Guardian / Nigeria: For Nigeria to move forward and take her leadership role in Africa, there is the need for a revolution without bloodshed, Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Sule, the Dan Masani Kano has said.
Sule stated this in Gombe yesterday in a keynote address titled: “Restructuring Nigeria: Implications for National Unity and Integration,” which was delivered at a seminar organised as part of activities marking the 20th anniversary of the creation of the state.
While decrying the country’s inability to positively harness its abundant natural resources, the elder statesman charged the youth to initiate a bloodless revolution that would bring lasting change in the country.
“We have problems in this country today but we shall overcome. The youth are the panacea to our ills, the solution to our problems, vehicle of change and vanguard of the revolution. I am not calling for a bloody revolution; I am calling for a bloodless revolution, reorientation, change of mind. And we can do it.
“We can have a revolution like that of Mao Tse Tung who killed so many millions, but he succeeded. We can have yet another type of revolution, that of Mahatma Ghandi who did a non-violent revolution and he was able to succeed. Let’s do that of Mahatma Ghandi, we will make it,” he said.
On the call for restructuring the country, the elder statesman expressed reservation on the agitation to tamper with the structure of the country.
“People have been calling for the restructuring of the country, allow the country to go its way. I don’t pray for that, I don’t believe in that. It is not for nothing that God has put us together, different tribes, cultures and different climatic conditions. We all need God together, He has a purpose for us,” he said.
He dismissed claims that differences in religion was behind the crises being experienced in the country, stressing that proponents of such theories “either do not understand the teachings of their religion or we deliberately refused to practice what we have been taught.”
He quoted copiously from both the Bible and Qur’an to show that the two predominant religions in the country have the same goal, to love one another in the worship God, “the mode of worship may differ but the objective is the same.”
“God wants Nigerians to unite, to understand one another because of the role they are to play in Africa, Nigeria is to play the role of leadership in Africa, to inspire blacks all over the world. Unless we enjoy peace at home, unless we love and respect one another, we shall lead nobody,” the former envoy said.
Sule hailed the attributes of the country’s founding fathers, who he said became leaders only to serve and not to be served, recalling that but for the failure of leadership, Nigeria would have progressed like India and Brazil.
