A peacebuilding think tank, the Foundation for Peace Professionals (also known as PeacePro), has called on the Federal Government to name the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria after historic memory.
In a statement by its Executive Director, Mr. Abdulrazaq Hamzat, the group said the description of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones simply as North West, South West, North East, South East, North Central, and South-South is of no political significance, hence the need to adopt a more politically conscious approach to closing the gap of regional agitation.
According to Hamzat, the Federal Government should name the six zones properly to reflect the desires and aspirations of the people.
“People in various zones of Nigeria identify themselves by certain names and descriptions, and running away from such political identities will naturally make them feel entitled to those identities.
“This is why non-state actors simply invoke those identities, for which people have affinity and connections, to mobilise them in their quest for relevance”, Hamzat said.
He, therefore, proposed that the South West region should be named Oduduwa region, the North West named Arewa region, the South East renamed Biafra region, the North East named Kanem Borno region, the South-South named Niger Delta region, and the North Central named Middle Belt region.
Hamzat maintained that the naming of these regions has political implications because non-state actors often use these names as a rallying point to create division amongst the people in their quest to mobilise support for their activities, and officially adopting these names automatically strips them of existing and historical concepts to mobilise non-suspecting members of the public for their divisive activities.
