North Ready For Nigeria’s Breakup" – Prof. Ango Abdullahi

Spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, a think-tank for the 19 Northern states, Prof. Ango Abdullahi may have unwittingly caused the settled dust of the need for Nigeria’s breakup into smaller units to rise and swirl around.

In an interview with Sunday Sun in his farm in Zaria recently, Ango, a politician, professor of Agronomy, one-time Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University who attended four constitutional conferences in Nigeria threw a challenge to those who think that the North is afraid of Nigeria’s disintegration into more basic constituents, saying the North was ever ready for the dissolution and that the way to go about it was through the calling of a formal meeting with complete powers to terminate the legal relationships between the constituent parts in Nigeria.

According to him, If we agree that we should live together as a people and as a country, so be it, but if the general consensus is that Nigerians want to go their separate ways either on the basis of ethnicity, culture, history or religion, why not; why not, adding, “if anybody tells you that the large informed opinion in the North is against the dissolution of Nigeria, he is telling you lies.”

Ango holds strong views when it comes to matters of regional combination of parts that works together well, but he says, “the only thing we have not done which I prefer we do is Sovereign National Conference where the decision of the people will determine whether Nigeria stays as a country or people will go in as many separate ways as they choose.” He spoke on other topical issues as well. Happy reading.


The governors of the 19 Northern States held a meeting recently in Kaduna. The key word and part of their concern was the unity of the North. As the spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, I wonder if your forum is not worried about the disappearance of the once monolithic North. It seems the fabric of the unity of the North has been weakened. Or how do you think?

This should not surprise you if you only go back to history. In 1960, you had three regions in this country. It was in 1963 that the fourth region, the Mid-West region came into existence and each region had a constitution, Eastern region, Western region, Northern region and later Mid-West region constitution. So, we had three regions, virtually autonomous regions in 1960 up to 1963.
And if you look at the political set up at that time, what we had was a weak central formation called Central Government with certain responsibilities mainly having to do with Foreign policy, the Armed Forces and so on.

But most of the nitty-gritty in governance was left in the hands of the regions. There was the premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the premier of Eastern Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and the premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir. Ahmadu Bello. Ahmadu Bello was the leader of the Northern People’s Congress, NPC, but given the importance of making sure that the North was governed properly, he gave up the idea of being the Prime Minister of this country even though he was the leader of the largest political party at the time that was controlling the federal legislature.
They decided that Abubakar (Tafawa Balewa) should go to the center, he will remain here in the North. The North under Sardauna was as diverse as it is today, but it is a matter of style of leadership and of course, the constitutional arrangement in existence at that time made the North one, what you described as it appears to be monolithic because to everybody the rallying point was Kaduna.
You used the word it appears and…

(Cuts in) No, I said it appears…and it was true, at least politically and legally that there was one rallying point, Kaduna. This was where the seat of government was. This was where the premier of Northern region was. This is where the governor of Northern Nigeria was. This is where the Houses responsible for legislative work affecting the region were all here in Kaduna.

So, every part of the North looked up to Kaduna as the place to solve problems affecting them, whether it was a local problem or a problem affecting the entire region. So, this is what made it…and of course, the style of leadership of the premier made sure that every part of the North felt North. And this is why all of us, irrespective of tribe and so on were referred to as Northerners.

I went to the University of Ibadan, the only University available in the country at that time and your name whether you are from Plateau or Benue is just “Mallam,” just Northerner that’s all and we accepted it. This is not to say that there was no diversity in the North. In fact, it was only in the North where you have, even during colonial times where you have active political activists operating in the region.

You have the Middle Belt Congress, NEPU, Borno Youth Movement, all were political groups that were contesting elections and were winning and having members in the Northern House of Assembly. So it is not true that the North was monolithic in terms of its ethnic diversity or in terms of its political activities or beliefs. In fact, it was the only region where I remember in 1979 where you had four political parties forming governments in different parts of the North.

The problem started at the point when civilian government was disrupted violently in 1966. That was the beginning. And the beginning there was obvious. Even at that point, various parts of the country believed that the best way to go was to go our separate ways, including then General Yakubu Gowon himself who became the Head of State after Ironsi was kicked out.

