Nigeria’s unity is negotiable -By Omojowo Ajosanmi

What has happened in the past: religious wars[which is as a result of some people’s or groups’ religious extremism and intolerance towards others], several massacres[most of which were deliberately carried out by group(s) of people who considered their victims inimical to their wellbeings, extrajudicial killings, constitutional crisis, civil unrest, terrorism, political imbalances[which oftentimes resulted in political riots], etc.,

And with the current happenings, I can not, but asked myself, is Nigeria’s unity not negotiable? It is a fact that Nigeria is a country consisting of ethnicities, people whose ideologies, historical backgrounds, and reasonings are different from one another[though forcefully joined by their colonial masters], through the amalgamation of 1914, an act some Nigerians till date find injurious to the country and blame the ill happenings in the state on it, calling it a parochial marriage on the part of the colonial masters hence making it almost impossible for them to see themselves as one. It is a fact that not believing in Nigeria’s unity didn’t start today as some of our Nationalists have one time or the other faulted the union.

For example, speaking in the Northern House of Assembly in 1952, Sir Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who later became the Prime Minister of Nigeria (1960–1966), vetoed the amalgamation of Nigeria by the British Government. He proclaimed as follows: ‘…the Southern people who are swarming into this region daily in large numbers are really intruders. We dont want them and they are not welcome here in the North. Since the amalgamation in 1914, the British Government has been trying to make Nigeria into one country, but the Nigerian people are different in every way including religion, custom, language and aspiration. The fact that were all Africans might have misguided the British Government. We here in the North, take it that Nigerian unity is not for us’. (As cited by A. Adeleye, ‘Amalgamation of 19914: Was it a mistake?’. What made Tafawa Balewa proclaim the statement is much more around in present-day Nigeria, it is, in my opinion, worse than the Tawafa’s era. Nigeria has not been this divided.

‘Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable, is a sentence often used by the Politicians whenever they are aspiring for one position or the other, however, is either they are too blind to see the reality or they are, as usual being hypocritical; an average Nigerian knows how dissimilar we are: religiously, politically, ideologically, from one another. It is high time the country comes together to the round table for negotiations. Even a country that’s getting it right negotiates, let alone the one that’s just a step from being collapsed as a result of people with different orientations deluding to be one. A marriage that wants to last longer must be ready to take negotiations as an important tool. Several agitations are going on in the country today because of our inability to come to the round table and discuss and negotiate with one another.

The Jonathan administration, having awareness of how important it is to negotiate, called for negotiation. The 2014 National CONFAB inaugurated by the then Nigerian President Dr Good luck Jonathan on 17 March 2014 in Abuja, Nigeria, would have deciphered the vast majority of Nigeria’s difficulties, issues such as restructuring the country for the sake of unity, progress and tolerance, among others were deliberated on, however, the Jonathan administration failed to implement national confab hoping he would be reelected but unfortunately for him, he was defeated by President Buhari who, in my opinion, seems not too bothered about implementing what’s written in the confab let alone calling for a modification should he consider it conform that the confab requires some distinct elements to be encompassed. If Nigeria want to succeed and make her citizens to see themselves as one, jettisoning nepotism, favouritism, and embrace the spirit of Nationality then her unity is negotiable.