Kano would not have attained high status without Igbos - Governor Ganduje

Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje who is the governor of Kano state has revealed that the state’s status as a commercial hub was reached by the help of other nationalities especially the Igbos.



The Punch reports that the governor made this statement when he received Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia who came to commiserate with him over the death of Danmasanin Kano, Alhaji Maitama Sule.
Ganduje said:

"Sometimes, you can have knowledge without wisdom; that is the basis of what is happening to our present elite. That is why we have these ethnic agitations. It has no wisdom."
“Your coming to Kano to console us tells a lot across the divide. It speaks much about the national integration we are trying to achieve.”
“It pains us that some people are calling for separation. When the ejection order or migration order was given, we in Kano said no; that nobody was going anywhere. Here in Kano, we discussed with our youths and we discussed with the people and we discussed with those, who are being referred to as non-indigenes.
“We have abolished that boundary in Kano as everybody residing in Kano is an indigene of Kano State. You can only say that you are an indigene of Kano with primordial claims elsewhere. But as far as we are concerned, you and your children are indigenes of the state.”
He noted that Kano state has historically been accommodative of other ethnic groups.
“Kano being the commercial nerve-centre of the North, Kano being the commercial nerve-centre of some West African countries, could not have attained that status without other nationalities or without other parts of the country, especially the Igbo. So, if that is our pride, why do we have to break our backbone of commerce?
“We need to maintain our status. And to maintain our status, we need people from all over the country to be with us. America is great because people from different cultures, people with different comparative advantages were put together; everybody came with his talent, with his own initiation, with his own wisdom. That is what made America to be great. You can hardly be great with homogeneity; heterogeneity is the way to development all over the world."

Ikpeazu in his remark said the country better as one noting that he stayed in Maiduguri for a number of years and has visited all the states in the country.

“My position is that the unity of Nigeria is not questionable. ‘I spent the entire seven years at the University of Maiduguri from age 16 and I took my Masters degree from there. I have also worked in Lagos in the West. I have seen the entire states in Nigeria and I have seen the rainbow that beautifies the country.

“I have seen the importance of unity in diversity and all I can say is that the only thing we need in Nigeria is to go by the paradigm or by the idiom that says that if you have a dirty hair, you don’t cut it off, you wash it. If there are issues to discuss, let us sit down to talk about them. I do not think that to break the egg would give us the end we desire.”

Meanwhile, The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) rejected the call to implement the 2014 National Conferencereport describing it as undemocratic.
There has been call for the country to adopt the report of the conference held during the administration of former president, Goodluck Jonathan, but the ACF has insisted that it will not support its implementation.

This decision was reached after the National Executive Council meeting of the apex northern group on Wednesday, July 12.

In a communique released after the meeting, the group explained to the federal government that its reason for rejecting the confab report was in the interest of the country.