NEW PLAN TO DIVIDE THE NORTH AND DISUNITE NIGERIA

Northern Nigeria has never had it so bad. The security
situation in the region has deteriorated, especially in the
last three years.
On a daily basis, the blood of innocent citizens is shed
in the name of Boko Haram insurgency. Properties worth
billions of naira are destroyed while young schoolgirls
are abducted with little or no resistance from Nigerian
troops who operate in the region. We should also not
forget that those states in the North-East are effectively
under emergency rule!
This is the territory that Professor Abdullahi Ashafa has
argued was created by “mere arbitrary line of parallels
of latitude, not a true division between the North and
the South.” This region, the North, had a landmass of
255,700 square miles. The Western Region called the
West, and the Eastern Region called the East,
collectively, were called the South which had a land
mass of 76,700 square miles. This is the greatest thorn
in the flesh of the political gladiators, who work
tirelessly to change the perceived unfair “advantage” of
the “uneducated” North, since the amalgamation of
1914. The central assignment is how to divide and
destroy the advantage of the North.
It can be realistically inferred that one of the remote
(and direct) causes of the military coup of January 15th,
1966 and the subsequent very destructive 3-year
Nigerian Civil War is traceable to preoccupation with
attempts to alter this perceived “unfair advantage”
conferred on the North by the 1914 amalgamation.
Constant outbursts of denials of the existence of the
“so-called North” as epitomized by Prof. Ben
Nwabueze’s treaties, the sudden convocation of the
“National Conference/Dialogue” – burning billions of
naira in a space of just 3 months – and talk of
restructuring, resource control, and fiscal federalism are
all aspects of the sustained programme and efforts to
effect a change in this “historical mistake”—the
“gerrymandering of Lugard”, to use Nwabueze’s lexicon!
Consistent with this contention, somebody must have
knowingly made sure that the National Conference
members from the entire North are far less than those
from the South.
The persistent attempts by “renowned” academics such
as Nwabueze to question the existence of a Northern
Nigeria, and conclude that the “divide” has constituted
“an obstacle to the creation of a nation and a national
front” and, therefore, any references to a “Northern
Nigeria” must be discarded, for new, smaller
arrangements, confirm the seriousness of this issue,
which the North, meaning the leadership of the North,
must treat as serious and attend to proactively and
creatively, as the late Sardauna of Sokoto did! The
North, indeed, existed harmoniously as a Regional
Government, with the Sardauna as the Premier, despite
our numerous tribes and the different religious
persuasions, inclusive of class struggles by the Northern
Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) in tandem with
state-creation agitations by the United Middle Belt
Congress (UMBC) and the Bornu Youth Movement
(BYM)!
Returning to Nwabueze’s lead paper presented to the
president, and which has influenced significantly the
president’s transformation to supporting a National
Conference, you will see that the kernel of his
arguments rests on the denotative meaning of the term
“divide”, which he said is used as meaning not just a
twofold division, a bifurcation or dualism; it connotes
more than that, viz, a separation, by division, into two
or more or less exclusive segments, that is to say, a
dichotomy. In other words, the effect of the 1914
Amalgamation, indeed its purpose, is to dichotomize the
country from its inception; to keep its northern and
southern segments apart by an imaginary, artificially
created boundary line, and consequently to disunite
them in interest, attitude, outlook and vision. That
defines the magnitude, the enormity, of the problem
bequeathed to us by Lugard and his 1914
Amalgamation.
Prof. Nwabueze and others like him claim that areas
such as the “Middle Belt Region” cannot claim to be
part of the “true” North. Therefore, the so-called
Northern Nigeria is comprised of heterogeneous entities
and cannot be subsumed under the rubric of “Northern
Nigeria.” Can he apply this criterion to the Eastern
Region or Eastern Nigeria, with the Ibo, the Bekwarra,
the Ishibori of Ogoja, the Annang, the Kalabari, the Ekoi,
the Bugumas, the Ijaw, the Ibibio, etc., which he is
comfortable with as people of the Eastern Region or
Eastern Nigeria? What about the federating region of
Western Nigeria or Western Region domiciled by the
Yoruba, the Bini, the Ijaw, the Itshekiri, the Urhobo, etc.?
Are these homogenous in tribal or ethnic colouration?
Do they profess one common religion?
Despite these glaring contradictions and the standing of
logic on its head, Nwabueze proceeds to offer six
reasons for not recognizing the existence of a “Northern
Nigeria”:
“(1) the North consists, not of one tribe, but of various
tribes marked apart from each other by fundamental
differences in culture, customs and traditions, way of
life, traditional occupation, etc, just like the tribes in the
South;(2) the Hausa language, though widely used, is
not indigenous to many of the tribes; (3) each of the
tribes inhabits and lives in its own traditional territory
under its own traditional system of rule, separate from
the others;
(4) though the tribes in the “True North” (whatever that
means), are adherents of the Moslem religion, with a
small admixture of Christians, the Moslem religion is not
the common traditional religion of the entire North,
since many of the tribes in the North Central Region
adhere to animism as their traditional religion, with
some now converting to the Christian faith; (5) there is
no common traditional heritage, cultural or otherwise,
binding together the various ethnic communities
inhabiting the different territorial areas comprised in the
North, such as to set them apart from those in the
South; and(6) Northern Nigeria is not one solid,
unbroken landmass sharing physical or geographical
features.”
It is arguments such as Nwabueze’s, couched in
decadent pseudo-intellectualism that seem to represent
the thinking of “enlightened” Nigerians outside Northern
Nigeria, and even those pseudo-intellectuals living
within the same geopolitical area called Northern
Nigeria. These arguments are patently hollow,
incontinent, inappropriate, deceitful, and without merit,
because the same conditions prescribed by Nwabueze
do not hold in the other two regions—Eastern Nigeria
and Western Nigeria—and yet, he, after advocating for
the dismantling of Northern Nigerian unity, aggressively
turns around to call for Southern Nigerian unity!
