WAKE UP: The only path to peace in Nigeria is to ‘live and let live’

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

“A Muslim should get justice in any media organisation, be it in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja or Kano. Likewise a Christian should get justice in any media organisation, be it in Kano, Abuja, Ibadan or Lagos. God did not say he has created perfect human beings who have no tendency to do evil. But the media is one of the institutions established to check these human creatures, either as government leaders/civil servants or as members of the public, in their daily behaviours so that they will be afraid to perpetrate evils because, nobody, no matter how confident and powerful, likes to be exposed or seen doing evil.”

I have always made my position known about how Journalists, religious leaders, followers and civil societies should play their roles in the actualisation of a better Nigeria of our dream. Each time, the same thing we complain about has always come up again and again, causing crisis in our society, to the extent that lives and properties are lost. The latest being the unfortunate events, first in South East and North West. I will not talk about North Central state of Kwara in this write-up.  South East was where complaints came about Muslims of the region’s origin who, along truck load of cows and their owners or herders, were killed by groups of people who believe they are fighting for their section of the country to either be President of Nigeria or breakaway into Biafra Republic, a dream that died with the initiator’s repentance and contesting for Presidency of Nigeria in 2003 Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.

I will continue to commend the Federal Government especially under the Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, who continues to hold Nigeria together despite efforts by local and international conspirators collaborating to bring down the nation for diverse reasons mostly unclear to individual partakers.  To the local actors, mainly those of South East extractions, they think that their struggle is genuine because they see it as effort towards self-determination.  But it has now gone from secessionist struggle to terrorism because, any such struggle for self-determination that has involved declaring war or taking arms against the nation and violently killing soldiers, police, DSS, Immigration officers and burning not just police stations but also attacking offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) can no longer be said to be peaceful but criminal of highest order that must also be decisively dealt with. They carryout these acts as Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).  To this end, a court of jurisdiction in Nigeria declared the group as terrorist organisation. It matters not to us whether United Kingdom has listed IPOB as terrorist in its own country. We are Nigerians and not Britons.

This is what the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Eastern Security Network (ESN) do, although they also device means of denying their own acts preferring to attribute them to ‘unknown gunmen’ while it is clear and glaring that only Nnamdi Kanu-led terrorism groups that have capacity to do all the senseless killings and effort to break an unbreakable Nigeria like it has been happening in South East, which was extended to the South West during the #EndSARS protests that climaxed on October 20, 2022 but has now continued to remain in the South East region.  It may be pertinent that I raise it here that whereas Boko Haram/ISWAP-led insecurity in the North East, North West and North Central has been drastically decimated except with little, little splashes because of transitional election struggle forthcoming being done the politicians’ way, it is only in the South East that terrorism has refused to subside and this has largely been described being so because the governments, political and traditional leaders in the region are solidly behind the IPOB/ESN terrorism. This is evident in how South East National Assembly caucus held a meeting at Senator Ike Ekwremadu’s Abuja residence and declared support for the terrorist leader in custody, vowing to press President Buhari to release him as condition for peace. South East leaders led by Chief Mbadinuju Amaechi also visited President Buhari for this reason, publicly demanding Nnamdi Kanu’s release. Great enough, the President, who described their demand as a tough one, said he would try. Later, Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Malam Abubakar Malami (SAN), declared that Kanu’s case can only be decided in court not through an effort to pervert the course of justice.