The basis of Nigeria’s unity no longer existed. This was the position. But some elders, particularly in the Mid-West area; one can recall the roles played by Chief Enahoro and quite a number of people like him who felt that there was still room for Nigeria to remain together and this is why they encouraged the Aburi meeting with Ojukwu and General Gowon and so on and so forth. That was the beginning.

When eventually the North and other parts of the country were broken into states, the legal and political cohesion that was known to be in the North began to wane because as I told you there was only one regional government, but by the time six states were created and six other states were created to make it 12 states structure, that was the beginning when some of the cohesion that was known to be Northern heritage, more or less, began to give way to some of these ethnic, cultural and religious issues and so on and so forth.

But even today when people like you talk, you still say the North, yet you are telling me here that…

Oh yes, the North has always been the North. It was the North before…I mean from 1914, the British created the North and created the South and later split the South into East and West.

That was up to a point

Yes, but as political units.
But even after the creation of states, you still talk as if the North is monolithic

Okay, this is your main concern. The North refers to itself as North. You will rather have us refer to ourselves as Northern States of Nigeria maybe.

But that is what it is

That is more comfortable for you.

But it is comfortable for people to say this is Yoruba Nation or this is Igbo Nation and so on.

That’s okay; but it’s not okay for the North to refer to itself as North. Is that not correct?

It’s like Nigeria’s sovereignty is negotiable from the way you are talking?

Absolutely, there is nothing sacrosanct.

But it is also clear that you are swimming against the tide of opinion of some other Northerners because they are also opposed to the negotiation of Nigeria’s sovereignty and her restructuring. Can you rationalize this?

No, no, no, no. I think all these appear to me as putting words into our mouth. If you agree with me, particularly in the history of nations around the world, you find numerous examples where countries started as one. India, 49 started as India; the following year it was India and Pakistan, another year it was Pakistan and Bangladesh; Bosnia recently, Soviet Union, super power, there are 15 countries now from what used to be one super power only 15 or so years ago.

There are so many countries like that around the world. Britain, the so called oldest democracy in the world only two, three years ago there was a referendum that Scotland wanted to leave the union and so on.

So, this is a continuing thing and there is no such thing as a permanent nation even if that nation is made up of one ethnic group. There are very few nation states around the world today. Nation state means that they are both a nation mainly perhaps of the same ethnic stock, linguistic group, historical and cultural group and so on and so forth and yet a political formation, very few. See what is happening in United States.

United States is an example of what happened in the recent election, but this is a country that is as diverse as when it was formed. As it is today it is more diverse. I was watching one of the demonstrations where they were saying “we are all immigrants. Nobody in American will claim that he is an American except the American Indian that is an indigene of the United States; we are all immigrants, depending at what point we arrived here.”

So you see, this is the same case here with Nigeria. When this constitution was fabricated…I attended four constitutional conferences in Nigeria. I was a member in 1986-87, 1995-96 and 2005, the Obasanjo political reforms conference. We refused to attend the so-called Jonathan national nonsense that he tried to do. So, I don’t agree that Nigeria is indissoluble.

I don’t agree at all Nigeria is a formation of people. If we agree that we should live together as a people and as a country, so be it, but if the general consensus is that Nigerians want to go their separate ways either on the basis of ethnicity, culture, history or religion, why not; why not. If anybody tells you that the large informed opinion in the North is against the dissolution of Nigeria, he is telling you lies.

Is the North really ready for dissolution?

Absolutely, absolutely, we are. It all depends on the selfish way people want to negotiate. I am 78 now and I also went to the only university in the country at the time in Ibadan. Nobody can tell me about the history of this country. I know a lot about it because I was very much awake and a grown up person to know what happened.

The people who argued for the creation of states in 1966/67 are the same people today who are asking for the restructuring of Nigeria with particular preference for regional arrangements. The South-west wants preferably a region, a region that was at one time under the leadership of Chief Awolowo, unless, of course, you are trying to ignore all the writings, all the things that had been written, particularly in their declaration called DAW