I am still suspending writing on why restructuring is needed. But it is not to continue with the factual revelation that the ceaseless calamities in the country in the last 16 years have been due to God’s anger with Nigeria since 1999 for the reasons I gave last week. But today I am shelving the discussion on the need to restructure because of the reckless and arrogant statements made in the latest edition of the Saturday Sun by Alhaji Lawal Kaita, the former three-month lasting Governor of Kaduna State (October 1 – December 30, 1983). In which on page 51 of the weekly he described last month’s statement of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka that Nigeria’s sovereignty is negotiable as “nonsensical and idiotic.” And in which he talked as if the Hausa and Fulani or the northern oligarchy own Nigeria and are the lord and master of the people of other ethnic groups and that whatever they say or want must always prevail.
Statements which show that the 84-year-old man is still living in the past of the First Republic and military era and is, therefore, sleeping through a revolution that will end up in Hausa – Fulani leaders having and showing respect to other Nigerians if the country is not to break up. I am surprised that Alhaji Kaita does not realise that the era when northern leaders solely provided the Head of State under an elected administration ended with the victory of the late Chief MKO Abiola in the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential poll. I also wonder if he does not remember that the reactions of southerners spearheaded by Abiola’s Yoruba people forced the North to concede the presidency to the ethnic group in 1999.
I believe since then it should have been evident to Hausa – Fulani leaders that the presidency has become a rotational affair between the South and North in a turn – by – turn order. I think it is because Alhaji Kaita is ignorant of the full details of the ethnic situations in the defunct Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia that made him boast that the North can and will prevent the Igbo and Niger Delta militant agitators from breaking away from Nigeria.
The uprisings in the Niger Delta and the South – East should be clear signal to northern leaders who don’t want the country restructured that southerners too can cause Nigeria problems like the Boko Haram insurgents and with more devastating effects on the nation’s economy than the northern jihadists have accomplished.
The worse for the country will be if militants in the South – West have to join the fray because 60% or more of the industries and commercial activities are in their zone. As a result, their actions will have more telling effects than the militancy in the Niger Delta and South – East. So, the best thing is for government and the Hausa – Fulani leaders to find solutions to the problems in the country not belligerent or non – compromising posture or standpoint.
The population of each country in the world and the percentage of each of the ethnic or racial groups in them are available in the Reader’s Digest 1980 Almanac and YearBook published in the United States. In the Soviet Union the Russians were 53% of the country’s population, the Ukrainians 17%, Belorussians 16% and the others 14%. In Czechoslovakia the Czechs were 65%, the Slovaks 30% and the rest 5%. While in Yugoslavia the Serbs constituted 40%, the Croats 22%, Slovenes and Bosnians 8%, Macedonians and Albanians 6% each and the other tribes 18%.
The Russians, Czechs and Serbs dominated the armed forces and police in their countries by 70% or more and they were more educated and prosperous than the minority nationalities. Yet, in spite of the advantage the majority had, the minorities through their struggles caused the countries to collapse. The Soviet Union, a super power nation is now broken up into 15 countries, Yugoslavia into seven states and Czechoslovakia into two nations.
In Nigeria the Hausas and Fulani do not have the domineering numbers, status or influence the Russians, Serbs and Czechs had over the minority tribes in their countries. In the Reader’s Digest, the population of the Hausas in Nigeria is 21% and Fulani 8% making 29% for the two, whereas the other ethnic groups in the country are 71% broken down to 20% Yorubas, 17% Igbos and 34% for the minorities in the North and South. Meaning that the Hausa and Fulani are minorities in the overall population of Nigeria.
To be continued next Wednesday


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As shown last week the Igbo dominated NCNC teamed up with Akintola’s UPP to snatch the government of Western Region from Awolowo’s AG in 1963. The Federal Government the party ran with the Hausa – Fulani dominated NPC arrested Awo in 1962 for treasonable felony on the allegation that he was planning to overthrow their administration. He was jailed 10 years in 1963. His son and eldest child, Ibadan – based Barrister Olusegun Awolowo, died that year in a car crash on his way to Lagos for his dad’s trial.
In 1959 when no party won enough seats to constitute the Federal Government the NCNC shunned Awo’s AG and teamed up with the Hausa – Fulani dominated NPC. The party’s leaders said they did so to prevent northerners from seceding and preserve Nigeria as one nation. How does it become treachery against fellow southerners if Awo not to allow the country from breaking up also chose in 1967 to support the Federal Government headed by Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon from a northern minority group, instead of joining the Igbos during the civil war? When the Igbo-dominated NCNC did not pull out of the Federal Government in sympathy and solidarity with a fellow southerner when Awo was jailed in 1963. Even if Gowon who released him from prison in August 1966 and made him the deputy head of the Federal Government had been a Fulani or Hausa would it have mattered if Awo teamed up with him when the Igbo – dominated NCNC was in alliance with the Hausa – Fulani dominated NPC from 1960 – January 14, 1966?
More to come next week