Each time Federal Government makes effort to tackle the insecurity in that part of the country, most of these leaders try to blackmail the President, being a Muslim from Northern Nigeria, to say instead for him to go and arrest Boko Haram in the North East and bandits in the North West, he wants to tackle IPOB because they are from the South, using the general word South, and alas some South West elements believe them, including among them a professor, and that led to how Sunday Igbo’s course incited by Afenifere arose.  Whereas, in the North which insecurity has to do mainly with the fall of Libya leading to the spread of misguided people using the spoil of war that Mammaur Gaddafi had helped Africa curb while he was alive now let loose across Chad, Niger, Cameroon to Nigeria, terrorists and bandits are pounded with serious bombardment.  But here in the South, they continue to spread the information that President Buhari pampers terrorists of North but wants to use soldiers to kill IPOB because they are not Hausa-Fulani tribe. This must not be heard from the mouth of any sane person in Nigeria. It is sad this is happening and some media (except the one I am part of) believe this huge scam! Same way they would board train done by Buhari from Itakpe to the East via Agbor and they still scream “what has he done with the loans he has subjected Nigeria to?”  And even the West including UK and US use all of these unfounded information by these evil agents of ethno-religious hate and sentiments to rate the progress Nigeria is making regarding economy, infrastructure and security.

Again, in the North, we once watched in a national television news broadcast where a father, who locked his son in for more than 24 hours without food until the Multi-National Joint Task Force he wanted to hand him over to came, and he surrendered him to them saying, “He is Boko Haram”. Although earlier some of them were not really believing in the fight against Boko Haram as they supported until their eyes clearly but not too long because, it is clear Boko Haram have no proof they are religious.  That is the North the pro-IPOB ones in the South East are sending President Buhari back to.  A father removed mercy from his eyes and easily surrendered his own (criminal) son to security.  But in this same South East, all of them that have capacity including governments, a little announcement of Sit-at-Home (and media helped them to broadcast this announcement), the whole South East offices and markets including government officers (perhaps including their Government House) are deserted. They say because they are afraid of being killed. Let soldiers come, you begin to read on social media how people who do not even support the criminals begin to pity, “Oh! these are sons of some human beings”. How do you detest criminals with your right hand but pamper him with your left hand?

This is the basic hypocrisy that has hampered decimation of insecurity in Nigeria because, so long fake news and hate speeches continue to be manufactured from the South East, insecurity, even in the North, will not stop because, the way I see it, there is connection between IPOB/ESN of South East and Boko Haram/ISWAP in Northern Nigeria.  And much as our armed forces are working, same people from that region who are in public information dissemination would rise to say “Buhari is incompetent”.  Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe should come out and deny saying this.  Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, should say he did not go to visit Nnamdi Kanu in DSS custody, who was telling him that if he is released, he would talk to his terrorist followers to stop destroying Nigeria. Must he be released first to stop what he started?  What if he is again helped to flee Nigeria like Abaribe did and his new country of citizenship, UK pampering him and his terrorist organisation, offers him every comfort that would put Nigeria in permanent mess for the rest of its life? Like Abaribe is still boasting now that he did, Soludo too will call the bluff of all of us including our “Zoo” country.  Have Nigerian authorities thought  of this?

IPOB/ESN, to the extent of this thought, have continued to enjoy support of government, political and traditional leaders in the South East region, even well funded, reason our overstretched armed forces and sister security organizations continue to have challenges waxing stronger in the part of the country. Even the Niger Delta is today more peaceful than the South East.  And sadly, it is generally believed therefore that all the hate speeches, fake news, slanted and twisted information circulated in form of photoshop, audio, video and media reports on the internet airspace come from this part of the country, are mainly manufactured by IPOB/ESN members. They choose a time of sad event to get more active.  Each disaster, even seen to be unambiguously natural, these people reframe it and make their own way to cause inter-religious and inter-ethnic crisis like what they tried to do with gas explosion in Kano Tuesday May 17, 2022 trying to say the Sabongari explosion was bomb blast in kiddies school on Aba Road in the Fagge Local Government commmunity of Kano State. Their plan was, after the falsehood had been generally accepted, for them to now say the Hausa-Fulani bombed the children school because they know they are Igbo people, who live there and who put their children in that school.  A very good friend of mine from Nnewi, Anambra does not live in Kano and is not a Journalist. Suddenly he became one of the spreaders of that evil video that is clearly an exposition of the fake thing they do. On Facebook, I BLOCKED him as a friend.

