Current disturbances in Nigeria, making of ethnic jingoists, religious bigots, who promote ethnic, religious hates (Part III)
By Bashir Adefaka
But why would South so much have such dangerous hate for their Northern brothers seeing that even at the departure of British Southern Nigerian was made Governor-General in Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe before he later became President with a Northern as Prime Minister. From what I have seen so far in the course of my journalism investigations on this matter, it is only in Nigeria that I have seen people agitating against being President claiming that Prime Minister has all the powers. Whereas, many successful nations of the world have either President/Prime Minister or King/Prime Minister and they are doing well and, ironically, Nigerians, even of today, delightfully go there for greener pasture. Hypocritically, it is that same administrative structure that the Southern Nigeria so much hated Norhern Nigeria for was what the structure the British left Nigeria with but of which destruction they were architects.
Just let us look at it again; Southern Nigeria had always been the lead as most senior officers in Nigerian Army. They used that position to truncate the democratic structure left behind the British saying it was colonial structure. Aguiyi-Ironsi then tactically came to power lying to Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon (a Northern Nigerian) that the remnants of assassinated Tafawa Balewa-led parliamentary government had asked him to form a new government (military). Recall it was the Prime Minister (a Northerner) that was killed by Southerner and that the President (a Southerner) was still alive. The question then is, was President Azikiwe unaware of the calamity coming to his Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa at the time he had to travel out of the country few days before the Nzeogwu/Ifeajuna coup took place. For how many days more did he have to stay away after the coup and why was he not also killed? Why was it that all the bloody experiences that greeted the Nigeria’s First ever Republic that by now should have handed the country to true Giantness of Africa were orchestrated, plotted and executed by people of his side of the country?
It started, according to investigations that in August 1965 a group of Army majors namedly Kaduna Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Timohty Onwuatuegwu, Chris Anuforo, Don Okafor, Humphrey Chukwuka and Adewale Ademoyega began plotting a coup d’etat against incumbent Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. The coup was planned because according to the majors, the men at the helm of affairs were running Nigeria aground with their corrupt ways. Ministers under them were living flamboyant lifestyles and looting public funds at the expense of ordinary citizens. The President of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe left the country in late 1965, first for Europe, then on a cruise to the Caribbean. Under the law, the Senate President, Nwafor Orizu (also Southern Nigerian), became Acting President during his absence and had all the powers of the President.
Late in the morning of January 15, 1966, at a meeting with some local journalists in Kaduna seeking to find out what was going on, it was brought to Major Nzeogwu’s attention that the only information about the events then was what was being broadcast by the BBC. Nzeogwu was surprised because he had expected a radio broadcast of the rebels from Lagos. He was said to have “gone wild” when he learnt that Emmanuel Ifeajuna in Lagos had not made any plans whatsoever to neutralize Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, who was the Commander of the Army. Therefore, Nzeogwu hurriedly drafted a speech which was broadcast on Radio Kaduna sometime around 12 a.m. and in which he declared martial law over the Northern Provinces of Nigeria.
Acting President Nwafor Orizu made a nationwide broadcast, after he had briefed President Nnamdi Azikiwe on the phone about the decision of the cabinet, announcing the cabinet’s “voluntary” decision to transfer power to the armed forces, which was a lie and could explain why, according to Nzeogwu’s frustration Aguiyi-Ironsi was not killed by Ifeajuna and which means that it could have been a plan between journeying President Azikiwe and Acting President Orizu that since the rebels and the commander of the government Army are Southerner of South East, power should rather be transferred to the commander as against killing him. Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi then made his own broadcast, accepting the “invitation”. On January 17, Major General Ironsi established the Supreme Military Council in Lagos and effectively suspended the Federalist Constitution of Nigeria and substituted it with his own version of legal document called the Unitary Constitution for the over five years old Independent Nigeria.
This was how the regional structure, made possible by the Federal Constitution left behind by the British, was de-structured by, not the Northerners that are today the enemies of some vocalized voices of Southern Nigeria such as the Afenifere of Yoruba Land Southern Western Nigeria, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo of Igbo Land South Eastern Nigeria and some kind of Ijaw group of South Southern Nigeria, but by the same South Eastern Nigeria than hated the North so much that even the single vote that their product (Buhari) had in that region in 2015 presidential election, it was gathered, not only that the vote was thrown away but also the owner of that vote was allegedly killed.
