Current disturbances in Nigeria, making of ethnic jingoists, religious bigots, who promote ethnic, religious hates (Part II)
…Why Hausa/Fulani man is not our problem
By Bashir Adefaka
The question is, who is a Hausa/Fulani man? Is he really a killer? Is he really the beast and not the human being we of the other tribes want him to be known? If he is neither a killer nor a beast like we in Southern Nigeria and even their cohabitant minority Christian North are making Hausa/Fulani to look, then it means they are human beings. If therefore the Hausa/Fulani man is a human being and not a beast, what exactly is the thing that we of Southern Nigeria and minority Christian North see in them that is making us see them as enemies all the times, when, in actual fact, we are either more enemies of ourselves and enemies of Nigeria than we think of these people? This is fact because, I have, in the course of my young journalism, investigated so much to discover and will want every saner Nigerian of this amalgamated and independent entity to first and foremost cross-check and then agree that Hausa/Fulani man is, indisputably, the most sincere, kind, reconcilable, peaceful and committed by nature to the course of Nigerianism.
Having said that, I will like to now move on to trace the problems that we have continued to have in Nigeria and I will simply position that they are products of age long hate promoted by ethnic jingoists and religious bigots who will continue to run down any government except it comes from members of their ethnic group or religious faith. Because this is a problem that must be allowed to continue to ravage our lives as Nigerian people, reason we must bring it out now for us to talk about it and tackle it as a people as government.
My findings have revealed to me that the hate for Hausa/Fulani of Northern Nigeria by some loud voices in Southern Nigeria currently is the bedrock of problems of Nigeria. The hate for their religion that we all see also being on the counter is just one of the outcomes of that hate for the Fulani people of the country. That is why to those who promote the hate against the Northerners, there is no killer or no other doer of wrong except the Northerners. The consequences of this act are what we now face as problem. God is not with the hypocrites. And it is worsened by political elites, both of North and South, who do not look at ethnic and religious differences when it comes to politicking for political interest of individuals.
The question is, who is a Hausa/Fulani man? Is he really a killer? Is he really the beast and not the human being we of the other tribes want him to be known? If he is neither a killer nor a beast like we in Southern Nigeria and even their cohabitant minority Christian North are making Hausa/Fulani to look, then it means they are human beings. If therefore the Hausa/Fulani man is a human being and not a beast, what exactly is the thing that we of Southern Nigeria and minority Christian North see in them that is making us see them as enemies all the times, when, in actual fact, we are either more enemies of ourselves and enemies of Nigeria than we think of these people?
Go back to the Niger Delta of South South and come to tell me why we can justifiably blame the Hausa/Fulani man for their plights, economically, ecologically and environmentally in the way they were until President Muhammadu Buhari, a Hausa/Fulani man came to rescue them. Go to the Igbo of South East and do the same. In the end, you will, if you want to be sincere, return with a concurrence that we are the problems of ourselves because there has not been verifiable proof to convince me that those our brothers and sisters in Arewa part of the country set us back in any way. We used to talk of oil domination but the in the end, if you will not be sincere enough to disclose this, I have come to tell us all that no other Nigerian has made our the oil of the South more meaningful than the Hausa/Fulani man. This same Buhari he was, without the input of this same Olusegun Obasanjo that is seeing him as failure today, that used from our commonwealth of the oil while he was in charge as Military Federal Commissioner for Petroleum to build the only refineries we continue to hold on to till now.
The fish project he did for Bayelsa people long time ago as Military Head of State, which was killed by successive administrations including that of the Bayelsa’s own son Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan (GCFR), Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR) again has restored as democratically elected President even when it was obvious that he was so much hated by the people of the region to the extent that they did not concede a single vote to him. Recall the much cries in the oil producing communities of Bayelsa and its environs that we grew up to know was that their environment was made unfertile as their fishes were dead and crops growing impossible.
Today, Bayelsa are growers of varieties of farm produce, done by Hausa/Fulani man in the Buhari that they so much hate. Just look at Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) that Obasanjo created to make the oil producing region as shining as Dubai of the United Arab Emirate but purpose of which even Obasanjo – for eight years – failed to achieve, Muhammadu Buhari has been performing wonders with it under the three years that the same Obasanjo said he has done nothing. East West Road that had dominated the media space as death trap in the past administrations is now unarguably coming alive.
Unfortunately, those who do not want Buhari to succeed but who see that the Hausa/Fulani man is succeeding against their wishes are being helped by media who do not consider giving those achievements of Buhari the full coverage that they discover. Would I therefore be wrong to say that even the Nigerian Media to which I belong is also part of the conspiracy against the Hausa/Fulani of this country?