More unfortunately, the Southern Nigerian people, especially of the South West, a people revered and adjudged to be the best educated in the country, take those fake news hook and sinker from the manufacturers. The worst being that the South West-dominated media that should have used the advantage of the region’s total media control to cross-check the information they see on the internet, probe to know which is correct, would help those evildoers carry the evil news and spread to the consumption of unsuspecting members of the public, who would never in any way distrust that any print-online newspaper, radio or television can ever mislead them. Hence, Nigeria – since a Northern and Muslim President Muhammadu Buhari became President – has never found it easy. They have continued to make Nigeria ungovernable to the extent that a Northern professor and then member of Board of Arewa Consultative Forum (name withheld) granted The DEFENDER an interview saying “every time the North is President, the South will always try to destroy the country under the Northerner in power so as to tag the North bad that they cannot do anything good for the country except destruction.” But since 1999, no Nigerian President has done up to what President Buhari has done. They all killed our national carrier, Nigerian Airways.  They could not even pay the workers off until this same Northerner in Buhari came to power in 2015 and has paid them off. Even those Nigerians who sent to Biafra to fight against the country, President has pardoned and paid them all their entitlements. Those alive among them are still collecting their pensions till today. Yet, Northerner is the problem of Nigeria. Waoh!

In trying to further probe that allegation, it was discovered especially lately that the same Nigerians, who claims through all the media challenges that President has done nothing, have benefited immensely from achievements of the President.  The likes of Omoyele Sowore belong to this category of Nigerians.  Recall it was Sowore, who had several times done the unthinkable to overthrow President Muhammadu Buhari so as for him to become the President he could not become through the ballot boxes or front door and that he could now become the President through a coup or back door. That was what he plotted with his #RevolutionNow.  Sadly, these local actors, I am not so sure of involvement of Sunday Igbo in it, get money in hard currencies, American Dollars, from the West, who never wanted their country to develop and be ever productive for the comfortable as a nation and people, and they are so happy using such money to organize all of these destabilization thing to hell the enemies at-large collapse the only country they have.

That was the main reason the country has continued to witness inter-religious conflicts despite the well-intentioned Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) co-chaired by the Leader of Muslim Ummah of Nigeria and Sultan of Sokoto-sitting, His Eminence Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, and President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).  That is also why effort of the Administration of the country to ensure a united Nigeria for the greatness of the country has not been able to see the light of the day because, these elements continue to fuel the internet airspace of the country with destructive information.  Partly, CAN is responsible because, whether knowingly or unknowingly, it is part of the Western plot for collapse of the country because, when, because of implementation of Western plan, you continue to fill the hearts of your Christian followers and children with hate, spirit of intolerance and tendencies to provoke Muslims and will always be ready to team up even with sectarian agents, not minding whether they are pagans or not, just to demolish other religion and adherents as it has been rampant in the Islamophobia cases in the country.

There will be no need to mention CAN’s role in the issues that surrounded the gruesome murder of Major General Idris Alkali in Jos. It is on record how the General was declared missing and Army troops began to search everywhere around his last routes in the Plateau State community and how some women protesting half-naked blocked the way to the pond they were already guided by what was believed to more authentic intelligence, telling the soldiers ‘no way’. The CAN, under this same current leadership, issued statements supporting those women it called Christian women.  The Army ignored the protesting women, got to the pond and, alas! That was where the remains of innocent General Alkali were found and his car.  When five youths, who killed a Fulani Muslim, were sentenced to death by a Yola High Court, this same CAN it was that wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari telling him why those youths could not die because they are Christian youths. I won’t say more until later in this same article, which is the correct information that I am presenting based on verifiable physical experience. Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), co-chairman of NIREC should not be found in this but it is there. Why? Because it has agenda on behalf of the West which is different from the agenda of Nigerian Government that formed the Council to ensure peaceful co-existence between Muslims and Christians in the country.

