"Is there anything that is so holy, that we cannot talk about it or discuss it?" Torbjörn Säfve asked me at the junction of Rådmansgatan and Hollandsgatan in Stockholm. It was after one of the innumerable (and interminable) public meetings organised by the Swedish section of PEN Club, in protest against the death fatwa on Salami Rushdie's head, for his "The Satanic Verses".
"Yes Sir", I could tell him today, " there are the 72 names, but first of all there's the ineffable name of Hashem. We can talk about IT, but we may not utter IT. Secondly, just like Tawhid , the unity of Nigeria is so holy that we may not - are not permitted to negate it or negotiate its fragmentation or dissolution."
Yes, I know that you are there...
The past two days I have been keeping the company of Martin Buber and his "Between Man and Man" and so I am heavily influenced by the idea of the dialogical - and the demands of honesty - to its fullest limits...
President Muhammadu Buhari's statement that "Nigeria's unity is settled and not negotiable" lays itself bare to a variety of interpretations, some of which we have been reading in the Nigerian press and social media - such as Pius Adesanmi's bombastic Facebook piece "Settled Unity Blues", but at base, what it means (in context, the common sense meaning) is that InshAllah, the country Nigeria shall continue as one country.
(This stand reminds me of the eloquent SLPP motto : "One country, one people")
Conceivably or inconceivably, should "Biafra" go, there could be a domino effect to the extent that each of the thirty-six states of the Nigerian Federation could want to be an independent country waving its own flag, maybe issuing its own national currency etc. but the firm decision has been announced by Mr. President that Nigeria's dissolution through negotiation - or war - is not on the agenda. And rightly so. The dire alternative to that premise is that the dissolution of Nigeria through negotiation will begin , probably by a vote in the senate to put the idea to a referendum or would you prefer that it should be the agenda of the next national conference : "The dissolution of Nigeria, through negotiation"?
Nigeria has come a long ways - and after fifty- seven years of shared post-independence history - making Nigeria great, could be the aspiration of the Nigerian people. Could and could.
"Cause puss and dog they get together:
What's wrong with loving one another?
Puss and dog they get together:
What's wrong with you my brother?" ( So Jah seh)
From the middle of everywhere,
Cornelius,
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