Ogbonna advocates WAZOBIA as criterion for position of president, governor, others …Says it will kill tribalism

Success Damian-Nnaji

Chief (Dr) Solomon Ogbonna Aguene, the President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos State, has made the advocacy that only those who can speak the three major languages of Nigeria (Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba) should be allowed to aspire to the position of President, governors and federal appointments in Nigeria.

Ogbonna took the position during the United Nations Day of Mother Tongue hosted by Ekwekuo Amagbaa at Ohanaeze Lagos Office on Robertson Street, Surulere on Sunday.

Ogbona maintained that the only way to kill and bury ethnicity and tribalism in Nigeria is for the people to learn a language that will guarantee peace and unity in the country.

“I have said it time without number, the only way we can get back our native language is by government support, and making it mandatory, from Councilor to the president of the country, if you don’t have this language where you come from, you cannot be the governor of any state without speaking your language, your mother tongue and if you want to kill tribalism that is ruining us in this country we must make sure that before you become a president of this country or become a governor or you hold anything at federal level you must speak the language WAZOBIA, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, because you cannot take the position of Pope without at least having 11 national languages,” Ogbonna advocated.

Speaking on how he intend to monitor and ensure the advocacy is achieved, he said “This is not automatic, we can give ourselves 20 years, that if you don’t have this qualification you cannot contest any electoral post or work in anything federal government or even state. You must speak these three languages. If we want to kill and bury tribalism in this country, if you give us 20 years from today, most of us above twenty years are free from that law, but we can give it from now, those that are born from 2022 or 2021 must speak this language.”

Ogbonna stated that there is no way a nation can achieve total unity without having a central language “We have to be honest to ourselves, there is no way we can get the unity of this nation without us speaking a language. There is no country that has unity if it doesn’t have a language they understand, check it all over the world. There is no country as big as Nigeria that would have unity without having this three major languages that rule the country, no matter how you do it, unity of what? Every day we talk about unity and things are still going the same thing, if it is Hausa you want to establish as our general language, Yoruba, or Igbo that will even be better, but without us having these three major languages that rule this country we cannot have unity in the next 100 years.

“Tell me how we can get unity if you don’t understand my language? How do you cope with the country, how do you get a good job? If you want to get a good job in Germany you must understand the language, unless you want to do a job called black job,” he asked.

Speaking on the theme of the programme, Igbo language: ‘A dying language of a living people’ he encouraged his people to speak the language, with a promise to making it compulsory in every gathering of Ndigbo. “Part of it is the reason we are here, to ensure that our language is still flying the way it is supposed to be and also carry our culture which has been as undiluted and as old as Ndigbo since time immemorial.

“Most of the activities of our people here, not only in Lagos even down East, they use English language to host their meetings, so their meetings are no longer secret, because any warrior who is going to war, has set a strategy before going to the war, so if you are speaking English language, and you want to fight an English man, where is your strategy, you have already told them your secret. Where are the tricks to win the war? You will fail. So we need our language.”