I Did Not Breach NPA Rules, Exempt Dangote From Statutory Charges — Bala Usman

Suspended Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman has dismissed media reports suggesting that the NPA management under her leadershipbreachedNPArulesandexempted the Dangote Group of companies from paying certain statutory charges at the Onne Ports, River State. “I wish to state with all emphasis that these accusations are false and mischievous,” she said in a statement. According to her, “Even the letter dated February 5, 2019(published in the media report), communicating the Authority’s decision on this subject to the management of Intels Nigeria Limited states in the last paragraph: “Hence, theAuthoritytherefore, directs that all cargoes of Messers Dangote Industries Limited and indeed all importers being directed to Onne Ports for customs clearance, specifically for these projects, and are multi-purpose in nature to be treated by applying the same operational rates used by other multi-purpose terminals.” REVEALED! HOW NIGERIAN MEN CAN NATURALLY OVERCOME QUICK RELEASE, AND MAKE IT BIGGER, STRONGER AND LONGER! BE A CHAMPION IN THE OTHER ROOM TOO!!! “This paragraph is explicit about the fact that all multi-purpose cargoes diverted to Onne were expected to benefit from this directive”, she said Giving the background to the directive, Ms Bala Usman said: “Until 2018 when the Authority wrote when the Federal Government approved the de-categorisation of Onne Ports as the solely designated oil and gas terminal in Nigeria, only oil and gas cargoes called at the ports, contrary to global practices in the maritime industry. “For reasons, which included national security, ease of doing business as well as the need for Nigeria to embrace international best practices, this oil and gas monopoly was removed in 2018, with the effect that all categories of cargoes could call at the Onne Ports. “This means that importers could chooseandhavetheircargoesdelivered at any of our port locations regardless of what their consignments were. With that decision, it followed that tariffs must be reviewed to reflect the specific category of cargo being imported as opposed to the rates that existed when the Onne Ports received only oil and gas cargoes. “This reality got more urgent when the congestion at the two ports in Lagos became worsened by uncleared cargoes meant for construction at the Petrochemicals Refining Gas and Fertiliser project of the Dangote Groups at the Lekki Free Trade Zone. “At a point, the company wrote to inform the Authority that it was expecting 60,000 containers and 1,000,000 (One million metric tonnes) Break Bulk cargo. If these were allowed to proceed to Lagos, it would have turned into an emergency. “To avert this situation and give the ports in Lagos some respite, the Authority advised Dangote and other importers to utilise the Onne Ports, which has then been de-categorised from being an exclusive oil and gas facility.

Farooq Kperogi: The intellectual case against Nigeria’s break up (Pt II)

I want to begin this week’s instalment by responding to a challenge thrown at me by a reader. The reader said India’s relative national cohesion is a consequence of its monolingual character. That, of course, implies that Nigeria’s linguistic plurality is the reason for its tendency toward fissiparity. That is completely inaccurate, and this inaccuracy sprouts from the misconception that everybody in India speaks the Hindi language. The truth is that out of India’s over 1.2 billion people, only 258 million people speak Hindi as a native language, according to the country’s 2001 national census. That number represents less than 25 percent of India’s population. Although Hindi is, along with English, India’s national language, it is spoken by less than 50 percent of the country’s population. People in southern India, who speak a multiplicity of mutually unintelligible languages, intensely resent Hindi’s imposition as a national language. So India is a polyglot nation like Nigeria. [In case you missed it]: “Farooq Kperogi: The intellectual case against Nigeria’s break up (Pt I)” I should add that nothing in what I have written so far is intended to make the case that Nigeria does not have profound problems that it must confront truthfully to realise its vast potential. I’m only concerned that efforts at nation building are stuck in prolonged infancy because of inaccurate claims about our differences and the insistence that these so-called differences make the emergence of a virile, united nation impossible. I have been involved in arguments with my Nigerian compatriots in the diaspora about this issue for several years. A persistent example they cite to underscore the “unnaturalness” of the troubled ethnic alchemy that is Nigeria is the United States of America. They claim that America was founded through the consensus of the Founding Fathers and that this somehow illustrates their point that if Nigeria must endure, it must have some kind of a roundtable discussion to “renegotiate” the basis of co-existence. Fair enough. However, a cursory look at the history of the United States will show that claims about the consensual nature of the formation of the country are balanced on a very fragile thread of socio-historical evidence. Although the argument can be made that the consensus of the power structure of the dominant white population built America, the fact also remains that the subaltern populations—African Americans, Native Americans, poor whites, women, etc.