Tinubu warns against separation, advocates restructuring

By Hafsat Abdullahi with agency report

Former Lagos state governor, who is also a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has warned against attempts to break Nigeria into smaller pieces, saying it was important to restructure the nation that breaking into pieces.
Tinubu therefore argued that there are numerous benefits Nigeria and her people would enjoy if the nation was restructured to create balance between the north and the south.
“It would be better to restructure things to attain the correct balance between our collective purpose on one hand and our separate grassroots realities on the other,” Tinubu said.
He spoke as Keynote Speaker at the 2017 Annual Dinner of the King’s College Old Boys’ Association (KCOBA) at King’s College, Lagos.
In a speech titled “A New Nigeria Or A Better One: The Fitting Tools Of A Great Repair”, the former governor urged separatist groups to desist from attempts to separate Nigeria into smaller units, reinstating his quest is for a better Nigeria.
According to him, call for division would make the nation more vulnerable to outside influences, and its people would forfeit their rightful place on the world stage and as a leader of the continent.
“Moreover,” he explained, “not every split solves a problem. The political mentality, either good or bad, that defined a group before the split will remain after the divide. If one is imbued with factionalism, that perspective will remain even when the immediate problem is surmounted. Division will manifest differently, but manifest it will.
“A new factional bigotry will arise to replace the old. The cycle of tension and unrest will take its inexorable toll. Just ask the people of South Sudan if their woes ended when they left Sudan.
“When your heart is geared toward division, you will seek it within a single tribe, even a single family. The gossamer of ethnic unity will be ripped apart by sub-ethnic squabble. An angry man outside his home remains angry inside it as well and a thief steals from both stranger and friend.