Recall that before the coup, Nigeria had developed at regional levels without oil. How come the Northern Nigeria is today so much hated and blamed as reason for the backward of Nigerian Nation? The major economic strength of Nigeria since after the destroyed First Republic as a result of the First Coup remained oil until now when effort to move from oil as economic cash cow moving to agriculture and solid minerals now by produce of the same Northern Nigeria that even the custodians of oil hate so much. The question again is, since this hate started, what did we gain as a nation? Since, despite our hate and refusal to vote for him in 2015, the Northerner has been in power, what did we lose as a nation? At least, for the first time we are beginning to really identify our problems as Nigerian people and we are seeing them being tackled by and under the same Northerner who was the Minister of Petroleum that used our resources well, even against the input of his Head of State (Southerner), in building the only oil refineries that we have ever had till today. We never had any other refinery since he (the Northerner) that did those ones of old and he is still the person now as democratically elected President who is planning to give us fresh refineries while planning to diversify from oil economy to agriculture and solid mineral based economy.
It is expected therefore that we should be happy at this time to see that we have a government is people-oriented and have the love of the people at heart. But we failed woefully to accept that fact as we, by ourselves, are allowing people who either never loved the independent Nigeria because its domination did not fall in their hands (Major General David Ejoor interview refers) and who therefore not only never voted for the Northerner in power but have tried a lot to shutdown his government of Nigeria, or those whose loots of the country the President (Northerner) is recovering the wealth of the country from, to incite us against him in the name of 2019 politics. Those inciters have told us that the President has failed to do one thing in three years but they ran under when we told them that we have seen more than one thing that he has done in three years.
They again told that he was not fit to rule even when it became clear how they tried to poison him to die in short time in office but God saved him and they still ran under when we presented the President to them as much healthier at 75 than any of them wishing him dead. They then came again to tell us that he has packed all his tribe of North into his government and then we asked, how? They said the military. We asked, what about the ministries and agencies? They said that is not what they were saying. They then ran under when we told them that any patriotic Northerner who came to office amidst the profound hate and antagonism with which Southern Nigerians pushed against President Muhammadu Buhari will never give anything to chances as he would need, imperatively, to fortify himself and his government of Nigeria with his trusted officers, which is what he did with those core security chiefs that he appointed. They then again told us that he did lopsidedness in recruitment into the DSS and other security agencies, they just did all of that politicising the Nigerian national security but we also got them down at that.
They again ran under. They tried on and on until they got the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), a ready tool for unpatriotic politicians in the country since 2015, into the hate work. CAN then started their own by crying Islamisation and Northernisation of Nigeria by the Northerner in power. They failed. But they got up at it against saying President Buhari’s Islamisation Agenda had come in the making compulsory Arabic and Islamic studies for Christian students of Nigeria. We were able to expose their wicked falsehood. At a time when some cultists killed 24 Christians returning from Crossover Night in Rivers State (December 31, 2017/January 1, 2018), some 75 people were killed same night in Benue and (unknown to CAN) some Muslim and Christians were attacked by hoodlums in mosque and church in Ilorin, Kwara State same crossover night (being a night that some ungrounded Muslims also organised special end-of-year prayer in mosques like Christians do), the CAN then came up again and screamed Buhari’s Islamisation had picked with killing by his Fulani herdsmen of Christians in Benue. Hypocritically they never mentioned the 24 Christians that were killed in Rivers because they could not tag it on Buhari’s Fulani people who are herdsmen. Only that one of Benue the Nigeria Media hyped and it has since then rubbished the image of Nigeria Media.
