A former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and a Northern elder, Mallam Adamu Ciroma has opened up on why the Peoples Democratic Party lost the elections and why he believes those Igbos agitating for Biafra, and other pro-separatists, talk without thinking.
Ciroma is reputed for saying he and others would make Nigeria ungovernable for Goodluck Jonathan in 2011.
He made these new disclosures in an interview granted Vanguard.
As a founding father of the PDP, a lot of things went wrong and the party lost after 16 years in government. What do you think really happened?
You are a reporter and you have been following events more than me. Some of the things which caused the downfall of the party, have already been reported by you, and some of them were the cause of controversy in the party, for example about the presidential candidate where he comes from.
On Biafra
Biafra, this Biafra, I tell my Igbo friends, Biafra, for what? This Nigeria is too small for you Igbos. All over Nigeria you will see Igbos everywhere. If you go to Ghana, Igbos everywhere. If you go to Niger, Igbos everywhere. If you go to South Africa, Igbo everywhere; this Nigeria is too small for you. But now you want something smaller, what does it mean?
It means that people sometimes do things without thinking very deeply. But education is to enable you to think and to solve problems.
What the Igbos are saying is that they want Biafra; I just remember only recently the Yoruba leaders said they want to break, break from where. The Yoruba are probably the people who economically enjoy Nigeria more than anybody, economically. So why are they going? So my own problem with Nigeria is that many people say things without thinking.