The Delta State Chairman of Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Prof. Godini Darah, has blamed former Governor-General of Nigeria, Lord Frederick Lugard for some of the challenges confronting the nation.
He stated this while reacting to the Sen. Ovie Omo-Agege-led committee set up by the Senate to review the 1999 constitution.
Recall that Lugard amalgamated the Southern and Northern Protectorates in 1914 to form Nigeria.
According to him, the former British soldier forcefully brought ethnic nationalities together, mostly through bloodshed.
Darah, a former Chairman of the Editorial Board of Guardian newspapers, said that a lot of children and women were killed or exiled to achieve Lugard’s faulty contraption called Nigeria.
“The atrocities committed by Lugard are so unpardonable that no matter how wide the gates of heaven is he will never get there,” he said.
The PANDEF chieftain noted, “Lugard had been sent to Uganda, earned more laurels, killing more people revolting against British rule. In 1913 Lugard was sent to Hong kong another British colony. Lugard massacred there the way he did in Uganda and Nigeria, he became a darling to the British colonial leaders.
“This kind of murderer, you need him if you want to conquer people. This was also among why Lugard was promoted as security chief in the Royal Niger Company and made Governor-General of Nigeria.
“The British had to withdraw the charter in 1910 to establish Nigeria. Between 1910 and 1914 was a critical point. Southern Nigeria already had a robust economy, it was not so in the north. When the matter got to the British parliament, the parliamentarians kicked against using British money to run Nigeria.
“It was at this point that Bruce Harcourt who was secretary of states for the British colony wrote another memo.
“He argued that to save the situation and to retain the two places as our colony, we should merge the north and south as one country. In the merger we should make the north husband and make the south wife, I quote him. By the law of husband-wife relation in England that time, a husband owned what a wife had.
“It is that law of romance that was introduced into the amalgamation. By that law, southern Nigeria was to provide the resources to run the south and the north. That system is still in force today and it is 106 years.
“Southern Nigeria is the feeding bottle.”
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