This has exposed the true intentions of the tremendous
efforts being made to disunite the peoples of the North.
Can a discerning true leadership from the North arise
and see the true reasons why the current dispensation
is encouraging all forces working tirelessly to weaken
the concept of a unified Northern Nigeria? Is it not the
fear of the tremendous clout a united Northern Nigeria
will wield in the life of this terribly mismanaged Nigeria
that is motivating interested parties to fan the embers
of disunity and sponsoring violence across the whole
territory of Northern Nigeria?
The Tiv and Fulani of Northern Nigeria, having lived
together for over 200 years as brothers, friends, and
playmates, are now sold a dummy, that they are
“enemies” and must slaughter each other to defend
against forceful conversion to the religion of the foreign
enemy, the Fulani, we have existed under one
administration for over 100 years! Do we have a
leadership that can rise to this existential threat to us
Northern Nigerians, as the late Sardauna would have
arisen as he did in 1953, 1954, 1956, and 1957/1958?
So, should we stray from Sir Ahmadu Bello’s guiding
vision of a united Northern Nigeria as succinctly put by
my friend Prof. Nwabueze, quoting Sheikh Gumi “. . . the
Sardauna had “pledged and dedicated himself to work
untiringly for the progress and happiness of the North”,
thereby creating in the different peoples of the North
and inculcating in them the binding sense of solidarity
and unity of the North as one entity with one destiny”?
The answer ought to be ABSOLUTELY NOT! We must
continuously work to fulfill this vision of balanced
development of our people, which has been completely
neglected for over 15 years!
With the debacle of Boko Haram now comes the
“trumped-up” conflict between Tiv farmers and Fulani
herdsmen. As if to lend credence to Nwabueze’s theory
of a separation between the entities that comprise
Northern Nigeria, the Fulani are said to be invading and
occupying Tiv territory in a quest to Islamize the rest of
Nigeria. Consequently, the Tiv farmers and the Fulani
herdsmen have experienced devastating losses in both
life and property. The campaign of calumny has
continued unabated, with pundits claiming that the
Fulani are on a mission to “cleanse” the Tiv of their
ancestral home. We beg to differ from these opinions. In
addition, several war fronts have been created between
Fulani and other Northern minorities (in Southern
Kaduna, Taraba, Nasarawa) and even between the
Hausa Muslims and the Fulani, as in the case of
Zamfara and Katsina, where all are realistically Muslim!
Or are Katsina and Zamfara states not well Islamized
already?
Secondly, if the essence of the Fulani ‘invasion’ is to
Islamize Tiv land, Berom land, and “minority” lands in
Southern Zaria, and elsewhere in Nigeria, as we are
made to believe, is there any Tiv settlement captured by
the Fulani where Sharia Islamic law is administered, as
it is done by the Taliban in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and
Syria? It must be re-stressed that the Tiv and Fulani,
for example, have co-existed for over 200 years without
any skirmishes of the type we are now forced by our
rulers to witness.
The Fulani herdsmen have had unfettered access to
Tivland, and indeed Benue State, without the
devastating incidents we are now experiencing in the
state. The herdsmen have lost hundreds of cows and
lives, while the Tiv have been dispossessed of their
farmlands, their villages razed, and hundreds killed. An
added dimension to the wanton destruction of property
in Tivland has been the presence of militias that
intermingle with the herdsmen to sack Tiv communities,
and help plunder Fulani herds. Guns are being freely
distributed to fuel this mayhem by people who pose as
agents of government, a government which swore to
protect the lives and properties of all Nigerian citizens!
We know that these activities are designed to paint
Prof. Nwabueze’s “true North” as the aggressors
against the Tiv who are “resisting” the so-called
Islamization agenda of the “true North.” Nothing could
be farther from the truth! Yet churches are urged to
spread this monstrosity and the situation is reaching
proportions where Nigerians are pulled out of travelling
vehicles and murdered on the basis of tribe and/or
religion! THIS MUST STOP!
It is violence-prone, and therefore, no election should be
conducted throughout the territory of Northern Nigeria in
2015! This is complete falsehood. The leadership of the
North must rise to its obligations and reject this. We,
with one mind and voice, MUST resist and reject these
assertions because evidence on the ground does not
support this monstrous touted lie. A unified, reconciled,
progressive, transparent, and prosperous North cannot
happen by chance.
The North must work hard and produce within the
dictates of democracy and the law, a genuinely national
leadership, come the elections of 2015.
•The North must put in place mechanisms/logistics to
extol the virtues of a united Northern Nigeria of equal
brothers and sisters, as a solution to our endemic crises
in the region – strangulating poverty, unemployment,
underdevelopment in all aspects of our infrastructure,
lack of access to quality educational facilities, lack of
meaningful access to economic opportunities, etc.
•The North must work assiduously to correct the current
imbalance in our federal civil service sector.
•The North must plan deliberately to create more high
value entrepreneurs of international repute, across the
whole spectrum of Northern diversity and religious
plurality.
•The North must work to ensure that every part of
Northern Nigeria is represented equitably in all of our
development efforts—planning, implementation,
monitoring, and evaluation. The “core North” is often
accused of using and dumping the Middle belt areas, an
accusation used by our detractors to divide the North.
Let us embrace the Sardauna Model, where all
Northerners are at the baking of the cake, at the
sharing, and at the actual eating irrespective of tribe,
tongue, and religion. The Sardauna did it and it worked
and produced tremendous results which some of us
remain till today, grateful beneficiaries.

Wantaregh Unongo, OFR, a former Minister of Steel, is
Deputy Leader of Northern Elders’ Forum