Deborah and resultant black that follow

Non-aligned members, who now support IPOB/ESN and turn from being friends to being our enemies over the recent events in the South East, Sokoto and Kano states, only lack capacity to rise above tribalism and religious sentiments.  We have talked about Muslims of South East origin killed not too long, just over a week ago, with some truck load of cows along with their owners or herders.  We have complaint that the news of that sad incident did not trend in the Southern dominated media.  But on Deborah Yakubu Samuel, despite the widespread condemnations of the killer students by notable Muslim leadership including the Sultanate Council Sokoto and several other Islamic institutions, professional organizations and associations and Muslim groups and individuals, these people continue to see any Muslim professionals especially those in the media practice as bigots because they refuse to deny that nobody should insult their religious values, particularly those that are connected to Five Pillars of Islam:

Five pillars of Islam as no-go area for human insults and jokes

1. Bearing witness that Allah is One and that Muhammad (peace be upon him) is His messenger;

2. Worshipping Five Times Daily;

3. Fasting in the Holy Month of Ramadan;

4. Paying Zakat the Poor due from wealth of the Rich and

5. Embarking on Holy Pilgrimage (to Makkah and Madinah) that is Hajj for him or her that has the economic capacity and is free of serious disease.

These Five Basic Pillars of Islam are regularly attacked by those who are neither Muslims nor having anything to lose by Muslims’ observing them. There is no Muslim in the world who compromises these Five Pillars of Islam except he will no longer be a Muslim. Now those people, who want Muslims to compromise these very cores of their religion because they pretend there is nothing like religion except ‘bondage’, are the ones posting blackmails on social media against Muslims when they see some of them continuing to identify with Islam.  That is in spite of their widespread condemnations of the jungle justice meted to Deborah. It is hypocrisy really when lives of human beings from certain region matter not to some others but they can collapse the sky of the country because of lives of their own people. It is sad, unpatriotic and condemnable. Now as we have gotten a newspaper that went to obtain United Kingdom’s reaction fighting for Deborah through the High Commission, which is right anyway, which of the newspapers will go to United Kingdom on behalf of those Muslims killed in the South East even the cows mischievously killed? Or can we be right to say lives of Northerners, Igbo Muslims and even animal unjustly killed out of mischief are meaningless to the British people? I am not sure a British that now has several Muslims in its Parliament would say yes.

This is our position that some so-called believers who have the brain of a free thinker and want to impose that on all of us are blackmailing, calling us religious bigots for, saying as Journalists we must not be seen as Muslims. Sad enough, as Journalists they want to see others fully identify with their own religion. For a very long time, this is what has been causing religious crises in Nigeria.  It is needless to mention that it was a Vanguard Newspaper Journalist, Christian, that wrote the news that “5 Christian students killed in Southern Kaduna”, which was false and which caused deaths of several Muslims in that part of the North.  Who fights for those lost lives that have not gotten justice up till now?  That is not to mention over 1,000 Muslims set ablaze alive while they were observing Eid-el-Fitr prayers in Jos in August 2011 by actors who publicly sang that they did that for Christ.  Who helps those lost souls obtain justice?  Is it because we talk about this amidst continued suppression and continued provocation of Muslims that we are religious bigots? Such person is a mischief maker that needs help and divine deliverance.

Too much of hypocrisy! When a 22 years Lagos girl schoolgirl was given 43 strokes of cane for wearing Hijab, after school hours, these same religious (but pretending they are not) Journalists or social media influencers and so-called Human Rights Activists turned their eyes away, but when a thing that is not even done by Muslim is wrongly put to the public, they not only lead the pages of the newspapers with it but they go on rampage inciting international community, writing letters to United Nations, United Kingdom, United States of America even Commonwealth, and the civil societies begin to protest until they shamefully realise that they are the unjust having been misled.

Good example is Osun where they lied against Governor Rauf Aregbesola bringing Boko Haram into Osun State to kill all except Muslims, simply because his government allowed female Muslim students to wear Hijab to school which has no injury to any school standard and non-Muslim rights, and these influencers believed those falsehoods. But the day one of their leaders sent three youth, dressed like Islamic clerics, to attack their own worship centre at the peak of Sunday service, we knew the role of CAN.  Earlier, they had created impression in the community that Governor Aregbesola had imported Boko Haram into the state particularly in the Ola Oluwa Local Government community and they mentioned Sunday.  So, the youths of the community had mobilized for the so-called Boko Haram coming. If they knew that those three boys would be caught by the youths, they would not do what they did.