—were systematically excluded from this consensus. The African slaves that were brought here were not allowed to become citizens until relatively recently. And in much of Southern United States, they won the right to vote only in the 1960s. Native Americans who had lived in this country for ages before the Anglo-Saxons came from Europe to uproot and exterminate most of them only became full citizens years after the country was formed—and against their wishes. (The first Native American in the U.S. Senate was elected only in 1992!). The state of Louisiana, where I lived for about two years, was BOUGHT from the French without the consent of the people who inhabited it. Alaska was also BOUGHT from Russia without the consent of the people who inhabited it. Hawaii, America’s 50th state, was arbitrarily annexed in spite of resistance from Native Hawaiians. And this is true of most other states in the United States. Again, like Nigeria, the United States fought a long, hard, and bloody Civil War to “FORCE” the Southern states of the country to remain in the Union. The South wasn’t allowed to produce a president almost 100 years after the Civil War. This makes the United States a “forced” nation—if we are persuaded by the logic of Nigerian irredentists who hold on to the idea of a mythical consensus as the foundation for national formation. I agree that Nigeria in its present form was created for the convenience of British colonial conquerors. But so were India, Singapore, Malaysia, and several other modern nations. The fact of their colonial creation is not a reason to expect that they will collapse. In any case, if we insist on consent as a precondition for nationhood, most of our “ethnic nationalities” should not even exist in the first place. For instance, there wouldn’t be an ethnic group called the Yoruba. Obafemi Awolowo, MKO Abiola, Abraham Adesanya, Ernest Shonekan, Gani Fawehinmi, Wole Soyinka, Femi Falana, etc. would not be Yorubas. Why? Because they all come from parts of Western Nigeria that were not “Yoruba” until British colonialists incorporated (read “forced”) them into that identity. The word “Yoruba” is the corruption of “Yariba,” the Hausa word to refer to people in present-day Oyo, Osun, parts of Lagos, and parts of Kwara—itself first used by a Songhai scholar, as I will show next week. It didn’t include much of present-day Ondo, Ogun, and Ekiti—and certainly didn’t include the Okun people of Kogi who are now called “Yorubas in Kogi.” When I attended a wedding at a small town in Ekiti State in the early 2000s, my Yoruba friends from Lagos were shocked to discover that in rural Ekiti State most people neither spoke nor understood Yoruba. We asked a couple of elderly people for directions to the venue of the wedding, and they couldn’t answer us because they didn’t understand Yoruba. They responded in Ekiti language, which is incomprehensible to “mainstream” Yoruba people. In rural Ondo and Ogun, and even parts of rural Lagos, you will find places where Yoruba is incomprehensible to vast swathes of people. Interestingly, the people who were called “Yariba” by the Hausas did not even identify themselves by that name until the twilight of the 19th century. They identified themselves, instead, by such names as “Oyo,” “Ijesa,” “Owo,” “Ibolo,” “Igbomina,” “Ibadan,” etc. This is what historians discovered when they examined the records of the slaves brought from what is now western Nigeria to America in the 16th century. There was not a single slave who self-identified as “Yoruba.” Well, it was our British colonial conquerors who foisted a “Yoruba” identity on all the people who inhabit the western portion of Nigeria—without the “consent” of the people. In other words, people were “forced” into a Yoruba identity, in the same way that the Nigerian identity was “forced” on all of us. That’s why both Awolowo and Adesanya (people who went on to become “leaders of the Yoruba race”) are on record as saying that they were first Ijebus before they were Yoruba, and then Nigerians. I’m not by this ignoring the undeniable linguistic and cultural similarities, however initially distant, between the people that are called Yoruba today, but it took colonialism, and Samuel Ajayi Crowder’s efforts, for this to be discovered and mobilized for political purposes.

