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Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has lambasted the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), for saying that Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable.
Adebanjo said that Buhari, who is 78-years-old, ought to have known that Nigeria’s Independence and terms of unity were negotiated in the 1950s, but the President was a “small boy at the time, hence his ignorance.”
Also Read: were a child when we negotiated Independence–Adebanjo slams Buhari over speech
The 93-year-old Afenifere leader said this during a live chat with The on Friday while responding to the President’s Independence Day speech.
Buhari had said that the unity of Nigeria remains non-negotiable. However, Adebanjo said that in 1953 when the North opposed the call for Independence and rather advocated ‘Araba’ (secession), Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe convinced the northern leadership headed by Ahmadu Bello, to negotiate the terms of their unity and ultimately their independence from British rule.
Adebanjo said, “He (Buhari) is talking nonsense. These are the kinds of things that cause trouble.
“How can the President of a multinational, multilingual and multi-ethnic society say the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable? We negotiated the unity of Nigeria in 1954 before independence.
“The 1960 Constitution was a product of negotiation that arose from the London constitutional conference.