Defunct SDP members insist Nigeria cannot be divided
Members of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Borno state have on Sunday added their voice to the call for maintaining the unity of Nigeria saying that the country has more to benefit from being together.
Now operating as Defunct SDP members, the aged citizens said they are worried by the depth of division currently in the country even as they described the turmoil in the southern part of the country as divisive agenda of “foreigners”.
Addressing a press conference in Maiduguri, the group noted that “it is time for all Nigerians misunderstanding the ulterior motives of foreigners to scatter the unity, peace and development being enjoyed by instigating ethno-religious crisis especially in the southeast.”
The forum, who recognised Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, Nigeria’s current envoy to the Lake Chad project, as one of their members, even as they said their members and leaders felt it was high time citizens support the government instead of “killings and destruction.”
The forum thanked the President for officially making June 12, the day their late Presidential Candidate, Moshood Abiola, won the annulled Presidential election, as the new democracy day.
The group said such steps taken by the president should be explored further to heal the nation.
The forum said doing so “will not only give a sense of belonging to those affected but will also strengthen democracy and unite the people”.
“The unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable and we thank the President for not getting tired in ensuring that we remain as one indivisible country,” the forum’s chairman, Bukar Bulin said in a statement co-signed by the group’s Secretary, Babagana Ahmed.
“We further appeal to Nigerians to understand especially on what is going on in the Southeast to understand that two wrongs cannot make a right.”
The official’s Forum of defunct SDP members had on behalf of their members spread across 312 electoral wards, and 3009 polling units, also thanked President Buhari for appointing one of their leaders and kinsman, Ambassador Kingibe, as Nigeria’s envoy to the Lake Chad Region Project.
They also thanked the federal government for supporting the governors of Borno and Yobe states in all their quests to restore normalcy and peace in their respective domain.
SDP was the political platform on which the late Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe contested and presumably won the presidency of Nigeria in 1993. Though the election result never announced, it was considered the most credible poll ever conducted in Nigeria. It was later annulled on by the then military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babagangida.