Earlier before that crossover night, over 700 Fulani people including their defenceless wives and innocent children had been massacred on the Mambila plateau in Taraba State. The same CAN turned their eyes away and even denied it ever happened. This is sharp difference what Muslims do when calamity befalls their Christian brothers and sisters. Muslims of Nigeria take the lead in sympathising and even fighting for unjustly persecuted Christians or when misfortunate strikes them. That has not been championed by CAN of Nigeria because it is not out to see positive side of Muslims when a man who they consider defeated their own Christian President, Goodluck Jonathan, and sent him out of power. Recall CAN became not only close the Seat of Power in Abuja during Jonathan but also the bombardier jet aircraft belonging to their immediate past President, Ayo Oritsejafor, was publicly detected and even arrested in South Africa for laundering, first, $9.3 million and later $5.6 million on behalf of the government on the claim that they wanted to use the money to purchase weapons for the Nigerian military, without the knowledge of the Chief of Defence Staff or Chief of Army Staff of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The fight of CAN against Buhari is therefore partly understandable. But it has been taken so far as they joined the now Third Force of a newly awarded Ph.D holder former President in Olusegun Obasanjo, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), African Democratic Party (ADC), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and ethnic groups in fighting serious political battles against his the Buhari’s Administration.
One of the ways CAN is doing it is getting leaders of Church to misrepresent the sudden development of killings after the President, true to his campaign promise, has decimated the Boko Haram insurgencies in the country. CAN are the religious people telling the world that those killings that Nigerian security and international community know are handiwork of desperate looters who want to come back to power in 2019 are by Fulani herdsmen who are doing their own cattle business and that they are being sponsored by their own in government, Buhari to kill (this time not ethnic based but) Christians to wipe out Christians out of Nigeria. Later we had a group of National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) bringing together people that call themselves Retired Christian Generals including former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, who after donating N100 million as doctorate honouree at Taraba State University’s first convocation ceremony said the military under Buhari was backing the killings in what he called “ethnic cleansing” and the called to arms conflict among Nigerian people.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have made many unguarded statements including that they made over the issue of Leah Sharibuh being held by Boko Haram. She was abducted among Dapchi schoolgirls and while President Buhari’s government was negotiating their release, these Christian leaders went to the press to say “The girl who defeated Boko Haram, refusing to be converted to Islam”. What could that action of CAN leaders mean if not that they are just pure ignorant as far as security matter is concerned? But to them, it was opportunity to score religious political goal against Muslims of Nigeria who are not in any competition Christianity in matter of anything. Boko Haram insurgents are well informed and so held the girl back with them. When it became clear that she was not among the returnees, CAN threatened “there will be religious war in Nigeria if the girl die in the hands of Boko Haram”. Although leader of the Muslims in Nigeria, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, who is Sultan of Sokoto, warned the CAN at that point in a widely but not hyped report that the Christian leaders should blame themselves if the girl dies.
The latest now is the Plateau killings and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), in their usual act, had cried it was killing of Christians. The Plateau people of Jos, following the directives of CAN and that of PDP and other opposition politicians who have waited for every opportunity to cause confusion that would lead to shutdown of Buhari’s government, those people of Jos started killing Muslims and Hausa/Fulani. Their loyalist media practitioners too did not carry last as they too went to town with fake news hanging it mischievously Miyetti Allah’s leadership that the Barkin Ladi Local Government killings was retaliation for the killing of their cows. That fake news against Miyetti Allah was the one that was hyped but when the media that faked the news confessed to the fakeness and apologized, no Nigerian press hyped it. It then points out the fact that the Nigerian Press have declared war on the Federal Government of President Muhammadu Buhari as they now apparently have decided to team up with looters, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and other opposition desperate to get to power against Buhari and his Hausa/Fulani people in 2019.
This is the background of all the problems that are facing Nigeria. To solve the problems, the government now in the hand of a more serious party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and a serious people led by Muhammadu Buhari and so, in response to the mischievous call by the likes of Mike Ozekhomeh on him to mention the sponsors he claimed of the killings, the President should now take decisive decision and actions to arrest anybody needed to be arrested no matter how highly place that person may be and get them to justice. This is important because it is the only option left to him. The protection he gives to Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and Olusegun Obasanjo in the name of respect for them is what those looters are banking upon to destroy Nigeria under him. He should bring them down and heavens will not fall!
*Bashir Adefaka is a Lagos-based media practitioner. This is concluding part of the article he wrote which we started publishing three series back.