The Intellectual Case Against Nigeria’s Break-up (I) By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

In light of the strains imposed on our quest for national unity by the renewed agitation for Biafra and its reverberations across the country, some readers of this column requested that I republish a series I wrote in 2008 and 2012. Here is an edited and updated version of the series: Why is our diversity such a lumbering burden on us? Why do most Nigerians have such powerful loyalties to their incidental, primordial identities and a corresponding disdain, even hatred, for other identities? Many Nigerians think our country is unworkable because it was “forced” into being by British colonialists. This view has no basis in the history and sociology of nation-building. There is no nation in history whose formation was the consequence of a democratic consensus. Historically, most nations were formed by conquests, expansionist wars, and forceful cooptation, not by consensus. I don't know what fuels this false, annoyingly ahistorical sentiment among Nigerians. Many Nigerians also cherish the illusion that they inhabit the most diverse country on planet Earth. But India, a post-colonial country like ours, has a lot more diversity than Nigeria has. It has over 800 languages, several mutually irreconcilable religions, a huge landmass that is several times the size of Nigeria, and a human population that is more than that of the entire African continent combined. Yet it's one country, and it was formed in fairly the same way as Nigeria was formed. Most of the groups that make up present-day India were independent ethnic groupings. None of the groups was consulted before they were integrated into the modern Indian nation. But you don't hear Indians interminably whining about the unnaturalness of their nation, or about the need to “renegotiate” the basis of their existence. Nigeria is only about 200 million in population, the 13th largest country in Africa in landmass, with some 500 languages (most of which belong to the same language family), two major religions (which share tremendous doctrinal affinities, unlike, for instance, India that has such mutually exclusive religions as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and other Eastern mystical orders). Why is it difficult to conceive that a nation can be formed out of this? In any case, there is no evidence that mono-ethnic nations thrive better than ethnically diverse nations. One supreme illustration that explodes the myth of the "naturalness" and invulnerability of mono-cultural nations is Somalia. There can be no more homogeneous nation on Earth than Somalia. It's a monolingual, mono-religious, and mono-ethnic society. Everybody in Somalia speaks the Somali language. Everybody there is not just a Muslim, but a Sunni Muslim. It is often said that Somalia is not just a nation; it is, in fact, a big family. They all have a common ancestor and preserve their ethnic purity through endogamous marriages. How more homogenous can a nation get? Yet it's an excellent specimen of a failed state. It has been gripped by sanguinary convulsions for years on end. An example nearer home is the former Oyo Empire, which had effectively disintegrated even before the start of colonialism, although it was an ethnically homogenous entity. It was caught in the web of a vicious internal schism that precipitated a debilitating war of attrition, which stopped only with the advent of colonialism. So homogeneity and consensus are no safeguards against implosion. They are not necessary and sufficient conditions to immunize any nation against internal contradictions and disintegration. Only justice, mutual tolerance, good governance can. Having said that, the claim that the formation of the Nigerian nation is “forced” needs some interrogation because the history and sociology of pre-colonial relations in Nigeria don't bear testimony to this claim. A lot of research has been done by historians, notably the late Yusufu Bala Usman and Elizabeth Isichei, which chronicles the robust relational intercourse between the disparate ethnic groups that populate what is today Nigeria. A notable example was the burgeoning social and cultural melting between the Yoruba people and various ethnic groups in North before colonialism. As the travel records of Arab explorers show, the "ambassadors" (or, if you like, interpreters) of the Alaafin of Oyo during the Trans-Saharan trade with Arabs were people from the extreme North. And records show that Hausas had been living in Yoruba land in large numbers before colonialism. The same is true of Yorubas in the North. If you go to Kano, for instance, you will see entire neighborhoods that