Sani wants Buhari’s government to promote unity

THE All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator-elect and human rights activist, Malam Shehu Sani, has said that the government of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari must preserve the relationship between the North and South in order to promote the unity of the country.

Sani accused President Goodluck Jonathan of using the elite in the South-South to stain the existing cordial relationship among the people of Nigeria, saying that to build a united country, the President-elect must engender ethnic and religious harmony.

The Senator-elect, who spoke yesterday when he visited the officials of the Arewa House where he extolled the virtues of the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, said: “I am here on familiarisation tour to this very important house and institution, Arewa House, an institution that is said to be the soul of northern Nigeria. I am here to acquaint myself with the actual situation or state of this very important house. I am also here to take inventory and to know areas to which I can address some of the issues as the in-coming senator. I am also here to cast a spotlight on the very important, relevant and significance of this institution, our history and our future as the people.”

He pointed out that “it is most unfortunate that industries that were established by the late Sardauna of Sokoto to develop the region and provide employment opportunities to our teeming people are also left to rot. It is also most unfortunate that the unity and solidarity that existed between Muslims and Christians in the northern Nigeria and people of diverse ethnic background in northern Nigeria is now being torn to shreds too”.

According to him: “This is not the dream of Sardauna. We ought to have built from the foundation, which he left behind, but this is the result. We have a story to tell our children of how we have neglected our history to this very level. So, the challenge before the management of Arewa house or before the intellectuals from northern Nigeria is to do a number of things, one of which is to develop policies and programmes that will be advanced to the people in position of power who will free the North from dependence on oil revenues.

“Dependence on oil revenue has been a source of insult, indignity and attack against the people of northern Nigeria. It is very important for the North to break itself from depending on oil revenues that come from Niger Delta area. We must restore the communal spirit, unity, harmonious existence and togetherness between the diverse ethnic and religious affiliation in northern Nigeria that has been shred in the last two or three decades by series of ethnic and religious warfare.