A SPEECH DELIVERED BY DR. KATCH ONONUJU DURING THE NIGERIAN YOUNG PROFESSIONALS FORUM SUMMIT TITLED
"The Role of Young Professionals in Nation Building and the Quest for Purposeful Leadership"
I will like to tell you as Young Professionals that you make up 70% of Nigerias population.
Our Population between 1-40 years make up about 70% in this country. No other generation in this country's history is going to do the job that you will do, as long as you don’t do it. . And I tell you why;
Soyinka, Awolowo, Zik, Isaac-Boro, Ojukwu, Chukwumerijie . They were early people that went to school but they did not have the numbers to verbalize, to propagate, to sensitize so that we could know what was before was .
Our Fathers fought white domination.. the British left , but they did'nt fight against black domination .
That is why today No Hausa man is an Emir in the whole North.
When the Fulanis took over Bauchi, the Hausas ran away and came to live in a place called Auchi. When they took over Giwa Town very closed to Funtua, the Hausas ran away and came to form a place called Zazau Suleija. The people up North also hates us. We have to fight to make sure we take back our country.
Goodluck is from Bayelsa State. He is like an abattoir. He is being fought against because his transformation agenda will changed the logistic of how those that held us down in bondage have always operated .
It is not about Goodluck. its about politics, its about taking back our country ,before we will be able to build the protocols that can actually unite us to live together as people of one nation. We have several nations competing against our intentions towards nationhood.
I tell you people that this country is a fraud. If you keep quite and the Hausas are not allowed to access education that represents a social threat to out stability strategically as a country.
You cannot go to bed if your neighbours don’t have access to the logistics that will allow them to compete and win in a market driven democracy. That which pulls them down was the reason Bayelsa was boiling.
Bayelsa was boiling because Bayelsa was seeking for economic equalization based on citizenship. But its just coming through the same problem we had in the 1960’s, that is why today, our country is not working°
The president asked strategically, instead of us fighting ourselves let us have a national conference so that we can have a proper building of new protocols that will guard our terms of association.
You the young professional must understand that our fathers did not give us education to understand what it was that they were dealing with. You, us, must drive that process.
The national conference will only provide us with an understanding that we are not there yet. You the young professional will drive the process. nobody will build it for you! only you will do it.
When I was fighting against Obasanjo when he wanted to do third term, I remember what someone told me, he said " Dr. Katch, you must sustain the fight if you know it, you must keep fighting". One day on television you know who was brought against me? Bolous Indiamaowei, an Honourable from Bayelsa State.
Since we came together as a country we have never had a chance to agree on the way we should live together.
In principle, our Country, not only do we have the largest concentration of children out of school in the whole world but we are, most part especially in the North, a primitive society. And we can not have progress if that sustains.
What you cry in Bayelsa is what the Hausas cry about. The Hausas are the poorest in the world of any ethnic nationality. They have the highest number of children out of school followed by Pakistan.
Why? When the Fulani came they introduced what is called today Al-majiris, the Al-majiri was suppose to teach the travelling men along the trans Sahara trade route; the ways and tenants of Islamic religion.
For us to keep quite and people use religion to undermine the progress of all Nigerians.....NO!
If they are in trouble you are also in trouble, if you prosper with the oil here you can’t sleep if those children more than Ten Million(10m) according to UNESCO are starving.
You must be available to the demands of History and drive the process. and how do we do it? get involved in political processes..
Young Professionals, young people where ever you are; get involved in political process. I ran myself, I challenged my good friend, Olise Metuh in the PDP National Convention for the position of National Publicity Secretary. He wanted to complain.. I told him, don’t. We must all get involve in this business of Politics that will give me the strength and moral capacity to speak and criticize.
It is true that I speak for government, but is not because I like Goodluck, NO! I care about tomorrow°
Goodluck is not the game, Goodluck is just an icon we are trying to use to resist the seizure of our country from those who insist, it must be on their own terms.
No generation of Nigerians are as loud as the present generation. All of you gathered here you must protect our country. You can’t build a house when there is no foundation yet.
After 100 years we are having a national conference, why because the fraudulent protocols that where laid by the Fulani's, the soldiers and the people they asked to do the political Engineering are not just working.!!
Anybody who agrees that the country is working is lying. If is working, why are we having National Conference? Why the threat by the Lamido of Adamawa? he became a Nigerian in 1961 after the Plebiscite.
He says "if you don’t give me what I want on my own terms I will go" . The same language was used in the 1950s in the Lancaster house in London. The North insisted, "if you don’t give me what I want ( that is Prime Ministership) will not agree to say yes to our Independence". And the British said, if any group doesn’t agree to it, it will be postponed indefinitely.
Nobody can threaten us anymore. Only ten state contribute to the Federation account. The Nine oil producing states and Lagos from its ports. If you don’t stand up bad people will seize the process, why?
