Opinion: Have we got a secessionist as president?

by Shuaib Yaqub

President-Goodluck-Jonathan

  Nigerians have always heard the president rhetorics like “Nigeria remains indivisible nation”, “Nigeria will not divide” etc, but the president’s actions and inactions run contrary to his utterances.

Nigeria, like many other countries in the world, is bedeviled with so many problems. These maladies include, among others, unemployment, insecurity, infrastructural decay, political instability, and of course, corruption which is the mother of all these myriad of problems. The unfortunate situation Nigeria currently finds itself is the consequence of long years of misrule and bad governance. However, there are no problems that are unsurmountable, provided those who are saddled with the responsibilities of leading the country are patriotic and have the love of the nation at heart.

A good leader must be patriotic, just, unbiased, impartial and must be someone whose priority and interest must be the unity and continuous existence of Nigeria, irrespective of religious, political and ethnic differences. Of course, in a heterogeneous society like ours, these differences are natural, and therefore are not unexpected. The focus of a good leader should be how to unite the citizenry, even in this diversity. A good and patriotic leader is himself a solution to problems.

Unlike some other countries who have got committed and patriotic leaders, and therefore have the hope of overcoming their problems, Nigeria is not all that lucky because it has unfortunately got a president who has   been covertly and overtly portraying himself as a secessionist.

The president’s actions and inactions in recent time had put the nation in a precarious and gloomy situation and has further made it more difficult for the nation to navigate out of its multi-faceted travails. The president of any nation, who desires to remain united should be a symbol of unity himself. Unfortunately, President Jonathan, instead of being a symbol of unity, has, through his actions and inactios, demonstrated that he is not interested in the continuous existence of Nigeria as one entity.

Through his foot soldiers, who are either his kinsmen or political jobbers, he has not left anyone in doubt that he is not the leader the Nigerian nation needs, if she is to remain as one united nation. The recent outburst of Alhaji Asari Dokubo that Nigeria would seize to exist if by 2015 Jonathan was not re-elected is a case study here. Since the self acclaimed Mujahid made these inciting statements, I am yet to see or hear where the president or any of his bull dogs have come out to condemn this irresponsible and unpatriotic statement coming from one of the president’s kinsmen. Similar statements have also been made by Chief Edwin Clark and Kngsely Orubebe without condemnation from the presidency, as it would have done if those utterances had come from the opposition camp.

Some have argued that similar statements had been made by General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) in the wake of 2011 general elections. These people claimed that the retired general threatened to make Nigeria ungovernable if the 2011 elections were rigged. They are now calling for Buhari’s head before Asari and Jonathan foot soldiers can be rebuked. The purported statements by Buhari were grossly exaggerated and widely condemned. The PDP had since hidden under these statements they claimed Buhari  made to unleash terror on innocent citizens of the nation, primarily to achieve their goal of dividing the country. Afterall, didn’t the president confess that members of the dreaded Boko Haram sect that has been wreaking havoc on Nigeria are in his government? It has long been established that  Boko Haram is the creation of the presidency, with the sole aim of using it to  divide the country. Nigeria is definitely facing its biggest threat ever since independence-bigger than that posed by the civil war of between1967 and 1970.

Let us consider this critically! Assuming Buhari actually made the above statements, is it not an offence to rig an election, which the PDP has always perpetrated in the last fourteen years? But when has it become an offence when someone stands in an election and he is not elected? While I don’t subscribe to the idea of making the country ungovernable by any individual for any reason, I am of the opinion that Asari Dokubo’s utterances constitute a treasonable offence and must be treated as such, especially as we are gradually approaching the year 2015. We have to face the reality instead of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it. It is on record that General Muhammadu Buhari has always taken his grievances concerning elections to the courts and has always denied the inflammatory statements that are credited to him.

Nigerians know those who are fanning the embers of discord and acrimony in this country. It is also on record that instead of denying and retracting the inciting statements made by him, Dokubo compounded the already tense situation by further threatening war if Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015. He went ahead to castigate the entire north and insulted some highly revered individuals from the north, both the living and dead. What can be more provocative than this? Yet nobody called him to order. Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised because Asari is only acting a script.

Nigerians have always heard the president rhetorics like “Nigeria remains indivisible nation”, “Nigeria will not divide” etc, but the president’s actions and inactions run contrary to his utterances. Nigerians are not gullible, they are not unaware of the ugly happenings in the nation which are perpetrated by the president and his foot soldiers, and therefore cannot be deceived by rhetorics. There is no grave that is deep enough to bury the truth.

Since amalgamation of the Southern and Northern protectors in 1914, Nigeria has remained a heterogeneous, multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation. Though she has gone through and experienced some unpleasant experiences, it is a pride that it has remained one. For this, credit must given to the past Nigerian leaders who ensured that the country remains one indivisible nation. The current efforts by the president and some selfish individuals to use religion and ethnicity to divide the nation must be rebuffed and condemned by all of us. The president of Nigeria is supposed to be the president of all, and not of a section of the country as it appears to be currently.

Those who are clamouring for the division of Nigeria should realize that such a call is a whirlwind that blows no one any good. We should all realize that it is better and more beneficial to all of us to remain as one than to disintegrate as being agitated by some people. As citizens of this great nation, we are all stake holders in all her affairs, and therefore should not fold our arms and watch while some unpatriotic ones try to destroy our common heritage and pride.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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