By Pius Abioje

Why are some people talking about the possibility of Nigeria's division? Agreed that the country is not working, and it is indeed disintegrating. But, as the Yoruba say, Mo ko o l'apejuwe (I met him requires an explanation, regarding how or where you met him). It is true that the Boko Haram started wahala (trouble) in 2009, but can we compare the Boko Haram of 2009 with the Jonathan-era Boko Haram? Is it not true that the crafted emergence of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as Nigeria's President, has compounded Nigeria's problem?

We should stop blaming the British government for amalgamating us into a nation in 1914. We should rather be grateful to God, because whatever is lacking in the south, we get it in the north, vice versa. We should also be grateful to our nationalists who did not oppose the Amalgamation as a matter of life and death.

Why should we be looking at countries like Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia that have broken-up so catastrophically? Why can't we focus on countries that are managing their heterogeneity successfully? China and India have had, and are still having their own troubles, but they are relatively stable and stronger, and Nigeria is less than one tenth of the population of each of them. Nigeria's population is much less than that of USA which is still looking for immigrants.

I would insist that our problem is leadership, not national sovereign conference. Indeed the call for national conference is becoming nauseating. I praise the National Assembly for offering to give us a good constitution that will address sensitive areas. Their sincerity and sense of urgency are extremely crucial. If they don't address rotational presidency and equitable electoral system, they have failed; if they delay implementation till we conduct the 2015 general elections, they are deceivers, because justice delayed is justice denied.

The Jonathan group has railroaded too many Nigerians into viewing Boko Haram as the driver of Nigeria's terrorism. I feel Boko Haram may end up being Nigeria's Liberator, because whoever will truncate political order in Nigeria will regret doing so. America is sustained by order; with order, no section of Nigeria will be marginalised. Establish political order and an electoral system whose umpires are not chosen by a partisan President and his/her party.

Pius Abioje,  University of Ilorin.