are peopled by men and women whose ancestral roots are located in Yoruba land. Gwammaja is one such neighborhood. Ayagi is another. This is not to talk of the vibrant pre-colonial inter-ethnic relations between such northern minorities as Igalas, Tivs, Idomas, etc. and Igbos. To this day, Igalas and Idomas have councilors in some Igbo states, and there are "indigenous" Igbos in Benue State. A lot of people are often shocked to find out that Joseph Wayas, Nigeria's Second Republic Senate President from Cross River State, is “Tiv.” He comes from a part of Cross River State called Obanliku (the location of the famous Obudu Cattle Ranch) where people speak Tiv but call it by a different name. And the man was made Senate President on the basis of his being a Southerner. Interestingly, during the still-born Third Republic, Iyiorcha Ayu, another Tiv man, became Senate President because he was supposed to be from the North! Take the case of Edo State, too. The people of southern Edo had shared, and still vastly share, deep cultural and historical ties with the Yoruba people long before colonialism, and those in northern Edo had deep ties with northern Nigeria dating back to hundreds of years. Some people in Akoko Edo, for instance, speak the same language as the Ebira of Kogi State, although they call their language Etuno. Yet Edo is supposed to be in the South and Kogi in the North. Again, the people of Auchi have cultural values that decidedly owe their debts to Nupe and Hausa people. I remember that Auchi people used to be called "Bendel Hausas" when, in fact, their language is almost mutually intelligible with Bini and Ishan in southern Edo State In northern Cross River, the Yala people are linguistically, ethnically, and culturally indistinct from the Idoma and Igede people in Benue State. The Ebu people in Oshimili North LGA of Delta State are actually Igala people. So are the Ilushi people in Edo State. And most so-called Delta Igbos are actually descended from Igala people in what is now Kogi State. The point of these examples is to demonstrate the inadmissibility of the claim that Nigeria is a "forced" nation. We were too culturally and ethnically intertwined even before colonialism for that claim to have any basis in truth. Even without colonialism, it is conceivable that Nigeria in its present form would have emerged. If we related as closely as historical records show we did, the British merely accelerated what was likely to have happened anyway. Of course, the result of these robust pre-colonial relational intercourses could very well have resulted in the formation of a different kind of nation from what Nigeria is today, but there is no reason to suppose that it would be the product of the kind of elaborate, unrealistic consensus that irredentists claim is indispensable to national formation. Postscript: There are actually four main languages in Akoko- Edo, according to a native of the area who responded to my column. He identified them as Uneme, Okpameri, Etuno and Okulusho (which he said is a dialect of Okpameri). The headquarters of Akoko-Edo Local Government is Igarra, and the language spoken there is Etuno, a dialect of Ebira. To be continued

Governors run Nigeria, President “just one person in Abuja”: Ex-President Jonathan

“So if the governors of the states meet and dialogue, interrogate things that are good for this country, then we will move forward.” Former President Goodluck Jonathan has charged governor’s of the 36 states of the country to engage one another more via dialogue instead of bickering. Mr Jonathan, who addressed journalists in Benin on Sunday, advised Nigeria Governors Forum to deploy its platform to discuss and resolve issues affecting Nigeria. The former president stressed that the coming together of all the governors in a round table to discuss and proffer solutions to issues affecting Nigeria would help the president who is more or less like a sitting duck in Abuja, relying on briefings from across the states. “Governors themselves should continue to meet, I don’t really love a situation where the northern governors will meet then the southern governors will cry foul. “Then the southern governors will meet then the northern governors will cry foul, that will not help our country. “The governors through the governors forum should meet, they are the people who run this country, the president is just one person in Abuja. “The states, especially in a country where the local governments are very weak, it’s the states that people fall back to. “So if the governors of the states meet and dialogue, interrogate things that are good for this country, then we will move forward. “I don’t really enjoy the antagonism between governors, they should come together and discuss. “If there are issues that are affecting one or two states, I think the governors should see how they can collectively come with a way to address those issues,” he added. (NAN)

