By Muhammad Tsaure
The Biafra saga is no longer South East or South-South issue; instead, it has culminated into something more devastating and absolute hatred to Buhari in particular and Northern Nigeria in general. I garnered series of experiences primarily based on the discussion I held with a significant number of people from the southeastern region. I learned from them that they mainly think the North doesn’t want them to leave the union because the proportionate percentage of the country’s GDP comes from their region. Thus, if they secede, the North will be left bankrupt and nowhere to turn to.
Unknown to many of those people, this thought is nothing short of ignorance about the exact nature of Northern Nigeria. The North is endowed with whatever a country needs to survive, prosper and develop. We are not parasites, as they claim. But, if they want to go, please, let them go in peace. Nigeria doesn’t necessarily need Igbos to survive.
The North has come of age now; we can fend for ourselves and don’t need any region to live and survive as a country. Whoever wants to go, let them go. The North has treated Igbo people with dignity, love and leniency. The entire Biafra States are not up to Kaduna State in terms of population as well as geography.
In 2015 I was at the Niger-Delta University (NDU) at Wilberforce Island for a conference organised by the Literary Society of Nigeria. After presenting my research paper entitled “Diaspora Literature: A Protest Literature or Romanticism?” We went along with other colleagues to Yenagoa (the capital city of Bayelsa State) to explore or otherwise become a group of tourists. But, to my amazement, the entire Bayelsa State is not up to Bichi local government area in Kano or Funtua local government of Katsina State. Yet, they have three Senators; representing Bayelsa Central, Bayelsa West and Bayelsa East and five Members House of Representatives, and one minister of State on Petroleum.
The conference lasted for six days, and I visited the entire eight (8) local government areas of Bayelsa State. You hardly believe whether or not people are living in some of these local governments. Houses scattered, each community has its language or dialect.
The same week I came back home, I went to Bichi local government of Kano state to verify my assumption or guess. On reaching there, the conclusion I had to make was that Bichi local government is far larger in terms of population, buildings, and whatever one could think of than Bayelsa State. And nobody in the North ever complains about that.
Muhammad Tsaure is the Principal of Government Secondary School, Tsaure. He can be reached via 76muhammadtsaure@gmail.com.
