Muhammad Sanusi, a former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria and ex-Emir of Kano, has said that the ethno-religious crisis in the country was caused by elites jostling to plunder the nation’s resources and not the people, who are affected by the crisis.
Sanusi made this known while speaking at The Platform, an annual conference organised by the Covenant Christian Centre in Lagos, on Thursday.
He said politicians were only fighting for their pockets and in the process instigate deadly crisis that affected the masses.
He said, “Ethno-religious crisis is not so much from Nigerians but the Nigerian elites. We have identities in Nigeria but the construction of opposing identities, the political process, is basically the Nigerian elite competing among itself for a share of the national cake.
“I don’t think that the people who say they are fighting for Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba are really interested. I mean when they get there at the end of the day, it is about them and their families.
“There is nobody out there that is really representing north or south or east. They claim to be if you look out there in the cabinet. In the history of Nigeria, there has never been a government that does not have people from every part of the country.
“So the first thing to recognize is that we must get away from the sense that holding political office is what makes you representative of a people.”