The Continuous Decline in Critical Thinking among Nigerian University Students and the Role of GenX

I was teaching a first-year class in 2013, it was an engineering class, and I paused to ask this question: "If you are asked to pay the remaining 4 years of school fees and then you graduate at the end of the semester, how many of you will go for it? And about 95% of the class raised their hands. I asked why and one of them was courageous to tell me that they came for a certificate and that if the university is willing to give it at the end of the first semester, then why to wait for 5 years. And Dr. Jean Twenge, a US-based Author in 2017 stated that an iGener is more likely than previous generations to go to college to get a good job and less likely to go to get an "education. I reflect over my 16 years as a university teacher and I realized how the quality of students and thought have reduced. I used to teach a course that a number of students struggled to pass. It was actually a simple course but my style was such that you need to have a basic understanding of the concept of the course to pass. Cramming the entire lecture note without understanding the concept may not help you to pass. Of course, I got all kinds of names. Then, I had a 6 years break and when I returned to teach the course I observed a sharp difference between the students I taught from 2005 to 2008 and those that I have taught between 2016 and 2019. If I should give the same question paper of the exam conducted in 2007 to the current students, the best student in the class will struggle to pass even though he may even be taught better than 2007 students. To make the students attend class, I take attendance during every lecture. In 2019 I declared that I won't be taking attendance and it was not a surprise that only about half of the students attended my class for that year and it also reflected on their performance. The kids of this generation are supposed to be smarter, but that does not reflect in their academic activities, especially in Nigeria. So, what are we getting wrong? Can this be linked to their slow and protected upbringing and/or the poor state of early childhood learning and development? Early Childhood Learning and Development from the age of 2 to 5 years is very important within that crucial age of a child. As stated by Kerry McDonald, a one-year-old is barely walking while a two-year-old gleefully sprints away from you. A four-year-old is always moving, always imagining, always asking why, while a five-year-old may start to sit and listen for longer stretches. At the age they are supposed to be running around the house and learning to talk, they are enrolled in school and confined in a classroom. And the school has no provision to properly cater for Early Childhood learning and development. At that age, they are supposed to be imagining and asking why, they are forced to learn how to write and read. Unfortunately, early childhood learning and development is not captured in our primary school curriculum in Nigeria. The respective schools design a program for the kids and it varies from school to school and they use different books. The parents most times influence the curriculum. I had an interaction with the Head Teacher of a private school who said the kids in their Nursery section don't use to write but do more play, but that some parents complained why their kids are not writing while their friends' kids in other schools are writing. They are wondering why they are paying for their kids to go play in a school. I was informed they even want their kids in pre-nursery to be writing to justify the fees paid. That was how they introduced writing in the nursery section. There are different stages of early childhood learning development. Up to the age of 5, before they will begin to sit to listen and learn, the kids are meant to be aware of their environment. They naturally wonder why things are the way they are around them. That is the reason they naturally ask a lot of questions that the parents are supposed to answer, but they are confined in a classroom and unfortunately, the Teachers will most of the time not have enough time to answer all the kids in the class. They are supposed to learn to identify letters with the sound, be able to put different sounds together, then learn to write them. But instead of developing programs that help the mental development of the kids at that stage, they are unfortunately made to learn States and Capitals, A for