Historically this has been patriarchical where the father’s father has been in the system and this father’s father are not up to 50% of the nation.
There is injustice everywhere. I remember the wise saying "injustice anywhere, injustice everywhere".
It is our job, our duty, our obligation to be involved in the political system but we must do it intelligently, not violently.
Engage Nigeria intelligently because the duty is big and the journey in marathon, not an event. Don’t be afraid citizenship is a right not a privilege, stand up and be part of it. No other generation of Nigeria will work to install those protocols that we want to see.
What you are seeing is just a prelude to what will happen in the National Conference. National conference is an arrangement for us to speak and find out exactly how we want to live because look at Bayelsa it produces something, puts into the Federation Account. Bayelsa has only 8 Local Government and those that don’t produce anything actually have 44 Local Government. That is an honest truth about our country.
As I said earlier, we were colonized twice, first from the Fulani that came from Senegal and Mali that defeated the Hausas state.
I went to Jos there I took an honest study. When I came back from London to work for BBC to do a documentary, I trecked to all parts of the North, in doing those things I learnt more than what I had earlier known as a child.
North has the largest concentration of poverty that is unexplainable.
Now It is the same bondage that held those people down that had been extended to us across the Niger, simply because those people implanted acceptance of their faith? NO!!!we will not accept it.
I will not live like my father, he lived and died in Diobu a poor man. I will not accept that. We can take our destiny in our hand by standing up, be intelligently available to the political process; engaging intelligently because we have an edge on the field.
What do you need two things; (1) Education, young professional has education and (2) psychological understanding of how the market place of Democracy works. That is why you can put your child into market place after five years he becomes a champion, we have that.
There is no way anybody can defeat us in the market place of Democracy, we are the kings and we own this country. We must do it in peace and recognizing that everybody from all part of Nigeria is our brothers. We must do it recognizing that That which held us, held other people.
We must do it recognizing that even given 8 Local Government Areas was simply by the benevolence of Sanni Abacha, but we will get more.
I am happy meeting Commissioner of Ijaw Affairs when you talk about Ijaw Affairs, remember, Ijaws is a massive nation extending from the Namibia to Free town. I hope you recognized that? Don’t just lead the Ijaws in Bayelsa and Delta States. They are all over the place including Ajegunle. I want you to extend it to wherever the Ijaws are and recognize that they are one of us and belong to us and they are our people.
We must not allow those who conquer Hausa Land and choose to pocket Bayelsa to succeed.
The Lamido of Adamawa says he will go to Cameroun no problem, a man that does not feed me I can not be afraid of. what concerns me if he did not come to church on Sunday? it does not work that way.
I want you all to understand, what we are doing is a process and we have come here to sensitize the youth, also ask you to get ready for the work ahead.
Goodluck is not the story; Goodluck is only an icon we are trying to use to gain back what belongs to us.
Never mind those who will play Akintola, ask yourself what did the Yoruba political system do to Akintola and his family when he was used to destabilized the western political system/group.
Don’t cause what you will not want! what you will not gain If you succeed and bring animosity among the Ijaws and their brothers in Ikwere.?
But its historical that after the civil war some people succeeded in using Port Harcourt to bring in Enemity in the East by bringin in something that is not positional, the abandoned property. Those people are the same people that has been brought back to divide us. We must say no to that.
Forgive our brother that he has lost his way.
Governor Rochas Okorocha is already talking to the President that he wants to come to PDP.
When we move together as one, the PDP has been omnibus where Nigeria come together as an avenue recognizing and solving issues that are bothering on political, social and economical.
When the time comes I prayed that Nigerians have an alternative Political Party not these tribal reactions we have. I pray you all to be available to the truth.
Our country is walking away from dictatorship to a city where we want it to be. We have not yet gotten there.
Most people are seeking what do I get, that is What is driving the current misunderstanding.
But let us build the house first, who will occupy it I don’t know.
What ever held you, when you hear me cry on television.. I do it because I want to protect my heritage and be available to the intention and needs of my people.
Those who try to divide us can not win.
The President in his wisdom has started uniting the whole East, he is smart. When you are fighting you don’t divide, let us come together as we used to be, let us talk intelligently to other parts of Nigeria. We want Nigeria. We don’t want Nigeria scattered. NO. But we want it on safe terms.
Tell me under what thinking, Professor Auwal Wadudu who wrote the present constitution gave to Katsina, Jigawa and Kano more representation in the National Assembly, what mathematics is that.
How come against demographic conjunction, people live less in areas where there is water than desert where nobody lives? That is the truth about our history. We have gotten to a point where together, we can now reconstruct new protocols that will govern our terms of association.
DR. KATCH ONONUJU
The Nigerian Young Professional Summit Yenagoa Bayelsa State.
On 29/03/2014
Transcribed by
John Orubena
for Inside Bayelsa
