Time to stand up for Nigerian unity

Speech delivered by His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu, for and on behalf of Governor’s of the 19 Northern States at ‘reception 2000’ held in honour of His Excellency, the Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar at the Ahmadu Bello Stadium Kaduna on Saturday, November 18, 2000

Compliments.

We are gathered here to honour our illustrious son, the vice-president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. This historic event has been aptly titled Reception 2000. I am both privileged and honoured to have been chosen by my dear brothers, the northern states governors, to deliver this keynote address on their behalf. I accepted this rare honour with humility and gratitude. On their behalf and indeed, on behalf of the entire people of the northern states, I warmly welcome His Excellency, the vice-president, and all our distinguished guests from every part of this great country to this very important event.
We believe, as the saying goes, that honour should be given to whom it is due. When the deserving are honoured, they feel appreciated by their community and are encouraged to reach for even greater heights. It also fires in others the ambition to excel in their various endeavours. His Excellency, the vice-president, has earned his place in the hall of achievers in our country as a role model in business and politics. He was a star in the world of business. He is a star in politics. We are proud of him. His credentials as a hard working, detribalized Nigerian, a committed nationalist and patriot are solid and unassailable. Communities in various parts of Nigeria have honoured him with traditional titles in appreciation of his dedication to the cause and the sustenance of democracy in our country. During the dark days of Nigeria’s recent political history, he suffered personal privations in the hands of those who opposed his dogged struggle for the democratic rights of all Nigerians. In spite of everything, he fearlessly fought on without giving a thought to his personal pains because he was convinced that his struggle was just. Our nation must forever remain grateful to him and people like him who made great personal sacrifices for the enthronement of democracy. We are now reaping its dividends from their sweat, toil and pain.

The price of democracy and liberty is eternal vigilance and commitment. Events in various parts of the country today give the impression that Nigerians are taking democracy for granted. In eighteen months of democracy, the country has hardly known peace. It has been convulsed in a resurgence of ethnicity and political intolerance. The evils we believed we had buried long ago have jumped out of the bottle like the genie. In this very delicate period of our democracy, the drums of ethnic disharmony are getting ominously louder across the nation. They have become a major source of national and international worry. The tribal champions claim that they are promoting the interests and the rights of their tribes in a democracy but they are doing so at the expense of other tribes. The rights of individuals in a democracy are not absolute. They derive from a scrupulous respect for the rights of others. We cannot enjoy our democratic rights without discharging our obligations, without which these rights are meaningless. The destructive actions and provocative pronouncements of the tribal champions have once again put Nigeria at cross roads. Let no one have any illusions about the dire consequences for the nation and its people. The violent ethnic cleansing perpetrated and perpetuated in the south-west by the dangerous ethnic army known as Odua Peoples Congress, OPC, were premeditated and form part of a grand plan by their sponsors to destabilize Nigeria. That is why no notable Yoruba leader has ever condemned them. Instead, they defend them even by lying on their behalf. This is most unfortunate.

In the last eighteen months, there have been four major unprovoked attacks against northerners in Shagamu and Lagos. Hundreds of northerners were slaughtered in cold blood. Their properties were looted or destroyed. Thousands of them are still refugees in makeshift refugee camps in some parts of Lagos State. It is no secret that these killings of northerners by OPC were approved and supported by leading political leaders from the south-west who claim to be champions of democracy and national unity. The irony must be lost on them.

We must call on all patriots to unreservedly condemn these wanton killings. We call on those who sponsor these youths in their murderous and misguided missions to put an end to the violent and criminal acts. The north and its people have done nothing to deserve this outpouring of venom and hatred. We have exercised tremendous restraint in the face of these premeditated attacks and killings of our people. Our restraint must not be mistaken for weakness. There is a limit to patience and tolerance. We have reached that limit. We are compelled to warn that we cannot tolerate any more killings of our people. Let the word go out from here and now that the north cannot take it any more. For the avoidance of doubt, the north has the capacity to protect and shall protect its own wherever they are in the country. Nigeria belongs to all of us. Our constitution guarantees every Nigerian the right to live, work, and carry on a legitimate business in any part of the country. The north cannot and will not tolerate the abrogation of this right as it affects its people any where in the country. No tribe or group of persons has a monopoly of violence.

We, in the north, remain unapologetically committed to the unity and progress of Nigeria. We will continue to make all the necessary sacrifices in furtherance of this commitment. Despite views to the contrary, northerners have never claimed divine rights to the leadership of Nigeria. It has never sought to use its numerical strength at the expense of the political, economic or social rights of other Nigerians. Only two northerners have ruled this country through the democratic process. That does not amount to monopoly of power by the region. The north did not choose military rulers of northern extraction. Their own military colleagues chose them. Essentially, they represented those interests. All but two of the successful coups were staged by northerners against northern civilian and military rulers.

