‘Why League of Northern Democrats is dead on arrival’

An Economist and traditional ruler of Daffo in Bokos Local Government Area of Plateau State, Da Jonathan Sunday Akuns, has dismissed the rationale for the promotion of League of Northern Democrats. He declared that coming at a time when patriots and lovers of national stability are canvassing for a true people-centred constitution for Nigeria, the […]

An Economist and traditional ruler of Daffo in Bokos Local Government Area of Plateau State, Da Jonathan Sunday Akuns, has dismissed the rationale for the promotion of League of Northern Democrats.

He declared that coming at a time when patriots and lovers of national stability are canvassing for a true people-centred constitution for Nigeria, the idea behind LND is weather beaten and a source of great distraction.

He stated: “Ordinarily, it should have been a welcome development, but the use of the terms North, northern, northerners and northern elders’ forum or the Arewa consultative forum and Arewa republic as well as any such derivatives like League of Northern Democrats is a put-off.

“The concept of North and its derivatives is defunct, archaic and also a geographic description of spatial direction. Nigeria emerged from a unilateral decision of Britain to unify the territories of ethnic nationalities by war, law and praxis of Settler Colonisation.”

Akuns, who is at the forefront of the agitation for the reinvention of the 1963 republican constitution maintained that “the claim to a geographic description of a spatial direction to foist a monolith entity called north is a cryptic grab of the territories of diverse ethnic nationalities that needs not be encouraged in any form of discourse cum literature.”

Going down memory lane, the monarch recalled that at the inception of colonialism in 1861 in Lagos territory and subsequently in 1900 with the rest of the territories of other ethnicities, what is known today as Nigeria existed based on ethnic homeland statecraft.

“Each homeland was known by its ethnic tribe such as Hausa Land, Ron Land, Kanuri Land, Nupe Land, Tiv Land, etc.

“Colonialism extinguished the sovereign status of each ethnic cohort that is a component of Nigeria today. Decolonisation began on October 1, 1960 leading to self-rule from October 1, 1963 with heterogeneous four federating units bound by a republican and not unitary Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“As of date in 2024, there are 36 composite administrative subunits of the federation and 774 third-level components reflecting the diversity of ethnic autochthony. So, why should anyone be enamoured with such appellations of defunct and archaic entities as acephalous North or any of its derivatives? Such an approach is clandestine, surreptitious and a subtle nudging towards subjugation.

“My ethnic territory is situated in a spatial location of Nigeria that was well documented as the Middle Belt Region. The ongoing national discourse about restructuring is simply a federalism self-retrieval process  where the survival of Nigerian federation is anchored on homogeneous or  heterogeneous federating units derived from the mantra of ‘We the People.’”

Akuns therefore urged the promoters of LND to join voices with other well meaning Nigerians to ensure a better statecraft, stressing that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should not be distracted with political positioning from issues of national cohesion.