Posted by From PAUL ORUDE, Bauchi on
Nigeria's former Ambassador to Morocco and Sierra Leone, Mohammed Chadi Abubakar has said that Nigerians should not weep or lose sleep over the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon, arguing that the area is too small to a giant like Nigeria to worry about.
Nigeria's former Ambassador to Morocco and Sierra Leone, Mohammed Chadi Abubakar has said that Nigerians should not weep or lose sleep over the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon, arguing that the area is too small to a giant like Nigeria to worry about.
Abubakar, a chieftain of the Action Congress argued that rather than weep or fight over the 'tiny' Bakassi, the Nigerian government should harness the abundant oil deposits in the country for the benefit of the people.
According to him, 'If you start to think, do we need to start fighting on a small area and killing one another and destroying one another's future? It is better if we just allow it. That is what God wishes.'
Speaking with Daily Sun in his country home in Bauchi ahead of the handover of the peninsula to Cameroun tomorrow, Ambassador Abubakar stressed that losing Bakassi should not be as painful as some are making it to look because, 'if it is the oil, there is no need for that as there is quite a large number of oil deposits and areas where there is a possibility of finding oil.'
He lamented that so far rather than be a blessing, oil has been a curse to Nigeria, advising further: 'Let us turn the oil that we have into a blessing before we start thinking in terms of trying to get another area by force.'
He said if it is the psychological effect that many are worried about, the people in Bakassi who want to be Nigerians can cross over and come to Nigeria.
Ambassador Abubakar recalled that, 'It is during the civil war, that the Gowon administration had some agreement with the Cameroonian government. Now obviously, that was a military administration and there were no representatives of the people, I am talking about the National Assembly.
'One would have expected that such an agreement would now be confirmed by the National Assembly, but that National Assembly did not come until the Shagari administration.
'In effect, a Nigerian government has ceded Bakassi to Cameroon. And then a new Nigerian government came and so ‘no', Bakassi belongs to Nigeria. I think instead of going to war, fighting, killing one another, I think the best thing is to solve the problem amicably.
'If you look at it from religious point of view, everybody has his sustenance if you like from God Almighty. So losing Bakassi is not the end of the world.'
On the controversial statement by the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) leader, Alhaji Mujahideen Dokubo-Asari, that the North was a parasite of other regions in Nigeria, he said rather it was the people of the Niger Delta who do nothing but wait for oil proceeds who are parasites.
According to the envoy, before the country gained independence, nobody would have made such accusation against the North, as most of the resources of the country such as tin, hides and skin, groundnuts, cotton and many other agricultural produce were from the region for over 10 years before independence and after.
According to Abubakar, at that time, the country depended mainly on the resources from the North, adding that now that Nigeria depends mainly on oil, Dokubo-Asari is saying that the North is a parasite.
'Parasite in what sense?' he asked, adding that 'If you take the people from the Niger Delta, a person is just sitting in his living room and someone is digging something placed by God Almighty and he is just sitting, taking money out of that, is he not a parasite for God sake?
'If today, Nigeria depends primarily on oil, and by tomorrow it depletes and is no more, Nigeria will have to turn to another source of income.
'It is rather unfortunate for any Nigerian now to turn round and say that one side of the country or the other people are lazy. I think it is most unfortunate because yesterday we were living on resources from the North. Today we are living on resources from the South-South. Tomorrow we shall be living on resources from other region.'