By Matthew Don
Former Deputy National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and a member of the party’s Board of Trustee (BoD), Olabode George has warned those dishing out hate speeches across the country to desist from such as doing can lead to heating up the polity.
He warned that the younger generations of Nigerians agitating for some ill-digested tribal paradise are too young to appreciate the immense sacrifices the older generations made both in blood and sweat to ensure that Nigeria remains one and indivisible entity.
George, a retired naval chief also called on Nigerian leaders who were around during the civil war era, to come out and condemn the youths making such comments.
Speaking to newsmen in Lagos on Thursday, June 22 in a speech entitled: ‘Enough of the drum beats of war’, the PDP leader condemned those responsible for issuing quit notice to Igbo resident in the north.
Said George: “There is a certain disturbing divisive temper across our nation today. Everywhere, there is an unfortunate passion of ethnic fixity. From the North to the South, there is that befuddled and reckless upsurge of ill-conceived provocations towards the abyss. From every nook and cranny some people are hurrying and stampeding everyone else to a disruptive agitational campaign.
“From the Biafran young crusaders to the young Arewa reactive promoters of disunion and the Yoruba presumptive withdrawal into a fanciful Oduduwa republic, they are all wrong. We are all living in unpleasant economic season.
“We must all step away from the abyss. We must all sheathe our swords. Enough of this unrealistic war clamour. Enough of these provocations of national destabilization.”
George however commended the Federal government’s peace parley, saying, “the current consultations that our government has embarked upon across the tribal divide is laudable and exemplary. But they should do more. They should widen the consultation efforts by inviting the formidable elders and statesmen who were active participants and managers of our nation during the dark drama of our civil war.
“The chastening voices of General Yakubu Gowon, General Obasanjo, General T.Y. Danjuma, General Alani Akinrinade, General Alabi Isama, General IMB Haruna, General Babangida, General Abdulsalam, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, Gov. Udenwa, Col. Iheanacho rtd, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu and many others on both sides of the divide at that time, will go a long way in tempering the flight of fancy of the intemperate agitators who have never heard a gunshot in anger.”
He warned those trying to lead Nigeria on the path of another civil war, saying no country survives two civil wars.
George’s words: “We must talk to each other. We must listen to each other. We must encourage an appreciation of each other’s unique asset. There is no strength in disunity. There is no value in the rupturing of our national fabric.
“The last civil war which provoked millions of deaths and incalculable destruction both in physical and in the moral psyche of the survivors must never be repeated again. The American Philosopher, George Santayana told us that ‘Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it’. We must never repeat the darkness of our past. We must move forward with truth and certainty.
“There is no single nation in the history of the world that has survived two civil wars. We must stop and reflect. We must halt all these desperate agitations for mushroom ethnic colonies. The balkanization of our nation will not bode well for anyone. The former Yugoslavia and the defunct USSR are classic examples of ill-conceived peripheral pigmy states that can hardly survive on their own. Is this really what we want?”
George admitted that myriad problems face the country, but suggested that such problems are “not unresolvable.”
His words: “I do not say that there are no problems in the present composition of our union. But I insist that these problems are not unresolvable. The perceived wrongs and the inequities in our national union must be resolved on a roundtable and never in the trenches.”