In all these, I separate the Igbo of South East from the conspiracy. The Igbo man can be a bad starter but when he is able to overcome its horrible beginning and stabilises, he has capacity of the physical and of the spirit to overtake fast. That is why today in Igbo Land of South East region, whereas the old stock of the unstable Ohanaeze Ndigbo fathers of MASSOB and IPOB are remaining in their old path of hate, the Rochas Okorochas, the Ogbonnaya Onus, the Chris Ngiges have moved fast with the new faces of South East positive changers who are now bent on delivering the region to the Hausa/Fulani man to repeat a class even with his many A1s (distinctions) to continue his good work as President in 2019. Their reason is that, “If this man we hate so much can do this much for his enemies, he will do far better for us as friends”. That is the nature of Hausa/Fulani man. That is the nature also of Igbo man. I have always said so that Igbo man is the most dangerously tribalistic person in Nigeria but that he, like Hausa, is sincere and straight forward about his position. If he is negative he does not pretend about it and so if he is straightforward he does not pretend about it.
Not of my own Yoruba people of the marriage, if a Yoruba man ask you to dance and that he is behind you, friend, you need to dance as he says but as you dance, be looking back because he can get back from you at any point in time to leave you on your own. That is what the Afenifere Group represents in the new political space of Nigeria that started with dangerous politics of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Goodluck Jonathan Presidential Campaign Organisatiion spoken for by Pastor Lawyer Femi Fani-Kayode in 2015 which today has been replaced with Olusegun Obasanjo’s coalition of 38 parties just to oust the performing President he considers as Hausa/Fulani Northern Muslim from power and work hard to install a Southern Christian as President in 2019.
These are facts because, I have, in the course of my young journalism, investigated so much to discover and will want every saner Nigerian of this amalgamated and independent entity to first and foremost cross-check and then agree that Hausa/Fulani man is, indisputably, the most sincere, kind, reconcilable, peaceful and committed by nature to the course of Nigerianism. That there are pockets of criminality in the North should not be reason to want an entire tribe declared terrorist group. The criminality among us in the South and among the Christian minority North is farther than meet the eye. Then what is our case for real?
The result of my findings will be exposed as I take you along. Let me veer a little… So many people in Southern Nigeria have asked me “Why are you defending the North all the times when you are a core Yoruba son?” Only four days ago, a man who called himself Afenifere member accused me, “You are one of the Yoruba sons who took money from Fulani to betray Yoruba Land.” This is how dangerous some Yoruba of my father can be when it comes to playing ethnic politics. But I have a consolation that they cannot go far with it because there is no single country in the world where all the peoples are of one single tribe especially those countries of developed world. Yet they do well and most of these ethnic jingoist run their for greener pastures while they destroy their own country in the name of playing ethnic politics which they in most cases do at times elections are approaching.
For example, the house of Ohanaeze Ndigbo was bombed. I am sure if that house had been in Abuja and it belongs to that Ndigbo leader, Chief Nwodo, there would have been media hype and hell would have let loose saying it is Fulani herdsmen’s Islamisation and Northernisation Agenda at work. Unfortunately Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) is always in the picture of this unfortunate, ungodly struggle. And most of the times also, the media that would hype it are Yoruba and Christian dominated. It means the problem of confusion in Nigeria is usually from my own race of Yoruba Land. I only pitied Vanguard when it Editorial Board Chairman Ocherome fell victim of ethnic backlash for call my father’s race “sophisticated morons”. Although some unfortunate members of Ocherome’s tribe too would make a Yoruba or Hausa/Fulani man to call Igbo race “sophisticated morons” but all the tribes have respect for caution more than the other. In nutshell, the attitude of some of Yoruba people could justify Ocherome’s position but we are in a section of the country where people will take a truth only when it favours them.
Else, what is the rationale for the silence of the media over the bombing of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo leader’s home especially when they knew it was by Igbo sons under the aegis of the terrorist group, IPOB? Recall, my dear readers, that the history of unconventional bombing in Nigeria dated back to 2010 Nigerian Independence Anniversary when Henry Orkar group bombed Nigeria’s joy at celebration at Eagle Square. We all recall that at that time there was nothing like suicide bombing in Nigeria until the Independence Anniversary bombing by those Southern militants who bombed us into global shame. How much of hype did we experience of it? But when, in reaction to whatever they felt was their grievances, the Boko Haram resulted (and we go to know that many of the Boko Haram members arrested even in Jonathan era were Igbo people and the records are there for anybody who will dispute it), our media, because they have failed in their investigative duties, went straight to tell us how Nigeria was seeing unconventional bombing for the first time in the bombing attempting the life of IGP Hafiz Ringim at Loui’s Edet House Abuja in 2011.
