The meeting of NEF held last week in Kano is still generating ripples. Why did you consider it auspicious fir you to meet, given the pulse of the nation?

We consider our meeting auspicious, because Mr President comes from our geopolitical are and we don’t want the confusion people try to drive a wedge between himself and his vice president. The Constitution is very clear about the relationship and Mr. President has shown us that he trusts his vice president absolutely. We don’t want confusion. Our Constitution is silent and we know that this acting President as we raised the voice, a responsible voice across what used to be the Northern Region, we are solidly behind him. And we are praying together like him for Mr President to come back. But Nigeria must move on. And we have an acting President and we will call on everybody to support him. We don’t like mischief. We had too much mischief in the previous encounter during the demise of President Umaru Yar’Adua.

We don’t want anybody to misunderstand the North. The North, which is responsible for gathering votes stood solidly behind the ticket (that won the 2015 election) and have the ticket in there (in office) and the Constitution is very clear and Mr President transmitted power very clearly. People are only trying to cause confusion by reading words; he quoted the relevant section of the Constitution; it is very clear. So, we have an acting president who performed and who is loyal and who has been faithful and who is a gentleman.

So, I wouldn’t see why these people that cause trouble; every time there is something like this in Nigeria, mischief-makers would like to cause all kinds of confusion and so on. The two are working together very well and faithfully and we shouldn’t create any confusion. Some are insinuating that the North is not behind Professor Osinbajo. We are solidly behind him, we voted for him, accepted the ticket with our son, General Muhammadu Buhari. According to the Constitution, he transmitted power and sent a letter to the Senate and asked his vice to carry on. So, people should know the difference between personality and persons and institutions. We have been in this game for too long; we cannot be repeating the same mistakes of old. And we don’t want to make anybody feel some Nigerians are more Nigerians than others.

For goodness, when are we going to stop this? That was why we were unequivocal in the communique issued at the end of our meeting held in Kano. The President said he was returning to London for further treatment and did a constitutional thing by transmitting power to the vice president and that government should move on.



Another salient issue you raised in that communiqué was that some forces were making attempts to exploit Buhari’s absence to achieve dubious political goals. What is actually at the back of your mind, as the statement is obviously ambiguous?

We meant that there are mischief-makers: one, some of them are trying to drive a wedge between Mr President and his vice and we know there is none. Two, other are saying Mr President is dead; that he is incapacitated; that the Senate should sack him and that it (senate) should assume power and that within three months, as provided by the Constitution, the president of the Senate should organize an election within three months. We said no, they shouldn’t listen to such mischief-makers. God in His infinite mercy has allowed Mr President to be honest. He said I am sick; I am being treated in England and I am going back for treatment based on what his doctors’ advice when he went earlier. So, why are mischief-makers making noise about Mr President doing exactly what he said he would do? He doesn’t want confusion for Nigeria. We the elders from the North don’t want any confusion. The man trusts Osinbajo and asked him to carry on with the implementation of the policies and programmes which will further improve the welfare and wellbeing of the people. So, we don’t want to be part of the confusion the mischief-makers are trying to create here and there. We are standing behind the vice president and we are telling him, ‘carry on; don’t look left and right. We know there are Yoruba friends of yours to come and tell you it is time to seize power. Don’t listen to them; the Constitution is so clear and it has already given you power; don’t go out of the Constitution.’ Or, somebody comes to you and says ‘I am a military man and if you don’t do this and that, we are going to seize power.’ No, nobody must try such; we should allow the Constitution to work. For once, Nigerians proved in the last elections. When the then President Goodluck Jonathan was defeated, we advised him and indeed told him that, ‘Mr President, you will make a wonderful mark on the African continent if you don’t drag the whole country into a fight; that because you have the instruments of government, you should insist on becoming a sit-tight president. No! Pick up your phone, call your colleague; this is not a war; this is a game and he has defeated you, greet him and tell him that you will support him’ and he did and I praised him and even put it writing and said there were two heroes: Jonathan was a hero because on the African continent, presidents are sit-tight persons, but he chose not to be a sit-tight president and I told him that we would support him in any courses he runs to within the context of politics; that he was young; he shouldn’t worry. He is only 50 something years old; if God wants him to play a role again in Nigeria, he will with time. We shouldn’t destroy the country because of persons. The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo that some of us followed from our youths, is not alive. Is Nigeria not progressing? Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, who was my hero, I wanted to imitate him asan, is dead and Nigetria is continuing. The late Sardauna of Sokoto in the North, was our leader; he made me to go to school, he died. Still, Nigeria continues. We don’t want people to bring confusion. Any time a leader passes on, we say praise God, let’s move on. That’s our own view.



You also said the North is conscious of its obligations and rights and will discharge and defend them without reservations. I would like you to expatiate on what you seem to consider as the interest of the North that must be defended without reservations.

