic and sectional divide instead of a forum for National unity.

The actions of the president and northern leaders in this regard have been described as those that work against national unity at a time when Nigeria preaches national integration.

Those were the views of renowned veteran Journalist and Media Consultant, Mr. Tony Abolo in a paper titled, National Integration: Is There The Need? that he delivered last Saturday at the annual public lecture organized by the National Association of Seadogs (NAS) which took place in Benin City, Edo State capital.

Mr. Abolo questioned how on a day that was devoted as a National Remembrance Day, the Head of State and a bunch of Northern Leaders gathered in a “forum for participants to review how far the region had fared in the last fifty years.

Mr. Abolo had referred to a story in This Day Newspaper on January 11, 2016 captioned: “Buhari, Northern Leaders to attend 50th Remembrance of Ahmadu Bello’s Assassination,” slated for Thursday January 14, 2016.
According to the publication: “participants are also expected to reflect on the challenges of sustaining the Sarduana’s legacies with a view to overcoming them to move the region forward.”

Mr. Abolo, in his paper pinned Nigeria’s problems to the event of 1966. His words: “our travails and our missteps began with the sad event of 15th January 1966 coup. And therefore, it is and should be a national event.”

The actions displayed by the president and Northern leaders, he posited was an “example of how in 56 years in our nationhood journey, the mindset is still parochial, regional, sectional and not nationalistic.”
A nation that seeks the future, he continued sees the big picture and moves everyone to see the greater glory that lies ahead.

Hear him: “but no, not the Nigerian leadership and peoples. The North is even more guilty of this myopic and sectional attitude. Their governors after 56 years still gather to hold Northern Governors forum.

“How does the region grow without integrating into the whole? Mathematical theorem taught us that, a part is never greater than the whole. So what on earth is being achieved with this ostrich in the sand behavior?”
Mr. Abolo said it was painful that Southerners were also stuck in that mindset, remarking that no state in the South for example, is linked with the contiguous states for inter-state trade and economic linkages.

“So how can we grow state economies? How better to integrate than at business levels of integration?” he queried.

He recalled how in the early seventies, Ogbemudia as a military Governor was “exporting” timber to Kano in the days of Governor Audu Bako, “while we brought in meat and some extra items. That is an example of national integration,” he insisted.

Mr. Abolo bluntly said earlier that the issue of National Integration was a National Question, saying: “perhaps, why the NAS leadership in Benin would think of it, I guess is that it seems desirable; at its face value and desirability, the question seems not controversial; may be it is not, but then, it is a hard question we need to put to ourselves every day.”

“Every ethnic nation, every geographical group, every religious group, the North and the South of Nigeria should be asking, after 56 years, do we want to be together in one nation?

“What really binds us? Do we need each other? We have never asked this question at the levels and intensity that it deserves and hence it is not being asked and addressed with the seriousness it deserves.”

He discussed Nigeria as a nation that was forced into existence and that had regrettably been mostly under military rule, dominated by a northern hegemony, been afraid to discuss such issues in the open as, – secession, self-determination, “or re-negotiating our ethnic nation states relationship in a union and the requisite structures and will to build up into a place, fondly called, ‘Nigeria.’”

He expressed dismay over lack of sincerity by the nation’s leaders, saying: “at any time we go into a National Constituent Assembly to review our military- induced Constitution, the leadership always prescribes – NO GO AREAS and falsely proclaim that Nigeria’s unity is Non – Negotiable.

“It is to my mind, such dishonest pro-active steps that are making Nigeria not as yet, a nation. Let us be honest – what binds an ordinary Potiskum native or a Birnin Kebbi indigene with a Sagamu, Ikot Ekpene or Ologbo native? Very little if at all other than that they are of the Negroid race and they are all black!”
On the concept of national unity, he regrettably had this to say: “instead of movements and gatherings that promote unity, integration, investments and growth, we hold tribal caucuses that speak for a tribe or organize groups in diametrically incongruent ways that neither promote harmony, inter-cultural understanding and unity.

“In the North, there is Arewa that is rabidly Northern and sees the South and others as opposition; there is Ohaneze that is unabashedly Igbo; then there is the South-South that has no focus but gathers to mimic the North.

“There is the strong OPC, Afenifere and Egbe Oduduwa that speak for the Yoruba ethnic nation. Pray in all of these, who speaks for Nigeria? None. So are we integrating or actively seeking disintegration?” he asked.

See full text of Mr Abolo’s lecture… https://www.alltimepost.com/2016/01/national-integration-is-there-the-need/