Just before the delegates to the National Conference, convened by President Goodluck Jonathan, had time to settle down to work, a discordant tune on the oneness of this House, Nigeria, is already stiltly being brought into the front burner of the discourse.
The threat at the Wednesday’s sitting of the Conference, by a highly respected traditional ruler from the North Eastern part of the country, the
Lamido of Adamawa, Dr. Muhammed Barkindo Mustapha, to pull Adamawa from Nigeria, as in secession, might appear like a royal joke, but make no mistake about it, it may be signaling the beginning of a different and dangerous tune being set, on what actually the country is heading to.
As a matter of fact, I have heard people said shortly before the inauguration of the conference that there was an agenda that was carefully hidden in the setting up of the National Conference which, with time, would unfold.
In deed, many people had before the Conference began in Abuja, made it public that the purpose of the Conference is to divide Nigeria. But, it appears too early in the day for Nigerians to begin to be seeing the handwriting on the wall, as represented by Lamido’s hasty move.
Of course, when inaugurating the conference on Monday 17 March, 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan was unambiguous in his inauguration speech that the issue of unity, indivisibility and oneness of the country is un-negotiable, even as he admitted that some delegates had come to the Conference with preconceived idea of dividing the country.
The President expressed his worry to hear people say that some delegates to National Conference have come to defend and promote ethnic or clannish agenda, adding that it is very regrettable that there are persons who believe that we cannot undertake any collective task in our country without the hindrance of ethnic rivalry even after 100 years of nationhood.
“This conference gives us an opportunity to prove such persons wrong and I believe it will… There should be no room for divisive cleavages and ethnic jingoism. There should be no room for selfish considerations that defeat the purpose of national progress. There should be room only for the national interest.”
The President’s speech remains one of the best since he became President; it is laden with both warnings and pleadings, but short of provision to halt people whose ambition is to divide the country, especially those who have championed Sovereign National Conference and those who would argue to the point of death that Nigeria is a marriage of inconvenience.
In this category of campaign to divide the country are, in deed, a large number of people from Niger Delta Region, the remnants of Igbo Biafran activists and recently, the Yoruba people from the South West who actually made a reference to “secession” in their collective position paper to the Conference, now ongoing.
As it were, Lamido of Adamawa’s comment about taking Adamawa from Nigeria may turn out to be a grand design to provide not only a leeway to the real agitators for the balkernisation of Nigeria to come into the open with such agitation, but a soft landing for them.
We may not have known yet, the main urge, other than anger, that propelled Lamido to burst out the way he did, but fact is that he has opened a new vista in the discourse at the National Conference, even before all the rules of business are put in place. Jokes apart!
