Igbo will suffer if they secede—Senator Doguwa
•Whoever secedes from Nigeria as it is today will not succeed
•South will no longer call North parasites with oil discovery in North
Senator Muslihu El-Jibrin Doguwa was chairman Senate Committee on Agriculture between 1999 and 2003.
He had also served as a local government chairman, Kano State chairman of the People’s Democratic Party PDP twice, and Managing Director of Hadejia Jamma’are River Basin Development Authority. Doguwa, who joined the All Progressives Congress, APC, before the last general elections, in this interview among others spoke on the state of the nation and the way forward.
By Abdulmumin Murtala
Muslihu El-Jibrin Doguwa
59 years after independence, how do you view the country’s political development so far?
We have to be grateful to our founding fathers.
Those who fought for our independence in 1960 must be appreciated. We must appreciate their zeal, courage and determination that led to our independence despite all the odds. Secondly, we have to appreciate them for uniting themselves even with their differences.
You can see Sir Ahmadu Bello from the North, Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe from the East and Chief Obafemi Awolowo from the West.
There are a lot of others like Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Malam Aminu Kano and a lot of them who joined their hands together, kept aside their political differences and got us independence 59 years ago.
Unfortunately, the question now is have we been able to manage that unity we inherited from them?
The answer is no, we have not.
One can understatnd that in 1979 when Alhaji Shehu Shagari became the first Executive President, Malam Aminu Kano was in the opposition but he gave advice on how the country could be governed.
But today there are a lot of differences, and changes.
People don’t want to share their knowledge with the opposition, the opposition doesn’t want to share its knowledge with the party in government. When you talk about unity and political development in Nigeria one will surely see that there is a very long way to go.
On would ask, what are we trying to leave behind as legacy for our people?
The legacy we are now leaving is not a unifying legacy. When you look at your people, when you look at your children do you see them living along the same trend?
Those from the South, East and West do they see themselves as Nigerians?
To the contrary, now, people don’t see themselves as Nigerians first. I see myself as a northerner, the other sees himself as a southerner and on and on.
More so, even in the North, I see myself as a Kano man and I will not share my views with somebody from Jigawa, Kaduna or Sokoto. That shouldn’t be the case.
We are supposed to see ourselves first as Nigerians then as northerners as the case may be so that the unity we inherited from our founding fathers will be meaningful and useful to us.
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