By Engr. Olasupo A. Oluleye
SIR: It is not by accident that we are a black race. The Almighty Father planned it so. There are also the white race, the brown race and a race with a mixture of colours. We the black race had experienced slavery. The sweat of the black people built the White House in the United States of America.
Today, let all races live in peace together. We should remember that as human beings we live forever. Death as a human being is a short span of one’s entire existence. At death, we pass into the beyond. The duration in the beyond varies with each individual – depending on how he or she had fared while on earth – being good or evil.
The greatness of GOD is that He has built the whole world on three or so simple laws and He doesn’t need to interfere at all. And now in Nigeria’s case; it is not by accident that Nigeria is the largest country in Africa today – in the form of population. At independence in 1960 we had a population of about 60 million. Today we are about 220 million. Let us jointly build a powerful black nation.
Yesterday’s Egyptians were definitely black people and they built monuments that have stood the match of times. Let us sit down and negotiate what is jointly good for all of us.
No tribe should dictate to the other.
No black man or woman carries on his or her forehead that he or she is a Yoruba, Igbo, Kanuri, Fulani, Tiv or Hausa.
We all carry our back skin. As a 14-year-old boy, I lived with an English man who was then the Chaplain of St. Andrews College Oyo – then way back in 1953.
He never showed me that I was black. I traced his home while in the United Kingdom to Norfolk. But at the same time, some whites do not want blacks to get on. Some whites only want to see blacks as hewers of woods and drawers of water. They want to deprive any black nation seen to be powerful, Nigeria inclusive. Those guarding Nigeria must protect Nigeria with all resources at their disposal. They have to be vigilant.
Some individuals may like to destroy Nigeria. Any Nigerian president should aspire to that post not to accumulate wealth and build many houses but to serve Nigerians – creating wealth and guarding the freedom and liberty of the people. Nigeria is a blessed country. Let those agitating for separation put their arms down and let us build a joint black race – for the glory of the black people.
I witnessed the dawn of Independence Day in 1960 at Umuahia. It was a glorious day. Today let us not have any religious sentiments – Muslim or Christian. Each person has the free will to choose his or her religion. It is a gift to every human being by GOD.