North, ready for any eventuality, says Maitama Sule

Posted by admin Latest Politics Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014

By DESMOND MGBOH, Kano on July 22, 2014 · National

The North is ready for any eventuality at any time, elder statesman and former Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Alhaji Maitama Sule, has declared.
He spoke yesterday in Kano when members of Arewa Youth Development Foundation (AYDF), a group at the centre of the campaign for the relocation of non-northerners resident in the North to the South, paid him a courtesy visit in his home.
His words: “We need this Nigeria to remain one, but of course, we are prepared for any eventuality at any time.”
Maitama Sule, a leading member of the Northern Elders Forum, stressed that as a person, he had written his petition on some of the issues raised by the youth to the leadership of the Northern Governors Forum and the Federal Government.
He said: “What you have just narrated is something that we as elders have been narrating, maybe in quite a different way, for quite some time. You are all aware that we have formed the Northern Elders Forum. This group of elders has been formed with the intention of having dialogue with the government.
“We have no intention of having confrontation with the government.
“It is true that we have been suffering a lot in the northern part of the country, humiliation, discrimination and so forth, but we believe that the answer to it is not confrontation. The answer is dialogue. And we would continue to pursue that.
“We believe that the best way out of this dilemma in which we have found ourselves is to have a dialogue. Contact removes conflict and we believe that what the tongue can undo, the sword should not be used. And that is why we have been trying to have a dialogue, we believe that we can bring to an end, the ugly things that are happening in this country if all of us can come together and tell one another the truth and appeal to one another to be patient with one another,” he added.
The elder statesman asserted that “the world can never be governed by force, never by fear and even, never by power. In the end, what governs is the mind, what conquers is the spirit.”
And we believe that the weapons of governing the mind and the spirit are justice and fair play. For behind any crisis, anywhere in the world is injustice and the solution to crisis is justice,” he declared.wp_posts