Leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has said that the convergence of the diverse core value systems of the North, West and East is posing a serious obstacle for Nigeria to function as a viable state.
Kanu who said this on Friday in an interview with an publisher of Ovation magazine, Chief Dele Momodu on an IPoB community radio, argued that bringing Nigerians together without paying attention to the core value system of these ethnic groups was the bane of development and unrests in the country.
”So, these are the anomalies that Africans particularly educated Nigerians need to sit down to address. That’s why we have unrested development, that’s why nothing seems to be working because the convergence of these diverse core value system of Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo is making it impossible for Nigeria to function as a viable state.”
The IPOB leader made it clear that he would not have been agitating for the sovereign state of Biafra if Nigeria was created by a Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa man.
“Nigeria was not constructed by a Yoruba man, if it were I would have accepted it, Nigeria was not created by a Fulani man, if that was the case who knows I might have accepted that, Nigeria was not created by a Hausa man either, Nigeria was created by a white man and named by a woman.”
“Nobody came from these ethnic groups, they never got together to say our name should be Nigeria. A white man determined that. I cannot get to England to say to the English people I want to rename Liverpool, I want to give it another name, I am sure they will think I am mentally ill or unstable and put me in jail.
Now the problem is why should Nigerians or Africans accept the name Nigeria, which does not mean anything in Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa language,” he stated.
