How Nigeria May Not Break Up - Ajimobi

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013 -

Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State has said that Nigeria will continue to remain as one united entity only if efforts are made to find out all the fundamental wrongs in the country’s amalgamation and correct the anomalies.

The governor said this at the 20th anniversary celebration of the death of a renowned economist, Prof. Ojetunji Aboyade held at the Development Policy Centre, Ibadan,

According to him, accelerating development and building a real nation from the multiplicity of ethnic groups and nationalities that make up Nigeria has been the major challenge that successive governments have shied away from, preferring instead the pretence that the country has already arrived at the destination.

``Political development and power calculation have further balkanized the country and resulted in moving the country farther away from addressing the problems of national unity, correcting subsisting historical injustices and ameliorating the lopsidedness of the federation,’’ he noted.

Governor Ajimobi, who spoke on the topic ``Nigeria’s Amalgamation and National Development’’, expressed his support for the celebration of the centenary of amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates.

He, however, said it should be done in sober reflection and intellectual brainstorming on how to forge a way forward from the historical wrongs of soldering two disparate protectorates together.

``The greatest calamity would be that, if after the centenary celebrations, we go back to our historical vomit, with no lesson learnt and no strategic move made to move forward as a better nation,’’ he said.

The governor quoted many scholars as arguing that the post-colonial status that Nigeria arrived at, especially its myriad of socio-economic and even political problems that were debilitating obstacles to its development, were a carry-over from the Lord Lugard error of amalgamation.