“We must learn to live together as brothers or we perish all as a fools”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1914, the colonial rulers under Governor Friedrich Luggard amalgamated the southern and northern protectorates to form Nigeria. We can define amalgamation as an act of merging two different entities to form one new animated entity.
Amalgamation in Nigeria is a mutually symbiotic agreement between the two regions to live under one leadership and system of government and answer the same name with the hope of peaceful co-existence.
Is Nigeria really an amalgamated country? We can answer this pertinent question by stating the words of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the founding father of Yoruba extract said that Nigeria is just a mere name of geographical entity because he happened to be a Egba man, then a Yoruba man, before being a Nigerian.
Yesterday, I decided to make a good use of my weekend with reading the national dailies, unfortunately I saw the headline “Violence continue in Shasha as mob razes down more shops and mosques”.
When I load the page to read the complete news I learnt that Shassa market were located at Akinyele, local government area of Oyo state. From the composed report I learnt that about 50 shops were burnt.
Earlier today I saw the fresh heading “Shasha’s victims buried in mass grave”. The heading is extremely pathetic ponder that my innocent brothers (Hausa traders) were killed and buried in mass numbers.
What came across my mind was, the huge number of southerners living in our region peacefully, what would happen when our northerners feel the pain and try to retaliate for the blood of their innocent brothers which we aren’t hoped for.
These ethno-religious disparities and region heterogeneity would lead us to nowhere unless a road to failed state. The essence of amalgamation is to make the life and properties of our entourage protectorates safe and secure.
If this cannot be reached we are tired with the dilemma of this forceful marriage and false agreement. Let divorced and life individually, because no matter what man could obtained, if his life is the price of that, it’s expensive.
Ali Tijjani Hassan,
Kaduna
