Skip to main content

PULL DOWN THE WALL

Nigerians from all parts of the country, across sectoral, cultural, religious and political divides are strongly against any form of separation or division of the federation. The scares of the Odumegwu Ojukwu led Biafra civil war is still very fresh in our memory.
Insinuations recently by Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi calling for a split of Nigerian into Christian south and Muslim north was largely seen as repulsive and condemnable. Federal government’s spontaneous reaction and recall of the Ambassador to Libya Alhaji Aliu Mohammed, was supported by both Christian and Muslim leaders.

Obviously, Nigerians want to remain as one indivisible entity. However, there are calls for a sovereign national conference to bring about a truly federal constitution. Nigeria is regarded by a school of thought as a mere ‘geographical expression” of the British Colonial masters, brought about by the amalgamation of the north and south when leadership was conceded to the Muslim north under Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa. The British Colonialist did not follow a genuine process of unification as there was no call for a referendum therefore the absense of a consensus amongst the federating regions. This lack of sincerity of purpose on the part of the colonial masters and the lack of consensus by the different sections in the Nigerian state left us as strange bed fellows.

Nigeria is made up of diverse religious, tribal, sectional and political groupings. The killings in March 2010 of over 500 children, women and the elderly in a village in Jos Plateau in Northern Nigeria, by suspected Fulani hardsmen, was suspected to have religious inclinations. The United Nations constituted investigation into the killings fearing possible genocide.

It has become more imperative for us to seek a permanent solution to the frequent riots and clashes amongst different tribes, religious groups  in the country. It is important for us to also start to de-emphasizing those things that causes separation amongst us and consolidate those things that brings us together as a people.

The promotion of one Nigeria by the National Orientation Agency and the Rebranding Nigeria Project along cultural and political lines should be given prominence. Those attributes that tend to divide us should be masked and relegated.

For Nigeria to remain as one indivisible nation, the contraption called ‘three major tribes’ should be eliminated from our body polity. Emphasis should be on majority vote and not majority tribe. This will effectively detribalize the polity. Same applies to religion. Government should stop using tax payers money to fund religion. Rather, it should fund a new cultural revolution aimed at promoting the unity of all tribes and cultures.

Recent accusations leveled against Multi-Choice’s African Magic channel by the Igbo Youths Congress that the network is marginalizing the Igbos by not showing their local movies while giving Hausa and Yoruba films considerable prominence. Such agitations are solemn pointers to this demon called ‘three major tribe. The separation of a people along tribal lines stirs up nothing but conflicts and distrust amongst the people.

You can envisage what will happen when Multi-Choice creates an Igbo channel, people from other parts of the country will start their own agitation as well, and we will never get to the bottom of it. The solution to this, I believe is the creation of a single Movie Magic channel that broadcast films from all parts of the country regardless of region, provided they meet the required standards.

Nigeria needs to step up. I advocate a new ‘One Nigeria’ campaign that will promote peace and justice amongst the. Creating a truly one-people, one-nation ideology whereby we will no longer count tribes but votes. A new society whereby the Muslim and the Christian will become equal. Let us create an harmonious society devoid of acrimony and rancor.

When East and West Germany wanted to unify, one of the most impactful of all the things they did to achieve their reunification was the historic pulling-down of the Berlin Wall. What are our own Berlin Walls that we need to pull down?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

If Nigeria were to be a man

If Nigeria were to be a man, he would live in a one room wooden ramshackle in Gbondu waterfront in Port Harcourt, with no toilet, no ventilation, in a mud-filled and garbage littered pedestals that can not take even bicycle. Yet he would have a satellite dish hanging over his roof of rusty metal sheets and a hummer jeep parked out on the streets. A weird mixture of poverty and affluence is what you see all around you, under the bridge at Ojuelegba, you see families so poor even beggars call them poor. They can neither feed nor afford the rent of a single room even in the slums of Ajegunle. Their children, some of school age, roam the streets begging for alms in the heavy traffic, running after flashy luxury cars, often wound-up and driven by people living in high-brew areas such as Ikoyi and Lekki. This unhealthy cacophony of extreme poverty and flamboyance in our towns and cities all around the country is infuriating at the least, and can be attribut...

Quote Me

"If you like ' Quote Me ', please show support by clicking 'Like'. "Success is a journey, you can reach your destination only when you know..." "Life is like a book and we are only but readers. We cannot change its content, but to live by it". "Life is an ongoing project, it is either you complete it or abandone it". "Success is like fruits hanging in the air, for some, they just wait for it to drop, and for others, they reach out and get it". "It is important to make new friends, but it is much more important to keep old ones". "Wherever you are now is a climp up or down the stairs of life. It is your will or lack of it that determines your direction". "Countries are not adjudged great by their resources, but by social stability and good governance". "The irony of life is that bad news makes the loudest noise thereby over-shadowing the good things that are happening". ...

Millennium Bomb: Will Man Self-destruct?

"The millennium glitch fallout: oxygen machine failure kills 1,500 miners in South Africa," "Mir Space station drifts into orbit, crews in danger". Disaster in Japan, two subway trains collide, 5,000 lives lost,: "A blackout in California, death toll in hospital hit 1,000." "Plane crash in Nigeria, 320 passengers feared dead," "One million deaths usher in the year 2000." The scenario, doomsayers believe, will be a gloom picture of calamity and stampede. It will be that of rushing ambulances and siren from police vehicles hooting at full blare and heading in opposite directions. Accident, traffic jam, pandemonium," dog bark, baby crying, explosion, and horror will fill the air. The very existence of man will be threatened by his own ingenious creation. Is the Y2K computer bug a real threat to life on earth? Will the doomsayers' prophesy about the Y2K apocalypse come true? Robert Bemer thinks the threat of the Y2K bug is a re...