Restructuring is the only way to douse agitations in Nigeria —Middle Belt leader, Pam

Amidst agitation for Biafra and counter threat from the Arewa youth groups who recently gave the Igbo in the Northern part of the country three months to leave the North and the controversies surrounding the issue, the Secretary Association of Middle Belt Ethnic Nationalities (ASOMBEN), Reverend James Pam, in this interview with ISAAC SHOBAYO speaks on the threat for secession, position of the Middle Belt, among others. Excerpts:

 

WHAT is the position of your association in respect of Arewa ultimatum against the South-Easterners living in the North?

Our Association, the Middle Belt Ethnic Nationalities, considers it as very unfortunate move by the Arewa youths because all they have succeeded in doing is to divide the ethnic Nationalities in Nigeria. There are better ways they can go about their complaint. One of their demands was that the Igbo were demanding Biafra in an obnoxious manner and they were tired of it. They claimed that the Igbo have refused to co-exist with them. But there are proper ways of doing things. We condemn that statement in its entirety, the words they used that day in their declaration were very serious; they used the word proclamation. They proclaimed as if they were the authority. It was subversive, treasonable, challenging the authority of the Federal Government of Nigeria. In that same pronouncement, they claimed they were pulling out of Nigeria by 1ST October 2017. They said they will take step to show that Nigeria is not working and the agreement was no more. We dissociate ourselves from them and we advise them, especially the North to rethink and change their tactics.

 

Middle Belt is within the North. What is the relation like especially with the core north?

We have been forced to make categorical statement on the Middle Belt position whenever people talk about the North. I want to tell you that the North ceased to exist from May 1966 when the Head of State General Aguiyi Ironsi signed Decree 34 abolishing the four regional governments. In that declaration, Ironsi said the name federal has been removed from the name Nigeria, that Nigeria would simply be called Republic of Nigeria. Since then, the regions have not been returned but General Gowon created twelve states and returned that name federal without federating units, without autonomous regions. As far as we are concerned, the North does not exist, we have today 36 states and six geo-political zones and most of what we called the Middle Belt is within the North-Central geo-political zone. So, when people say North, we dissociate ourselves from North, we have never used the name North for ourselves. We call ourselves Middle Belt because it gives an identity. Secondly, we don’t use the term North because the Middle Belt movement has been in existence pre-independence. Our past leaders like the late J.S Tarka, Moses Yamrang, Pastor David Lot fought for the creation of Middle Belt region out of the old northern region. But people from the far North in the northern House of Assembly in 1963 fought against it and refused to allow the people of Middle Belt have their own region. We don’t use the word North and don’t like North Central either because in geography the English deos not have any direction called North-Central, the same with South-South , North-Central is not a direction as far as English language is concerned. There is North-East, North-West in cardinal points. So, we consider the name a misnomer and it shouldn’t be used, left for us the name North-Central should be changed because owners of the English word don’t have a direction call North-Central.

We have for long been struggling for identity because our brothers from the far North have not treated us fairly. Shortly after independence, we were in northern region and we observed that they kept development away from us. They developed institutions like Ahmadu Bello University, televisions, radio, newspapers all in one section that is in Kaduna, and Kaduna became headquarters and we could not get development in areas we considered as Middle Belt. Our leaders then started agitating for autonomy. They have been blocking us and up till today they are still blocking us. When the military were in power, they created states and local government areas in the country. Today,  we observed that they were unfair to us in the Middle Belt. If you move towards the far North for example, we discovered that they created more states and also gave themselves more local government councils. We have been wondering why should a state carved out from the old Kaduna State, that is Katsina State, have more local government councils than Kaduna. Kano State was created at the same time with Lagos State, Lagos State has 20 government councils, the old Kano State from which Jigawa was created still has 44 councils, while Jigawa was given 23.  We noticed that the sharing of states and local governments has not been fairly done. It was done in this way for the purpose of sharing of revenue allocations and for number of seats in parliament. We considered this as marginalisation, the distribution was unfair, it was baseless while some people are being marginalise for obvious reasons. Some were favored for no obvious reason and that lead us to the demand a re-balancing or what is popularly refer to today as restructuring and that restructuring has political, social and economic dimension.

 

Virtually all parts of the country are claiming to be marginalised. What step do you think should be taken for forestall secession agenda by some sections of the country?

We strongly recommend that the report of the 2014 National Conference be implemented without delay. We believe that the solution to most of the agitations of Nigerians today can be found in the recommendations. We love the National Conference because it was broad-based, 449 Nigerians cutting across all strata of society, deliberated for almost five months. They came to every decision by consensus which made it fantastic. And their recommendations proffer solution to all the problems bordering us today. We believe implementing them would solve our problems. The Igbo are being marginalised and there is no doubt about that. After the Civil War, Celestine General Ihejerika was the first Chief of Army Staff form Igbo extraction. They have genuine reason to cry for marginalisation.

 

Is it justifiable to seek secession on the basis of marginalisation?

I have heard respectable Igbo leaders advising their agitators that Biafra should be the last resort. There are steps which need to be tried and be exhausted first. The chairman of Ohaneze of Ndigbo, Dr John Nwodo told the agitators to hold on and try restructuring first. When restructuring does not work, then thaney consider the next step. I am pleading with the agitators of Biafra that there are avenues that have not yet exhausted. The Federal Government should give recommendations of the National Conference a chance.