A medical doctor and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State, Dr. Adebayo Orire, has stated that Nigeria must break up for it to experience meaningful growth and development.
Speaking in an interview with journalists at his country home in Ikoro-Ekiti, Ijero Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Orire argued that the deep divisions and disunity among the country’s ethnic groups are major impediments to national progress.
The APC stalwart attributed the challenges facing Nigeria to structural and systemic flaws, which he said would continue to hinder the nation’s progress unless fundamental changes were made.
Positing that Nigeria’s break-up is inevitable, the chieftain said, “A nation like Nigeria cannot go on; it must break up. Either it prospers, expands, and flourishes, or it will break up into pieces. Either it is degrading, dispersing, or self-destructing, it must break up. The way forward is a break-up without killing and without bloodshed.
“If you prosper, you expand, and you multiply, but Nigeria is not even growing. Nigeria is not even sustaining itself, and when you are not sustaining yourself and you are a dry bone like Nigeria, then you break into pieces, and that is what is going to happen.”
Speaking further, he said, “IPOB wants to break, the Yoruba want to break, the middle belt is agitating, the Hausa people, either as Hausa or Arewa, they want to break.
“There is no way, if you look at it, that they will not break up because everybody is either Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, or Efik before they are Nigerian. Nobody is a Nigerian before their tribe, and we have not been able to synchronise ourselves; we have not been able to unite in the last 100 years. Why are we forcing ourselves? Why are we actually acting dumb?
“There is no Igbo nation, Yoruba nation, or Arewa nation that will allow what is happening in Nigeria now to happen to its nation, but you can allow ten times of it in Nigeria. We are destroying Nigeria.
“Everybody is a Nigerian as a bad species, but everybody is a good person as a family man and as a tribal man. So, why don’t we just be good? Why don’t we just give peace a chance? Why don’t we just give development a chance? Why don’t we just give sense a chance? How can people be killing one another, and nothing will happen? How can people be stealing trillions of naira, and nothing will happen? How can people be stealing political positions, and nothing will happen? It is all prolonging the evil days. I will always tell the truth and nothing but the truth.”
Speaking on the administration of President Bola Tinubu and the challenges in the country, Orire described the President as a very brilliant, seasoned, and experienced politician who could proffer solutions to the situation in the country outside the presidency, but expressed disappointment that since he became president, he has not been able to solve Nigeria’s challenges.
He said, “Call Tinubu out of the presidency, without being the president, and let him proffer a solution to the situation in this nation; he will do it in two minutes. I don’t know what has happened to him now that he is the president.”