I, and we rather, have always said that without looking into our past with a view to knowing where our footing is bad so as to mend it in the present, we cannot have a good standing in the future. Those countries of the world we run to for greener pasture did exactly this as method of proffering solution to their own problem because they too had for several years faced the type of challenges we face today in Nigeria. That is why they are today better positioned and in good standing to take us into their societies either on “working visas” or “visiting, education, medical or permanent stay visas”. Some of them even go further to be so kind giving us “citizenship”. Many Nigerians today are so comfortable because they know that at any time they can jet out of the country and so they do not care whose ox is gored in their own father land and some of them can even fuel conflicts here because they know they can run away. If America or Britain or German or France, or Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirate, even Kenya, Uganda or Malaysia, for instance did not take all the sacrifices to make their societies great, how would we have found it a better place to live today? And, even so shamefully, you see some lawmakers who sponsor destabilisation and looting of their own Land telling court when being tried to force it on the EFCC or the Nigerian Police Force to release their international passports to them to travel abroad for medical treatment. These same people want to continue to relegate their own country as having bad, poor medical facilities yet they are the once who sponsor all the strikes and loots that our healthcare system bad. To the extent that even the current government they all agree is not corrupt, they are plotting heavily to make business of government difficult for it so that they can have their political way in 2019 as if when they get to office in 2019 they will have to rule not over human beings but ghosts or trees or dead bodies.
NOW MOVING FORWARD, I have taken my time in my little age in life to see that the core of the problem of the country resides in hate for the Hausa/Fulani or Northern Nigeria by Southern peoples of amalgamated Nigeria. Their grouses have been that the amalgamation was a mistake depriving them of their self-determination. So they are looking for restructuring.
But is amalgamation really the problem? Not really. The anger is in the fact that North dominates the public administration space in the country from independence. So, all manners of unprintable names have been used against the North because of that. Many of them claim that the North have nothing and know nothing and wonder how they are preferred by the Britain to dominate the public administration space of independence Nigeria. The question is, did the North actually force themselves on Nigeria? No. And every other race in the country is aware of this. The other side of the question is, why did the Britain so much trust the North with domineering powers of the land? This question does not belong any tribe in Nigeria but to the Britain that made it so. But, even at that, have the North even failed any tribe ever since independence? No. All the development that independent Nigeria has had was made possible by products of Northern Nigeria either as civilian or military President or Prime Minister.
Nigeria has had eight democratic leadership experiences: The first one came with Eastern Nigeria in Azikiwe as Governor-General, then President with Northern Nigeria in Tafawa Balewa as Prime Minister (five years parliamentary October 1, 1960 – February 15, 1966). The second one came with Northern Nigeria in Alhaji Shehu Aliyu Usman Shagari as first Executive President (four years of one term October 1, 1979 – December 31, 1983). The third one was on its way with a Southern Nigeria in MKO Abiola as denied democratically elected President (while his civilian governors and later Head of Interim National Government and Southern Nigeria in Ernest Shonekan ruled for two years mid-1991 – August 25, 1993 and August 25, 1993 – November 23, 1993 respectively). The fourth one came with Western Nigeria in Olusegun Obasanjo as second Executive President (eight years of two terms May 29, 1999 – May 29, 2007). The fifth one came with Northern Nigeria in Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’Adua as third Executive President (but he died barely three years into his election May 29, 2007 – May 5, 2010)…still fifth democratic leadership was completed by Southern Nigeria in Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as Nigeria’s Executive President (two presidents within the count of four years of one term May 5, 2011 – May 29, 2011). The sixth one came with Southern Nigeria in Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as fourth elected Executive President (now four years of one term May 29, 2011 – May 29, 2015). The seventh one came with Northern Nigeria in General Muhammadu Buhari as fifth Executive President (three years barely spend out of his four years of one term May 29, 2015 till date).
In all of these, Nigeria has got seven Presidents/Head of Interim National Government. Out of these seven, four are produced by Southern Nigeria and three are produced by Northern Nigeria. Then come the aspect of the Military Leadership.
The first to side of the independent Nigeria to truncate democratic rule in this country was Southern Nigeria from the South East in the five mutinous Majors orchestrated coup led by Major Emeka Kaduna Ezeogwu and Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, through which 22 people including the Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (a Northerner), Premier of Northern Nigeria and a vital pillar of independent Nigeria (a Northerner), many senior Army officers of Northern Nigeria extractions including their wives, and they also killed sentinels on protective duty.
The coup plotters attacked the city of Kaduna and, knowing that Chief Ladoke Akintola was ally of the ruling party dominated by the North, also attacked the city of Ibadan and Lagos where some of the senior Army officers of Northern extractions were officially in active duties. The Nzeogwu/Ifeajuna coup plotters went ahead to ensure blockading of the Niger and Benue River all within a two-day span of time before the coup plotters were subdued.
The General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Nigerian Army in Lagos at that time, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi (also of Southern Nigeria from the South East) then used the coup that started on January 15, 1966 as a pretext to annex power, thereby ending Nigeria’s nascent democracy that only birthed October 1, 1960 (five years after). That happened within the stretch of January 1966 and it was one of the events that led to the Nigerian Civil War, meaning that, even the civil war too that was major reason for the proliferation of arms in circulation and multiple other crimes in the land was actually the making of Southern Nigeria. This finding further revealed that all of those were happening because of the unjustifiable hatred that the Southern Nigerian people had for Northern Nigeria just because of this issue of leadership.
*Bashir Adefaka is a Lagos-based media practitioner. Part III follows next.
