Known for his outspokenness during his tenure as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the monarch said any “struggle that is not against injustice and oppression is meaningless”.
He was speaking in Kaduna on Friday during the 10th anniversary memorial seminar organised by the Centre for Democratic Development and Research Training in honour of the late Bala Usman.
“For us that were in Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ABU) in the 70’s, we were inspired or taught by the late Bala. He was an undisputed leader of northern progressives,” he said.
“Most of us graduated to become radical teachers, radical professors, radical bankers and radical emirs, but we never left the essential message of Bala and it is a message that all of us should take home.
“In life, if you are at all committed to struggle, struggle only has meaning if it is against injustice and oppression. Any other struggle is meaningless.
“Fighting for ethnicity, starting needless and mindless religious wars, struggle for spores of power, none of those are worth it.
“People are dying every day from lack of education, from lack healthcare, lack of security, bad governance, corruption, bad economic policies and the real struggle that is meaningful in our lives is to try to improve that situation and fight against those injustices.”
Sanusi went down memory lane in recalling some of the problems confronting the country.
“We spend so many decades fighting a system, and every time we think we have defeated one system, the next one seems to be even worse and it is like an uphill task,” he said.
“If you look at what we were fighting in the 1970’s and 1980’s against the NPN, and compare the NPN with what came after that, the NPN will look like an angel.
“So, we are at a point in this country where we actually have to reverse this trend.”
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