Yes, we are talking about the interest of the North. We said we would defend the interest of the North within the context of Nigeria. This is politics for us. Our region is the least developed. We don’t want to see lopsided development, as the areas that are more developed receiving more federal attention more than us. We feel that with the war-ravaged North-East and the terrible consequences of that war; you can see displaced persons, you can see destroyed infrastructure; you can see hundreds and hundreds of thousands of little children that have lost both parents. Add this to the tragedy of the children that wander around in Northern Nigeria called almajiris. You know that if we don’t do something about this, within a decade, we could have a more terrible scenario more than Boko Haram. People should understand that we would be concerned about the infrastructural rot, the infrastructural lack of development, education, economics and everything; they shouldn’t be annoyed. This is the meaning of federalism and Chief Awolowo gave Nigeria federalism. You show certain idiosyncrasies to your place, but you know that it is the greater whole Nigeria that is giving you this protection for you too to develop. We are telling our people we want development; we want economic development; we want the dredging of the River Niger and River Benue because development would be astronomical to these least developed area once that is done. Now, we still have to use transport to bring in all development facilities from the coast because we import them. So, when you dredge River Niger up to Baro and River Benue, we can have an internal seaport so that development implement can easily come in. In effect, we are saying that nobody should misunderstand our concern in the North; that we are implicitly woven together as a nation-state and our own peculiarities should be acknowledged by the government in power. Then politics comes in with perhaps the biggest population and we voted for this administration, for God’s sake. It’s about patronage; we are asking for development. If you want to destabilize the whole nation-state of Nigeria, then allow the North not to be developed, because it is easy for the kids to rise up and say no more. So, we are saying that all Nigerians should concerned about the development of the North, but nobody is going to take us and mislead us to destabilize Nigeria because we love Nigeria. And within the context of Nigeria and within the context of federalism, we shall show concern for the North-East, the North-Central and for the difficulties of the Sahara, and so and so forth. And we have more land and yet, less attention is being paid to agriculture in the North by the Federal Government. We are the least developed; we are the least educated. Let the Federal Government show that they are aware of this and put a lot of resources to the development of agriculture, education and the infrastructure that have been destroyed in the North-East. This is what we meant. And pending this, we don’t want to be misunderstood as being irredentist or being sectional or regional; it is about something which is essential, because if we don’t take care of these, we are going to be destroyed as a nation as simple as that. Nobody should misread if we show certain interest in these matters that ought to occupy huge attention from the Federal Government. In other words, we are saying we will be a good group constitutionally and politically. We are not going to allow anybody to come and say, oh military, military. No! We have a democracy; we have a Constitution. We are trying to make the Constitution work, please let us give the document a chance. ; let us give Professor Osinbajo a chance. Let him perform, for God’s sake. He appears to be a performer; let’s encourage him. The North is solidly behind him.



The problems of the North is self-inflicted, having led the country for more years that any other section of the country, coupled with the public umbrage from prominent individuals and quarters against the political elite that flittered immense opportunities to redress the backwardness of the region?

It is partially self-inflicted but that is not all. You can make the same argument on what you call the Niger Delta. If you asked and knew the quantum of funds that went into the area, vis-a-vis the development and the people, you would say, ‘My God, what happened, despite such huge resources that have gone into the place? How is this place like this?’ So, to some extent, one of the areas that has done best in the country is the former Western Region because Chief Awolowo was very wise. Some Nigerians don’t know that the Western Education that they say they hate is very useful liberalizing and liberating people’s mind to open up their places for development.

And the most developed area educationally is the Western Region. When Chief Awolowo, announced in the 60s the Free Education Scheme, they thought he was crazy. And we kept telling people that free education was possible, but some of us from the North were afraid that everybody who succeeded in getting to school cannot pay their fees. To some extent, there was qualified free education in the North, but Chief Awolowo made this a total commitment of his administration because the man was far-sighted. He saw the import of federalism. You can see what is happening in the United States. What contributes to the Gross Domestic Product of a nation; it is not the oil; it is the intellectual asset. If Nigerians can believe in what Awolowo believed in and educate their children, but what I don’t like is for someone to tell me that because my father is not educated because he is not smart enough and now that am educated and I know what education can do therefore since we use our groundnut, COLUMBINE, tin and hides and skin to develop the wealth of oil industry develop and part of the south, these are fact. Now that we demand that oil money should be poured into the north people said we are lazy, we are not in any way lazy. We have resources in the north, we have oil in the north we could have develop the gas industry we could have concentrated in developing the resources in the north but we chose to concentrate on the south. Our problem is understanding each other in this country. We should be our brother’s keeper. We are not beggars.

