Sokoto – The Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi has appealed to all Nigerians, irrespective of religious, ethnic and political differences to work diligently towards sustaining Nigeria’s hard-won unity. The monarch told newsmen in Sokoto on Saturday that Nigerians should set aside their diverse backgrounds to work toward in ensuring that the country remains indivisible.” It is one Nigeria and forever it will be one Nigeria, with all of us the citizens as one. ”
I am an advocate of peace and we as traditional rulers from across the country would sustain the royal fraternities,” he averred. According to the monarch, there was the need for all traditional rulers in the nation to sustain routine visits to their counterparts from other parts of the country.
Doing so, the royal father said, would foster more harmonious relationship, peace, unity and socio-economic prosperity of Nigeria. Ooni, Ojaja II, further expressed confidence in the Nigerian project, saying that the nation would forever be on the march to everlasting greatness. He also stressed that the amalgamation of the country in 1914 was never a mistake.
The Ooni further urged traditional rulers in the country as those closer to the people to always work together in the interest of their people and the nation. The monarch also underscored the importance of the youths across the country, saying that they formed the majority of the population. The Ooni stressed the need for the youths to be meaningfully employed to curb the menace of youth restiveness and insecurity.
Vanguard
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It is absurd and hypocritical for the oni of ife, who like the sultan of sokoto is a tribalist, to speak of the “greatness” of Nigeria “with all of us the citizens as one.”
Surely, Nigeria is “great” for the oba because not only is he provided with his basic needs-water, food, clothing and light-he lives in unimaginable opulence while millions of Nigerians wallow in poverty.
The oba is so hypocritical because he knows that millions of Nigerians are neither treated as citizens nor live as “one.” Otherwise why was an Igbo man recently beheaded in Sokoto, a crime that neither the oni nor the sultan condemned. Surely, they would have done so if the victim was Yoruba or Hausa-Fulani. And why have the two monarchs kept quiet as Christian girls are kidnapped and raped and as thousands of Christians are deliberately and systematically cleansed from the North? Words alone will not save the Hausa-Fulani-half Yoruba-controlled slave plantation created by lugard.
Dr. Norm