“There is nothing peculiar. Nigerians are a terrible people when it comes to this matter. First of all, they said Nigeria is very diversified. Isn’t that so? But India has over a thousand religious and ethnic groups. It is about 1.3 billion people while we are just 170 millions. Where is the peculiarity in this diversity that we cannot manage it? India is trying to take advantage of its diversity, turn whatever is there that is negative into positive, thinking of the complementarity of culture, creating avenues for forging a new Indian nation out of many Indias. The United States fought a civil war, learnt from it and have built on it. And you know the level of patriotism of the average American. Britain with all the wars with Scotland, the Welsh, Irish still formed the United Kingdom. Most countries in continental Europe, particularly Germany, Austria and a whole lot of them, were they not the result of wars? Which country on earth was created by God and put on the ground and told, okay, you are now a special country, you wouldn’t have any problems?”
“There is nothing like any mistake of 1914. All countries are artificial. The boundaries are artificial but it is left to you to make it natural. I read things about the civil war and I just laugh. People talk about the civil war from their own ethnic standpoint. I thought that the essence of all these is that, collectively, we have all made mistakes and it is time to learn from it. Instead of that, you hear people talk of mistake of 1914. What of Britain? Has it not gone beyond the mistakes of yester years? What of Austria, Germany, old USSR, look at Ukraine and Crimea? So, I laugh when people take themselves too seriously, wasting their time about the mistake of 1914. Can’t you see how other countries are solving their own? Isn’t the challenge before us to build a state from a crude state we inherited and make a contribution instead of wallowing in the past? Take cognisance of the past, critically learn from it, contribute constructively to the present and lay the foundations for tomorrow for our children. We are not doing that. We are busy talking about the mistake of 1914”
“But were you to divide Nigeria along ethnic lines today, there will be more mistakes. There will be mistakes again. Niger Delta Avengers are talking of Niger Delta Republic. If you create Niger Delta Republic today, it will become another Southern Sudan. Instead of taking advantage that Nigeria is big and highly recognized, instead of identifying commonalities, identifying areas of differences and respecting them, be fair, be just, be accommodating of one another, we are concentrating on mistakes. Who made the mistake? Would pre-colonial Nigeria have come together as Nigeria if not the mistake they are talking about? The way to go is to note that we have a destiny or we make a mess of ourselves always complaining instead of learning from our past”
- Prof Jonah Isawa Elaigwu, accomplished Political Scientist and scholar of federalism, responding to Intervention’s question on August 15th, 2016 during an interview subsequently published August 16th, 2016 under the title, “Nigeria: Herdsmen Conflict is Civil War in the Making”