Apple, C for Cup, etc., and copy from the board what they don't know. How the learning of States and Capitals helps in their mental development beats my imagination. These programmed kids with low IQ are then carefully guided through primary school with beautiful end of term results based on how the parents want it, then through expensive private secondary schools, WAEC and JAMB results are arranged for them based on the parents' spec. As far as the parents are concerned, their kids are academically sound following the data in the report card/sheet. The necessary buttons are then pressed to get admitted for any available course in the university. They get to write their first real examination in the University. With reality staring at the faces of some of them, some poor students from some Government Science Secondary Schools will have to conduct Tutorials for them to pass their courses in the Public Universities. They will eventually graduate and the parents press the available buttons to find jobs for them or even buy them a job. Most have no initiative, they are not goal getters. That is the making of our leaders of tomorrow's leaders. I tried to compare my experience with our students with an experience with a student in a University in Europe. I supervised a Master’s student in 2015 during my Postdoc fellowship and her work was in two phases. A preliminary study and the actual research which was part of my Postdoctoral activities. Somewhere along the line, time was not on her side and the deadline was approaching. The supervisory team met and it was agreed that she should write her report using the preliminary report. I conveyed the message to her and she disagreed with our decision. She said the whole aim of her dissertation is not achieved without concluding the second phase. She said she will do whatever it will take to conclude it. I reported back to the committee and she got a two weeks extension. I took her to the lab to set up the high voltage source for the work and the work was done, published and she is working with Siemens. If she was one of our students here, she will go and do testimony that God answered her prayer and her work was reduced. We are not developing critical thinkers and goal-getters like we use to and i think the damage started from early childhood education. Early Childhood education is getting worse for the post-iGen generation born from 2013 to date and we all pretend all is well with the kids. We are rather working harder to make more money for their comfort without a critical thought on the mental development of these kids. Their protected upbringing from our perception that we do not want them to pass through the hardship we passed through that actually shaped our world, has shielded them from the reality of the world we live in. With their slow and protected upbringing, independent nature, and weak mental development, what future are we preparing them for in a tough and rough country like Nigeria? We seem to have little or no time for our kids from age 2 to 5, an age they need their parents most. The kids spend more time with the Nanny and the classroom. And unfortunately, our education curriculum for Early Childhood Education does not make provision for the required mental development from age 2 to 5. Creative thinking and asking questions are not part of the program. We need to find a way to fill in the blank. It is not enough to push them to schools to give us the time to make enough money for them to spend, they need the wisdom to spend the money. We need to give them the tools to make a difference. We need to equip our kids with the confidence and the knowledge of real-life experiences. We (GenX) are tough and the world is getting tougher. We need to raise tougher kids that will bring joy and positive change to our communities and not the quick cash kids. Abdelghaffar Amoka Abdelmalik, PhD Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

“The Idea Of Oduduwa Republic or Biafra Nation is As Artificial As The Nigerian Entity We Are All Crying Against”* - Dr Ope Banwo

