The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has revealed that Northern Nigeria will never support secession calls because there's nothing wrong with the extant structure in the country.
Across the country, calls for secession have continued to gain momentum.
There are the Indigenous People of Biafra in the South-East while there are agitators for the independence of the Oduduwa nation in the South-West.
But in an interview with SaharaReporters on Monday, ACF's spokesman, Emmanuel Yawe, said the North can never support secessionists because Nigeria is relatively okay the way it is.
Yawe further stated that secession attempts would only worsen the problems ravaging the country and could even lead to a civil war.
He said, “There is no way any part of Nigeria will secede without a civil war. We are so integrated that it is impossible for us to sit at a conference table and allow each part to go their ways, it's not possible, it's not a tea party, there will be war. If any part of Nigeria wants to secede, there will be war, maybe even more serious war than what we had before between 1967 and 1970. So, if anyone is calling for secession, he's calling for war.
“And we in the North fought the war to keep this country together, so it will be a contradiction for those of us who tried to stop this country from breaking up to now be engaging in activities that will break this country; we don't want this country to break up. Nigeria is a great country as it is. We have problems but those problems are not enough for us to break up.
“We believe these problems can be remedied and these problems will only be multiplied if we go into war. We love the country. We don't like what some people are doing with the country but for us to have come from the biggest black nation on earth, it is an honour and we should try to preserve this honour. We should try to see how we can use the resources we have to build a great world power. The rest of Africa is looking up to us and they feel sad when we behave as if we want to break up the country they all look up to. We don't want the country to break up. It is better the way it is, even with all the problems.”
The national leader of the pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, Ayo Adebanjo, had also earlier explained why the North would never want the country to break up.
Adebanjo, who had always consistently called for restructuring, recently condemned the unyielding attitude of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to calls for constitutional reforms and resource control.
Adebanjo had over time explained that the current constitution favourably places Northern Nigeria over the South.
He was quoted as saying, “...The constitution we have now is an imposed constitution by the military and the problem we are having in the country now is because of this constitution.
“People should get that clear. It appears both Garba Shehu and his boss, Muhammadu Buhari, don’t want to address the question. I have said that this constitution is a fraudulent constitution; it is not the constitution we agreed on at independence. It is not the constitution Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the founding fathers of this country agreed on at independence. Whether you are talking about resource control, state police, all these agitations have been settled and that is what is causing the crisis in the country today.
“So, when the military said they are going back to the barracks in 1999, Afenifere and the National Democracy Coalition (NADECO) said ‘send us back to the constitution you met us with because this is not the constitution of our founding fathers.’ So, the question of restructuring is to restructure the country back to federalism which our founding fathers agreed on.
“This unitary form of government with all its impositions which have enslaved the South to the North was imposed on us by the military.
“It is the military that created more states in the North; it is the military that created more local governments in the North. It is the military that said that revenues would be shared on the basis of local governments and you people are not addressing it. These are questions you need to answer; why is that so? You don’t stay in a club that is not favourable to you.”
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