Ezeife said this in reaction to a statement credited to Prof. Ango Abdullahi, where he said the North will never be a poor country should Nigeria breaks.
He said that Emir Sanusi was truthful in his comments and urged the northern leaders to listen to him.
He said, “Sanusi has been very truthful in his comments. When Prof. Ango Abdullahi said sometime ago that the North was ready for the disintegration of the country, I was wondering which North he was talking about or whether he was referring to his clan — the feudal elements in the North. But the truth is that the North loses most if Nigeria should breakup today. What is the literacy level in the North? What is the income per head demographically in the North? When did education stop being a major resource for economic development? So, Sanusi is saying something people should listen to. I do not see anything strange in what Sanusi said because I knew it and I had written about it.
“For him to say it, it means he is committed. He is a true northerner who is committed to the long-term interest of the North, which is tied up with one Nigeria. With a breakup, the North will be worse off while the South will survive even with more improvement. But we prefer One Nigeria and one market for all of us. Any group that has intelligence guiding its actions cannot walk away from One Nigeria. But there must be equity and justice. No section of the country should be treated as if they are being pushed out of Nigeria like the Igbos are being treated today,” Ezeife said.
Ezeife called for a return of the country to the foundation laid by its founding fathers. “The Nigeria we have today resulted from a desire by federal troops to win the Nigeria-Biafra civil war. And the military leaders that followed continued with the same pattern and made things worse by creating more states, giving more to the North. A return to the regional structure is what Nigeria needs to move forward.”
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