RANDOM THOTS
The different chants and responses about separation in Nigeria have both a focus and a source. To this reporter, this whole imbroglio can be traced to the political elites who don’t want the control of this country to slip from their selfish grasp.
Pray, why would a Hausa man born in the creeks of Port Harcourt suddenly up his roots and go back to his ‘home-land’ in the North? Why on earth would an Ibo man raised in Kaduna all his life relocate to a strange land back in the East? And why would a Yoruba-man who has spent all his life on the banks of Lake Chad in Borno State feel at home in the back-waters of Ode-Omu in Osun State, all because some angry folks are chanting war songs of separation and secession all over the country?
This relocation agenda is not new to Nigeria and it failed in April 1990 when late Major Gideon Orkar and his cronies launched a military coup and ordered every Nigerian to relocate to their ‘states of origin’. It didn’t work then because the citizens didn’t buy into such a process, and there is little likelihood that it would succeed now.
Nigerians are used to living together and the differences in more than 589 dialects from both major and minor ethnic groups have not affected this synergy. But as long as these same evil political elites – who tried to lure the military into a coup – continue their disruptive agenda, that peace which is a vital pre-requisite for development may prove elusive. The security agencies and government must fish out the war-mongers and bring them to justice, to help keep Nigeria one. Until then, no one is safe…simple truth
– Abimbola Akosile
