Former governor of Oyo State, Rashidi Ladoja, yesterday, said the issue of self-determination is not about noise making which agitators in the Southwest and South East have been doing for years.
He said it is already clear to the North that Nigeria could collapse sooner or later, and have since began making arrangements for life after the collapse. He alleged that the North had been working silently for the possibility of Arewa Republic, and may be the first to quit Nigeria while others are busy making noise.
The elder statesman made the disclosure in an interview with newsmen in his house at Bodija, Ibadan after he observed the Eid-el-Fitr prayer at the University of Ibadan Central Mosque.
Answering a question on agitation for self-determination in the country, Ladoja said: “Let us start with tolerance. At certain level, people will be talking, but we only know the beginning of a war, not the end. Nobody will remember how the war in Syria started and it is still on for years. And everything they built is being destroyed. So, I think we have to do it softly. We have started democracy. We are not happy with the way it is going.
“But even Quran says there will be time when God will give you good leaders; there will be time when the leaders that you are given by God are not as good because He wants you people to see the difference. We should assume that this too will pass. It started six years ago. In another two years, it will go.
“If you are saying because of that you want to go or you don’t want to go, who even tells you that the North is not even getting ready to go? Let us look at it, people in the South are talking too much, and people up North are acting too much.
“In Yorubaland, we talk too much. The North is also preparing to leave and they are working at it. Do you think it is a mistake that they are constructing railway to Niger Republic when we have not built railway from Ibadan to Kano, not even Abuja, and they said it is the first place we are going to spend our money?
“Can’t the refinery in Kaduna be repaired? Why are they saying they would build another refinery in Daura (Katsina State)? And they would be bringing crude oil from Niger Republic to the place. Don’t let us deceive ourselves, maybe a time will come when all of us will sit down together and separate peacefully.
“We have seen examples of countries that separated. We have two examples. One, Czechoslovakia went their separate ways peacefully, and they are still friendly allies. But Yugoslavia went into war. So, when we continue talking and engagements, if we cannot live together again, all of us will know that there is no reason to fight to keep the entity together any longer,” he said.
South will suffer most, if Nigeria breaks
Former presidential aspirant, Adamu Garba, has said the only reason the North is backward, and regarded as a liability, is because it's real potentials are yet to be fully harnessed. He said if the North were to live up to its potential, the South would realize that it needed the North more than the North needed it.
In fact, according to Garba, the South stands to lose should the North breaks away from Nigeria today, adding that no single person is afraid of a breakup of the country.
“I don’t know what the so-called secessionist guys are playing at, their hatred towards the Fulani and everything North can be their greatest undoing once we pull out of the union called Nigeria," Garba said in the statement.
“The North has been a big brother for far too long, because we love Nigeria and we care for the silent majority of the people of the Niger Delta and the South-West who love Nigeria equally and understands the value of the North.
“So much energy is being wasted by the people of the North trying to make one Nigeria instead of thinking inward and start building its own institutions, industries, media, financial services, professionals, etc. If the North chooses to do this, the North may well serve as arbiters for settling endless conflicts in the South as a consequence of North leaving the union.
“Now I tell you this, in the North, after every other reasonable analysis, 90% of the present problems of the North will fizzle away once the North becomes an independent unit.
“No single person from the North is afraid of the breakup of Nigeria, none whatsoever. And I am not sure too many northerners are happy with the union either. But as general believers in patience and understanding that in the long run, things may turn out well for all of us, and in the spirit of solidarity with the majority true Nigerians within our comrades in the South, the North chose to stay in the union as one Nigeria.
“Trust me, if, perhaps we have constitutional provisions for a referendum, any region, especially Biafra, if they chose Nnamdi Kanu than a union of Nigeria, the North will most emphatically welcome the outcome. It’ll be a huge relief.
“The North has never served as slaves and never seeks independence because it has been independent for as long as it is there. Thus the North cannot start from the beginning nor the North to ever tolerate some warlord parading as messiahs, because the North knows governance, systems, policies and principles of tolerance and respect," he added.