I recently saw on another thread a piece allegedly written by Chief Okunnu titled “GEDEGBE LEKO WA’ where he was trying to make a case that Lagos is ‘Sui Generis’ and not even part of the old western state or even the proposed Oduduwa as a matter of fact. He wants Lagos to be totally separate from any new yoruba country 🤷🏿‍♂️🤷🏿‍♂️ I cannot but laugh at the clever-by-half sophistry of the learned senior brother and his doomed attempt to rewrite the history of lagos for us even if we were born in the ‘operation weti e’ era . The intellectual dishonesty in that piece however illustrates why I think an Oduduwa republic will create more problems than it would solve . The kind of Balkanization of the Ethnic peoples of Nigeria that some of us who are not convinced that splitting the country into Oduduwa and Biafra and Arewa are afraid of, was starkly revealed in that ‘Gedegbe Leko Wa’ argument, albeit unintentionally by the writer When we start carving Nigeria as is, where would it stop? It would be naive for anyone to think it would end at Oduduwa, Biafra and Arewa republics. Those are just as artificial as monolithic entities as the concept of Nigeria itself . Truth is: Yorubas were NEVER under one Oduduwa nation Pre-colonial times , just like the igbos were never all in one Biafra nation prior to the coming of the white man. It’s all a myth easily debunked within 5 minutes of research into our history . Sure, Russia broke into many parts peacefully but we can all see what happened to many of its constituent parts economically, politically and socially. Yugoslavia did their own after a war of ethnic cleansing such as nigeria is headed and we can all see what happened to the small constituent parts socially, economically and politically . How many people can even remember more than 2 of the many countries it broke into? Peacefully or by war, splitting up the nation is a BAD IDEA that won’t solve our MAIN PROBLEM of corruption, wickedness, greedy and visionless leaders. We must therefore find another way to solve these very serious issues instead of carving it up. Restructuring devolution of powers is an infinitely better and less risky idea than the split into regional ethnicities 2. In my considered opinion, This idea of an Oduduwa republic and Biafra republic is just another escapist idea of replacing one non-existent Pre-colonial entity called nigeria with 3 other also previously non-existent entities called ‘Biafra’ or ‘Oduduwa’ or ‘Arewa’ Just like there was no nation called ‘Nigeria’ before, So also there was never any nation called ‘Biafra’ or ‘Oduduwa’ or Arewa. So it is crass intellectual dishonesty from top to bottom to deflect and distract us from the REAL problem in the land which is not so much an ethnic problem but a problem of wicked and greedy and incompetent politicians whipping up ethnic sentiments when it’s suited them in their incestous quest for power among themselves every 4 or 8 years When these leaders are sharing salaries and benefits and priviledges among themselves, none of these selfish and greedy leaders remember any Oduduwa or Biafra or Arewa. They only remember it during major elections when they feel among themselves that power must shift from one zone to the other. It’s a all a political bargaining chip with lives of innocent Nigerians on the balance Some of us will still keep calling it as we see it even if yet call us bastards. 3. For those who are saying ‘split it along natural ethnic lines’ that preexisted independence or amalgamation, Can any of them tell us anywhere in HISTORY where anything called ‘Oduduwa Nation’ or ‘Arewa Nation’ or for that matter ‘Biafra Nation’ existed as entities before amalgamation? It’s all in their imaginations. Just like the 1999 constitution was not a natural creation, those 3 major ‘countries’ being romanticized never existed before either. So, we must borrow ourselves brain and ask the obvious: why exchange one artificial entity for three other ones instead of fixing the problems in the one we have right now? 4. Also, if we really want to go back to Pre-amalgamation structure then you have to be asking for the old Oyo empire, ife kingdom, Ijebu Kingdom, Eko, Bénin Kingdom Kanem Bornu empire, Opobo kingdom, abeokuta kingdom Etc . That’s what existed in reality before the white men came but I don’t hear any advocate for a pre-amalgamation structure talking about that o. So, Where will it stop? It’s ridiculous and we are beginning to see EXACTLY what would happen with some of the ‘new’ Yourba leaders already talking about the so-called ‘Eko Kingdom’ that stands apart as ‘gedegbe’. Yet this Eko in historical reality does not go past yaba, and does not include Badagry or Epe or even Ikeja but they are already trying to say ‘gedegbe Leko wa’ ‘Gedegbe where? Truth is, There was no expansive Eko Kingdom sef to begin with before the white men came. It was more of a vassal outpost for the Bini Kingdom then! Yep. Most of the rulers of the so-called ‘gedegbe leko wa’ were minions sent by Oba of Benin to come and manage their empires ‘tiny’ outpost near the sea. I read my history books too. 5. Where do we stop this call for diving Nigeria? Fact is, as Soon as Oduduwa becomes a possibility, look out for Egbaland and Ijebuland to demand their own separation as separate countries.. Afterall they were all separate before the white man came!

