A famous Muslim cleric and principal figure in the Tijjaniyya sect, Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to avoid succumbing to the request of the Igbo’s the biafra nation.
The cleric advised the federal government to rather sit the Igbos down on the same table along other ethnic nationalities to chart ways out for the economic prospect and peaceful coexistence of a united Nigeria.
While speaking in Kano yesterday, Sheikh Bauchi noted that the edge Nigeria enjoys over other smaller African nations is its strenght in nationhood. He further added that the huge population which the country boasts of is a key factor in choices made by investors and partners.
Speaking further, Sheikh Bauchi noted that those calling for secession and agitating for the biafra nation weren’t born when the civil war took place adding that the nation would lose as much as 150 million persons should another civil war break out.
He maintained: “Let’s avoid the situation where people of different religion and cultural belief system eats from the same pot, as it will discriminate against another considering that each came from entirely different background and choices, saying such a practice was the bane of all the agitations.”
Calling on the youth in the north to sheath their swords and embrace peace, Sheikh Bauchi while speaking on the ultimatuim handed down by the northern youth groups said: “let’s not resort to similar protest to that of the biafra agitators of hatred, inciting, humiliating and unguarded utterances.”
“I dream of a Nigeria where all sit down on the same table and eat from what is before him; for the Hausa/Fulani to drink his forage and eat ram/sheep meat, Igbo’s or any tribe of the Christians belief to drink his wine and eat pig or dog meats, not to cook all in the same pot and serve all plates. That’s unworkable!.”
He further called on the Shi’ite sect to desist from confrontational approach when exercising their religious freedom, one which led to the recent death of their members and detention of their leader, Malam Ibrahim El-Zakzaky.