Our Reporter, New York
Britain-based Nigerian lawyer and author, Dele Ogun, has said that the term nationalism is being used as a dirty word by people who seek to promote the European agenda of keeping Nigeria in the form they created it.
He made the remarks during an interview in a special edition of 90MinutesAfrica hosted by Rudolf Okonkwo.
“And nationalism has been used as a dirty word by those who are trying to promote the European agenda of Nigeria staying as it is because anything else is seen as the politics of hatred,” he said.
He argued that nationalism is in layers since the Nigerian state is comprised of ethnic nations that were brought together by the colonialists and that the real nationalists are those who believe in their identities as Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw, Ogoni, Kanuri, etc., which were forced onto the Nigerian state.
The author of the bestselling book, “A Fatherless People,” said while some Nigerians, whom he describes as the “servants of the colonial confusionists” want to make us uncomfortable with our “organic and God-given identities” by tagging supporters of Yoruba Nation or Biafra as separatists, it is acceptable to “wave the Welsh flag in Britain” without any backlash.
“To speak about ethnic nations in Nigeria is seen as the politics of hatred, whereas in Europe, the politics they play is the politics of lower level, organic nations – the politics of being Welsh, being Scottish, being Irish, being English, and that does not stop them from being Europeans or British,” Mr. Ogun explained.
Speaking further, the historian said that our ethnic nationalities “sustained us for thousands of years before the colonialists came in and caused their confusion,” and so he believes that people can be nationalists at their organic level and still be good ‘Nigerians.’
Commenting on the travails of Nnamdi Kanu, the author of the new book “Culprits,” said that those behind the Nigerian state see the IPOB leader as a threat to the continuation of Nigeria as it is.
Kanu’s predicament is “because we are not prepared to allow for the reality that it is okay to be Igbo or if you like to be Biafran and Nigerian at the same time. If you force them to say it’s one or the other and somebody chooses to be Biafran and encourages his people to buy into that identity, you then see it as a threat to your perpetuation of the colonial confusionists’ ‘Nigeria’ agenda,” he noted.
He predicted that the longer Nnamdi Kanu is locked up without a fair trial, the more popular his message will become.