Secessionist agitations: Edwin Clark sends strong message to Igboho, Kanu, others

Chief Edwin Clark : Asks those agitating for breakup of the country that they are on the wrong path as Nigeria will remain as one country now and in the future.View pictures in App save up to 80% data. Chief Edwin Clark : Asks those agitating for breakup of the country that they are on the wrong path as Nigeria will remain as one country now and in the future. Chief Edwin Clark, elder statesman and leader of Niger Delta on Saturday told those agitating for breakup of the country that they are on the wrong path as Nigeria will remain as one country now and in the future. Clark spoke in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria as agitations for the breakup of the Nigeria, especially continue in some parts of the country. Significantly, agitators for creation of Yoruba Nation out of Nigeria had on Saturday grounded socio-economic activities in Osogbo, Osun State on Saturday as they staged massive protest to back up their demand. The agitators, mostly made up of youths under the aegis of Omo Oduduwa United led by Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, had converged in Osogbo on Saturday, marching through the streets in agitation for a Yoruba Nation. Also, recent killings of security operatives, security facilities and buildings of government’s agencies in the Southeast and South- south are believed to be linked agitations for the creation of Biafra Republic out of Nigeria as being championed by Nnamdi Kanu led Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB. Clark however told NAN in Abuja that he did not believe in Nigeria’s breakup in spite of rising insecurity and economic challenges in the country. According to him, rather than fan the embers of war by making cessation calls, workable strategies should be evolved to solve the problem of insecurity and other challenges making life unbearable for Nigerians. Clark said, “Nigeria will remain one. Some of us do not believe in the call for secession. Where do we go to, who are we leaving the country for, who owns it. “We cannot flee, where do we go. Though I am seeing this danger but I do not believe that Nigeria will split. “Recently 17 Southern governors met and they also agreed that Nigeria will remain one. They are not just PDP but also APC governors. “Even during the civil war in 1967, we never believed Nigeria would break up and the war eventually ended in 1970. “That was the nearest we got to breaking up but Nigeria did not break up,” he said. Clark advocated for restructuring rather than break up of the country. He referred to reports of the 2014 National Conference and the committee headed by Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, saying the recommendations would go a long way. He said, “all we are saying is that we should restructure the country. Let us devolve power to the states. They should be the federating units. “We should refer to the 2014 National Conference report of over 600 recommendations. We do not need to convoke another confab. “The confab report in addition to what APC produced under Gov. Nasir El-rufai’s committee are enough to create a true federal system of government in Nigeria.” Clark stressed that unless Nigeria returned to a federal system of government, as obtained in 1963, the restructuring process would not be complete. “Let us have a federal system of government as we had in 1963. Once that is done, there will be peace in Nigeria. With that, every region will have a State Police. “So, the only cure to the problem of insecurity in Nigeria is to return to the 1963 Constitution with a few amendments.” Clark further said, “I have been in politics for about 70 years in this country and I have seen it all. “In 1960, there was the Independent Constitution, drawn up in Britain by the Whites and Nigerians. “They agreed that this country has more than 250 ethnic nationalities, therefore a unitary form of government will not work and that there should be a federation which we had. “The 1960 constitution made it that every region had its own constitution and develop at their own pace and keep half of what is developed in their area. “That was why Obafemi Awolowo was able to develop the West because we had the cocoa boom at the time. The price of cocoa was very high in the international market. “So he was able to introduce free primary education which other regions could not do at the time.” He blamed the military for the present economic and security challenges faced by Nigerians, saying the military changed into a unitary form of government. “Aguiyi Ironsi changed this country into a unitary government. “It continued until the Army handed over in 1999 and they left behind a unitary form of constitution. “That is why we are facing so much problem as a nation and that is why we are calling for restructuring,” Clark said. On attacks on schools, Clark called for provision of security in and around schools through the building of fences and adequate surveillance. He said that it might not be possible to guard all schools with the few number of security men in the country. He advised that vigilantes could be employed to provide the Police with necessary information in the case of attempted attacks. He, however, kicked against mounting surveillance cameras in schools, saying, “it will not work unless the people are ready to prevent kidnapping and other forms of attacks in schools. “Even if we mount CCTVs they will be compromised as has happened on different occasions in some parts of the country.