The Northern Elders Forum has
said the North is not afraid of the break-up of Nigeria if its citizens
vote for it at the end of any conference.
The spokesman for the forum,
Prof. Ango Abdullahi, said this in a telephone interview in Abuja, on
Wednesday.
He was commenting on the national
dialogue advisory committee set up on Tuesday by President Goodluck
Jonathan.
Abdullahi,who said he saw
nothing wrong with Nigerians sitting down to discuss their problems, explained
that contrary to the views held in certain quarters, northerners were not
opposed to any form of dialogue in whatever form or shape.
He said, “There is no problem
with Nigerians sitting down to discuss their problems whether in the form of
dialogue, whether in a form of conference, whether in the form of a meeting,
even in the form of a Sovereign National Conference.
His view on SNC is however not in
tandem with that of the foremost Northern socio-cultural organisation, the
Arewa Consultative Forum, which on Tuesday said it would not support any form
of dialogue termed sovereign.
However, Abdullahi, a
former vice-chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, said, “The
SNC that people are advocating; people are saying that it is a way for Nigeria
to break up. This shouldn’t be a problem. Even in Britain today, Scotland is
still agitating to opt out of the United Kingdom; even the Northern
Island problem is still there.
“In Spain, there are separatist
groups agitating for independence. Even recently, we had in the Soviet
Union and it has broken up into 11 different countries.
“India was created in 1948, in one year
there was Pakistan, in another year there was Bangladesh. So why shouldn’t it
happen in Nigeria if they (advocates of SNC) believe this is the way to go?
“We don’t mind any conference no
matter the outcome. I don’t think it should worry any Nigerian.”
The former VC said the
earlier Nigerians accepted that Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities could never
dissolve into one, the better.
He stated that it was left for
Nigerians to make something good out of the almagamation of Nigeria
by Britain in 1914.
Abdullahi also noted that it was
probably out of the desire to make something out of the situation that led to
the several conferences that had been held since 1914.
He, however, expressed fears that the
current attempt by the Jonathan administration to hold another conference
when the reports of previous ones had not been implemented was suspicious.
The NEF spokesman said the country
had held constitutional conferences in 1976, 1978, 1988, 1994/1995 and 2005.
He stated, “In each of these
conferences, there have been voluminous reports on what is the problem with
Nigeria. It is not for lack of information on the issues at stake.”
Abdullahi said that the country
could still gain from the reports of past constitutional conferences.
He added, “When you look at it from
this point of view, those who believe that Nigeria’s time is being wasted or
that these are diversionary tactics have a point.
“Because this is what (President
Olusegun) Obasanjo tried to do when he was looking for a third term and
he thought that he wouldn’t get it through another means except through
constituting a constitutional conference.”
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