Nigeria Is Divisible – Ango Abdullahi

By Winifred Ogbebo

— Aug 31, 2016 5:29 am | Leave a comment

The former special adviser on Food Security under former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former vice chancellor, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU),Zaria, Prof Ango Abdullahi, has taken a swipe at those endorsing Nigeria’s indivisibility, saying  there’s nothing  like indivisibility of any country, insisting that  Nigeria is  divisible.

He said it was time to correct the mistake Lord Lugard made in 1914, saying,  “If Lugard made a mistake in 1914, let’s correct it now. Why not?  If Nigerians cannot live together and allow peace and development to take place then let’s go our different ways and to our different places so we can concentrate and develop our children and grandchildren in peace.”

He spoke yesterday in Abuja during the launch of  two books ‘The life and times of Umaru Turakin Bauchi at 2015 and Boko Haram: The charade versus the reality at 2016 in Abuja,” written by Dr Hadiza Wada.

Abdullahi said  the wish of being one is Utopian, saying, “there’s nothing wrong with that. So many countries have gone through that before.  So I don’t believe in all these emotion and sentiments that Nigeria is indissoluble.

“There’s nothing like indissolubility in any country. Take Britain, they’ve been a model for 1,000 years of democracy and then a year or two ago, Scotland that had been in the United Kingdom for about 350 years opted to go for a referendum  to get out, same problem with Ireland. Soviet Union was only a super power many years ago. Today, there are 12 or 13 countries there.

“So what is so special about Nigeria?  If we find truly that we cannot develop and guarantee the welfare of our people  as a nation and the solution is to go our separate ways, why not? So you see this is the thing we have to always discuss at all times honestly.”

Abdullahi,  former vice chancellor, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, also revealed that the greatest challenge to the nation’s  national security is its political instability created by politicians and Nigerian elites.

“But our greatest challenge today is political instability created unfortunately by politicians and the Nigerian elite. We are responsible for the conditions we’re experiencing today and that we have experienced over the years.

“This is the basis on which we have made slow or no progress in our development and I think we can accept this as a fact and continue to pretend and go round and round and round and at the end of the day, come back to the same spot.”