The last words of Maitama Sule, the Second Republic Politician, who died on Monday, in Egypt, has thrown Nigerians into panic mode.
Post-Nigeria, gathered that some Politicians are meeting to consider the last message of Maitama, before his death.
Here are his last words:
But I beg you please, you the politicians to please learn to respect one another in spite of your differences. This campaign of calumny, abuse, should not be allowed to continue because you cannot produce good leaders this way; you must be responsible. Let me tell you it is not for nothing that God has brought us together in Nigeria. Different tribes, different cultures, different religions and even different climatic conditions. I believe that God has brought us together so that we may learn to live together, cooperate with one another. Because of the role that God wants us to play in Africa and the world. Allah wants us to play the role of leadership.
Unless if we are united at home, unless we live in peace with one another, nobody will respect us or accept our leadership outside. And when people keep saying we have different religions, has India not got different religions and other differences, up to a 100 times as many as we have in Nigeria? But they have been able to make it. As far as I am concerned, tribalism or religion should not be a barrier in our unity or development. Tribalism for example, if you go to the United Nations today, you will see in front of the UN building a big board with a verse from the Holy Quran and I believe that there is a similar verse in the Bible. That verse is saying, ‘O you people’; not O you Muslims or O you believers. God is addressing mankind, that is the verse in front of the UN building. Allah says I have created you as a man and a woman and divided you into tribes and races so that you may understand one another.
Not that you may quarrel or fight one another. No one is greater than another in the eyes of God except he who is more pious and more useful to his fellow man. So the idea of creating us different tribes or different races belonging to different religions is not that we should fight one another, it is to understand one another. What is the wisdom in this? Allah is the all-wise. If all of us have been the same, and if all peoples of the world today have the same colour of the skin, if we wore the same costume, if we spoke the same language, nobody will want to know about another because we will assume after all we are the same. But the fact that we are different; in every man there is what is called inquisitive instinct; that inquisitive instinct will begin to urge you to find out why is this man different from me? Why is he wearing different clothes? Speaks a different language? In trying to find out, he too will be asking himself similar questions about you and in trying to find answers to your questions, you will come close together. There begins the understanding that you need cooperation. Variety is the spice of life. So people say, Allah (SWT) loves us so much, he wants us to enjoy this life and that is why you have different people with different ideas; it is the culmination of these ideas and differences that brings about development and progress. That is why you find cosmopolitan towns like Lagos, Kano, Onitsha are more progressive than other places. Kano is certainly much more progressive than Sokoto or Katsina or anyone because there are different peoples leaving in that area. The cross fertilisation of different ideas from different peoples brings about development and progress. So I refuse to agree that tribalism should be a barrier to our development.
That is why I continue to say that what we need in Nigeria today is leadership, to lead not only Nigeria but also the rest of Africa. We want leadership, not rulership. We want leaders with the fear of God. Leaders will not lie; leaders will accept in public what they have accepted in secret. Leaders with a vision, not a blurred vision, leaders who look at the plight of the common man with the eyes of a patriot no with the eyes of the privilege few. Leaders who know that they are no longer equal to the exigencies of their nations and will have the prudence of handing over to others before they forfeit the admiration of their country men. We want leaders who believe that they will one day stand before God and account, not those who would want to sit tight and remain there until dead do us part like Church marriage. We must have such leaders. To turn the table, we need to revisit the past and revive the past glory of Nigeria. We need such leaders; in order to have such leaders, we must have a revolution. I know the word revolution scares you (general laughter). We must have a revolution. I am not calling for a bloody or violent revolution. No! I am not calling for a Mao Tse Tsun kind of revolution in China where over 70 million people were killed.
I am calling for the kind of revolution led by Mahatma Ghandi with his philosophy of Satyagraha; non violent resistance. I am calling for a bloodless non-violent revolution. I am calling for a change of attitude, real re-orientation. Who are to bring about this? You are the answer. You are the panacea to our ills. You are the solution to our problems; you are the vehicles for change; you are the vanguard of this revolution.
The future is yours; you can make it or mar it. If you succumb to the machinations of greedy irresponsible political leaders, you will inherit a bad future and you will be bad leaders in the future. Make no mistake about it, you are the future leaders whether anybody likes it or not. You are the change, you are the future, and you are the answer. But, let this get into your head, you need the elders. As I said earlier, you alone cannot make it. Listen to the elders; seek their advise; in all countries of the world, there is what they call an invisible government. It is not the government, but there are some elderly experienced people who have no interest in getting any position or money but they have interest in their own country, they want to see their children and their grand children become good leaders, respected leaders. These are the people that sit together and discuss the country and advice the government. In every country of the world, they have this, you must have this too. Today, you have oil in Nigeria; I am sad because most people don’t know how it all began. Before me, Pa Ribadu, the first Defence Minister was the Minister of Mines and Power in charge of oil. I succeeded him at independence. I was the First Minister of Mines and Power in charge of oil of Independent Nigeria and I lasted in that ministry longer than anybody. I was there from 1959 to 1966. I knew how it all started. Shell came to look for oil in Nigeria; Nigerian government had to give its contribution in the search for oil. The central government of Nigeria was told to hand that money. It was northern Nigeria money kept with the crown council that was used to pay Nigeria’s contribution.
The colonial masters said we should have this written either as a loan or a contribution or as a share in the oil, so that when oil was found eventually, we will get some benefit. Pa Ribadu and our leaders said No! We belong to the same country; if our money is used to develop any part of the country, then so be it, we are all brothers.
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Maitama, your actions and that of your Islamic fundamentalist from the shows a contrary views from what you claim here. I will employ you, even in death that you tame your people on how much blood taste they have on the innocent people of Nigeria and also encourage them to support the adoption of the best system if federalism that works well with our democracy ;as is recognized the best practice in the world. Only such sincerity will unite and bring us all together.
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