The north championed, actualized and remains committed to power shift in the democratic process with the election of the late Chief Moshood Abiola in the famous June 12, 1993 presidential election. The north rejected northern candidate in favour of a southern candidate. Chief Abiola’s own people in the south-west rejected him. Yet southern political revisionists insist the election was annulled because the north did not want power shift. The same people who rejected Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as a presidential candidate now claim him as their own. His election was God’s will given expression through the overwhelming support of the north. Despite all provocations, the north will continue to support the Nigerian nation as an indivisible entity until when, and if, a new constitutional arrangement advises otherwise.

In any case, the north shall not cry. Whatever anyone may say, the incontestable fact remains that in the political equation of this country, the north holds the ace. They who believe there can be Nigeria without the north are merely idling away in the somnolent luxury of ignorance. The north is a principal stakeholder in Nigeria. That is the fact of our national life. No north, no Nigeria.

Some south-western political leaders regard the north as a parasite on the Nigerian nation because it does not produce crude oil, which, admittedly, is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. The current agitation by governors of oil-producing states to control their resources is more or less a chorus of the views propagated by south-west to the effect that the political subjugation of the north must begin with its economic strangulation. Some governors of the south-west have similarly suggested that each state should be allowed to collect and retain VAT within its territory. Their argument is that since some states in the north introduced the Sharia Muslim legal system which prohibits the sale of alcohol, they should not be entitled to VAT paid on the sale of alcohol in other states of the federation.

In normal circumstances these puerile arguments would be ignored as irrelevances but these agitations are part of a process of indoctrination aimed at whipping up public sentiment against the north. Columnists and publications that champion the south-west cause show very clearly that this campaign is having the desired effect on the psyche of the generality of their people.

The north does not produce crude oil but its situation is no different from that of the south-west and most of the south-east. We thank God for crude oil. However, the north does not need oil to survive as an economic entity. Before the oil boom days, the defunct northern region contributed handsomely to the national coffers through its mineral resources such as tin, gold and columbite and its agricultural produce such as groundnuts, cotton, and hides and skins. Oil wealth has destroyed agriculture and fiscal discipline in our country, but the north is still the largest producer of agricultural and animal produce in the country. The region has the capacity to fully support itself and its development through the exploitation of its mineral and agricultural resources.

We welcome the recent meeting of southern governors hosted by the governor of Lagos, Alhaji Bola Tinubu. We encourage meaningful social and political contacts across the nation. By their own admission, however, the governors who were assembled at the instance of the south-west, are merely ganging-up against the north. This is less than a noble objective. Our democratic stability and development will benefit from a cross-fertilization of ideas through various forums. We advise, however, that such forums must have broad and noble objectives and not limited objectives aimed at advancing a given set mind.

In the face of this new development, the northerners need no one to tell them that the unity of former region has become imperative. The north must now rediscover itself and the strength in its unity. The so-called northern radicals promoted by the southern press must now know that they are mere tools in the hands of those who perpetrate northern disunity. Without a unity of purpose, the north cannot and will never claim its just rights and entitlements in the federation. We call on all northerners to accept the challenges of our time and to unite the north against the forces of disunity and disharmony. We call on the vice-president Atiku Abubakar to take up the mantle of northern leadership. This will in no way compromise his national leadership and commitment to the Nigerian nation. Chief Obafemi Awolowo of blessed memory once said that to be a good Nigerian he first had to be a good Yoruba man. The north is the vice-president’s root. He is, to the extent that he balances the presidential ticket, a northern representative in the Obasanjo administration. He has a duty to protect the interests of his primary constituency by ensuring that the north gets its due share of the national cake in the spirit of fairness, equity and balance.

Our weak economic base has always undermined the political strength of the north. We call on our wealthy business men and women to urgently consider investments in employment-generating enterprises as well as in education and the news media in the northern states. We must expand educational opportunities for our children.

We call on the Federal Government to resume the dredging of the River Niger, River Benue, the construction of the trans-Saharan highway and gas thermal stations, because these projects are essential to the development of the north in particular and the nation in general.

Your Excellency, the vice-president, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the fate of our country is in our hands. We cannot afford to pay lip service to its unity any longer. All men and women of goodwill who love the unity and progress of this country must now stand up to be counted among those who have paid the supreme sacrifice for its continued existence as a united, indivisible, prosperous and democratic nation. Together, we can destroy the forces of disunity. Together, we can make Nigeria the nation of our dreams. God has thrust this enormous responsibility on the shoulders of the present crop of our political leaders at every level of government throughout the country. Let us not shirk it.

Thank you.