League of Northern Democrats is a distraction – Plateau traditional ruler, Akuns declares

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

DAILY POST reports that notable leaders from northern Nigeria are coming together for a pivotal summit focused on revitalizing the region’s political and economic power ahead of the 2027 elections.

A gathering of the League of Northern Democrats, a group comprising former governors, senators, and other prominent figures from the region, was held in Abuja on Tuesday where this move was revealed.

However, Akuns, while declaring the move as a mere distraction, said it comes at a time when patriots and lovers of national stability are advocating for a true people-centered constitution for Nigeria. He described the idea behind the LND as weather-beaten and a source of great distraction.

The traditional ruler said in an interaction with journalists on Wednesday, “Ordinarily, it should have been a welcome development, but the use of terms such as North, northern, northerners, Northern Elders Forum, Arewa Consultative Forum, and Arewa Republic, as well as any such derivatives like the League of Northern Democrats, is off-putting.

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

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 impose a monolithic entity called the North is a cryptic grab of the territories of diverse ethnic nationalities that should not be encouraged in any form of discourse or literature.”

Recalling the inception of colonialism in 1861 in Lagos and subsequently in 1900 with the rest of the territories, Akuns noted that 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. Decolonization began on October 1, 1960, leading to self-rule from October 1, 1963, with four heterogeneous federating units bound by a republican, not unitary, Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“As of 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 enamored with such appellations of defunct and archaic entities like the 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 the Nigerian federation is anchored on homogeneous or heterogeneous federating units derived from the mantra of ‘We the People.’”

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

While reiterating that the 1963 Constitution holds greater hope for the preservation of Nigeria’s stability, the former executive of Nigeria’s Central Bank said reviving the republican constitution will align with the country’s democracy.

He declared: “The founding legal code or 1963 Constitution is one that is ‘of’ the people and not one that is ‘for’ the people. Invariably, the concept of the North is grotesque, devoid of nativity, and seeks to be ‘for’ the people and never ‘of’ the people. The realities are truly very divergent, reflecting the plural diversity of every ethnic land in Nigeria.”

League of Northern Democrats is a distraction – Plateau traditional ruler, Akuns declares