The Northern Elders Forum (NEF), have said there is no need to insist on a united Nigeria if the cost of keeping the country together, is the blood of its own people.
The forum in a statement by its spokesman of the forum, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, called on the Buhari government to allow those wanting to secede from Nigeria, to do so without going into another war, which wouldn't change the fact that the country is already broken.
Baba-Ahmed said the Igbos have shown clearly that they are no longer interested in Nigeria and want to leave. He said denying them their wish will only continue to worsen the security situation in the region, and possibly the country as a whole.
“This nation has had to fight a terrible war to preserve the country. The north had paid its dues in that war, as indeed it did in many ways throughout the history of the country. Under our current circumstances, no Nigerian should welcome another war to keep the country together.
“The forum has arrived at the difficult conclusion that if support for secession among the Igbo is as widespread as it is being made to look, and Igbo leadership appears to be in support of it, then the country should be advised not to stand in its way.
“It will not be the best choice for the Igbo or Nigerians to leave a country we have all toiled to build and a country we all have the responsibility to fix, but it will not help a country already burdened with failures on its knees to fight another war to keep the Igbo in Nigeria,” Baba-Ahmed said.
In similar vein, nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, said both Biafra and Yoruba Nation agitators are not slaves, and have the right to call for secession.
In a statement, the professor berated the use of force against the agitators, saying it is the responsibility of the leadership to persuade them by looking at the issues raised by these groups, and address them.
“It is time to think “outside the box”. That many, in so doing, find no landing place except dissolution, is not a crime. It is not peculiar to any peoples, and is embedded in the ongoing history of many, and not only on this continent.”
“It is their natural right as free citizens, not slaves of habit and indoctrination. Where disillusion rides high, sentiment tumbles earthwards, and the only question becomes: what can be salvaged? It thus remains the responsibility of leadership to persuade them, through both discourse and remedial action, that there are other options. Attempted bullying is not a language of discourse, nor the facile ploy of tarring all birds with the same feather.”
While commenting on President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement about the civil war, Soyinka said while he held no brief for those killing and destroying government’s properties, the President’s statement to ‘deal with them in the language they understand’ was wrong and ‘tragically untimely.’
“I hold no brief for those who resort to burning down police stations, slaughter their occupants simply for the crime of earning a measly monthly pittance, torch electoral offices, assassinate politicians in calculated effort to set sections of the country against others in the promotion of their own political goals.
“These are largely nihilists, psychopaths and/or criminal lords, soul mates of Boko Haram, ISWAP, Da’esh and company, not to be confused with genuine liberators. All over the world, throughout history, elections are denounced, boycotted, and generally delegitimized without recourse to wanton butchery.
“When, however, a Head of State threatens to “shock” civilian dissidents, to “deal with them in the language they understand”, and in a context that conveniently brackets opposition to governance with any bloodthirsting enemies of state, we have to call attention to the precedent language of such a national leader under even more provocative, nation disintegrative circumstances. What a pity, and what a tragic setting, to discover that this language was accessible all the time to President Buhari, where and when it truly mattered, when it would have been not only appropriate, but deserved and mandatory!
“When Benue was first massively brought under siege, with the massacre of innocent citizens, the destruction of farms, mass displacement followed by alien occupation, Buhari’s language – both as utterance and as what is known as “body language” – was of a totally different temper. It was diffident, conciliatory, even apologetic. After much internal pressure, he eventually visited the scene of slaughter. His language? Learn to live peacefully with your neighbours. The expected language, rationally and legitimately applied to the aggressors, was exactly what we now hear – “I shall shock you. I shall deal with you in the language you understand,” he said.