The immediate past Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Wole Olanipekun on Friday called on President Bola Tinubu to rename Nigeria.
The immediate past Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Wole Olanipekun on Friday called on President Bola Tinubu to rename Nigeria.
Besides, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria also advised president Tinubu to probe the past political leaders.
According to him, past leaders have questions to answer as regards the infrastructural deficits, grounded economy and insecurity ravaging many parts of the country, among others.
Olanipekun spoke at a colloquium in Abuja to mark the 25th anniversary of Joe-Kyari Gadzama as a SAN.
He said, “My position is that we should stop mocking ourselves by the retention of the name Nigeria, a hypocritical and demeaning appellation given to us by Lugard’s mistress.
“It is intriguing that, to date, we have not mustered sufficient courage to drop this denigrating appellation. Come to think of this, the French named their French colony Niger, while the British gave us the ridiculous appellation Nigeria. What is the difference between Niger as pronounced in French and Nigeria as pronounced in English? A citizen of Niger is called a Nigerien, while a citizen of Nigeria is called a Nigerian.
“Let us remind ourselves that we cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. The President has to ask questions, and sordid questions indeed, about how we have come to this sorry past; why we are in a big mess; why the economy is grounded; what has happened to the previous budgets and the trillions of naira allocated to road rehabilitation, healthcare delivery, security, infrastructural rehabilitation, institutional restoration, among others.”
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