The young educated people in the North are angry whenever they hear the noise from some elements: break up this country. They always say to themselves that they are not afraid of a breakup. Why should we be afraid of a breakup; we will go the conference room for discussion of restructuring. We have wealth, but I think it is better, in the concept of international politics in the activities of nation state, to remain a strong country. We appreciate our compatriots from the South and having appreciated them, they should appreciate our concern. As we released a large quantum of our own wealth to develop the South under the British, whatever is found in the South, whether through oil or others, should be released to the North for the development of education and infrastructure. At the moment, they are saying no; that they won’t allow that that. By budgetary control, we will fight back; we will not pick up arms, but we will show intellectually that it is shortsighted.

The people, who believe in the unity of Nigeria, should also believe in the creation of wealth for all regions and when such effort is being made, nobody should complain that the northerners produced all the president in Nigeria; we didn’t have all the president in Nigeria.



The NEF talked about the renewed interest for the clamour for political restructuring of the nation and that it creating tension over the coexistence as a nation. Are you saying it is the call by some of this section that is causing the tension or the insistence of the North on the current status quo, which many have blamed for the nation’s woes?

I’shocked the world, because they thought we would kill ourselves and cut the throat of the Igbo after the war. But there was no such thing. We continued in less than 20 years without schism; this is history. The American civil war finished more than 200 years ago and today, there is still schism. Nigeria has something to contribute.

What I am saying in essence is that let’s discuss if the structure of the nation in terms of local government creation, assignment of responsibilities given to the centre. I know the agitation of the Action Group then as to the creation of state police and we were then sympathetic to the call, but we thought in the best interest of the nation then that if eventually state governors or regional governors were in control of the police, they would arrogate power to themselves and thus use the state police to witch their political opponent. They will use it to fight the nation state of Nigeria. We of the Action Group that were young at that time like the late Dr Tunji Otegbeye, Dr Femi Okunnu did not support the idea of a state police. People should seek to give creative leadership not divisive leadership, when I said I am ready to go to the conference to discuss the restructuring of Nigeria, I am not afraid, people should sit down and jaw- jaw rather than fight wars. You cannot break up Nigeria peacefully; we are too interwoven and, I cannot see a serious nation that would advocate two civil wars. We will not survive again; we will become too weak and we will pose a threat to the people across the continent of Africa.

When people talk about restructuring of Nigeria, they shouldn’t assume that the people from the North are not prepared. For me, apart from the Plateau and Benue, there are certain things I would like to see in Benue, as well as Plateau. With the political setting in place now, I know I am northerner; I suffered the indignities and the consequences of the economic nature of what is happening in the North. Whatever happens in Sokoto that is in the North- West and Yola in the North-East, they also affect me in the North-Central. We are not afraid to sit and discuss on restructuring. They should not become too emotional to think that some sets of people are the ones benefiting from the country. In fact, there are some of my colleagues like Professor Ango Abdullahi who said if this is what the people of the South are saying, let’s separate but I told him no; that this is not what our forefathers like Awolowo, Azikwe, the Saudana left us with. Though they had their own difficulties, as well as differences, they surmounted those challenges and they gave us Independence. They gave to us and our children very strong and beautiful country and no one can break it up. I am too old to go for another civil war, I think my children should benefit from the lesson of the Nigerian civil war. When some elders talk as if they don’t know the consequences of a civil war, I think they don’t know the sensibilities of this country; people are too primordial and sentimentally attached to their little children. When words that look indignant, that look abusive are used in the contest of restructuring, I always think you are not serious; that you just want to make noise. Restructuring is a variable thing; it is a serious thing; we should talk and no one should think the North is not ready. We are.

The North that is not educated is not there anymore. We are educated now; in fact, our children are very well educated. The North is not what it used to be; people of the South, especially those from the South-west talk as if we of the north, are a sleeping giant in terms of education. We have people who can put people on the move from the North right now; we are not afraid to go to the conference, let’s talk and reason together.


We had a national conference back in 2014 and the report is on the shelf….

That was a dialogue between Mr President then, Dr Goodluck Jonathan and his friends. in the reviewed London Constitutional Conference of 1960, I wrote the position of the United Middle Belt Congress. But Jonathan thought I was not qualified, we felt that any one that was ready to buy Jonathan’s lie should start buying it. We went through imprisonment in the hands of the British only for some people to bribe their way through to get a constitution. We cannot allow that; it is not possible. Even among the 50 wise men that the military chose then (Awolowo declined to be part of), I went. We drafted what became instrumental in the formulation of the Constitution of the country today. I believe I am a leader of Nigeria; I served Sardauna of Sokoto. I served Azikwe, I served Awolowo and I learnt something from them. I did not agree with the way Jonathan and his boys were doing things. So, the report of the 2014 conference is not a representative document; we cannot take the recommendations therein and incorporate them in the constitution.



http://tribuneonlineng.com/north-not-afraid-breakup-paul-unongo-nef-dep-leader/amp

#Breakup is trending now.

Lemme hear these from the Sultan of Sokoto, Emir of Kano and other nothern elites to confirm that north is not afraid of disintergration.

So can we break the country today?

liars