At the pick of their church service, the so-called Boko Haram stormed the church, launched attack on the innocent worshippers who, sighting people dressed like Islamic clerics, screamed Boko Haram! Boko Haram!! Boko Haram!!! In the church of the same pastor that sent them, who incidentally in Chairman of CAN in the Local Government! Had they escaped, Osun State would never forgive Aregbesola and there will be nothing that will remove that scars from his record.  But they were caught and in the course of being beaten by the mob, they pleated to show mercy that they were sent and were not Muslims.  “Sent by who?” The mob asked, and they replied: “Our pastor”. That was how they were taken to police station. We knew so well how CAN, under Jonathan government and its “Spiritual and Military Adviser”, Pastor Ayo Orishajefor.

That happened a week after the then CAN General Secretary came from Abuja, now late Rev. Musa Asake, to lead a crusade in Osun with that boast of Aregbesola about to import Boko Haram to the state.  That was how they built hate in the hearts of the people against the best performing Osun State Governor ever.  CAN from Abuja pressured the DPO to release the Fake Boko Haram and blocked all the media including the one I worked for, that time, from publishing the story so that there will be no reference.  If you delete record in the media, can you delete the record in the memory of a Journalist who is a direct victim of the evil act by some so-called religious leaders?  Reason my own report of it was not published until The DEFENDER later did after Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) referred to it.  Osun Defender reported it but the story was no longer on the website. So sad! This is the same South West we are told is so peaceful because they are civilized and accommodating towards Muslims, although Muslims are in the majority but are silent major because, unlike in the North where Islam is from up (authorities)-down (individuals), in the South West, Islam is down (individuals)-up (authorities).

Remove hypocrisy, tendencies of ethnic and religious sentiments

So, for the peace of our nation, let us all remove hypocrisy and tendencies of ethnic and religious sentiments from our spirits. We will be great together as country people without rancour from one to another. Journalists should know that Islamic Mosque does not need a Muslim Journalist to be justly and fairly reported.  Likewise, Christian Church does not need a Christian Journalist to be justly and fairly reported. Journalism should be the last hope of the people, especially where it is truly justified that all arms of government namely executive, legislature and judiciary fail.

A Muslim should get justice in any media organisation, be it in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja or Kano. Likewise a Christian should get justice in any media organisation, be it in Kano, Abuja, Ibadan or Lagos. God did not say he has created perfect human beings who have no tendency to do evil. But the media is one of the institutions established to check these human creatures, either as government leaders/civil servants or as members of the public, in their daily behaviours so that they will be afraid to perpetrate evils because, nobody, no matter how confident and powerful, likes to be exposed or seen doing evil.

The Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was wonderful when he warned, “Anything you do and you do not like to be seen doing, it is bad.  Do not do it. But anything you do, in your heart, you want to be seen doing, it is good deed and keep on doing it.” (Hadeeth).

And Allah warns that Journalists must always crosscheck their received information and investigate properly to ensure that not only it is grammatically correct but also, more compulsorily, to see that what they want to publish or broadcast is truth. Even sometimes, it is not all truths that must be published or broadcast but all falsehoods must not be published or broadcast. Any truth that you know, when put out, will cause destabilisation, you don’t put it out. This is where Allah says the Qur’an is revealed not just for anybody but for the people of wisdom. It is a guidance that is not doubtful, revealed for those that fear God. Same for the Holy Book brought by Isa ibn Maryam that is Jesus Christ son of Mary, Holy Book brought by Musa that is Moses and Holy Book brought by Daud that is David. May the peace of Allah be upon all of them.

So, where is the excuse for any Nigerian – either as Journalist, civil society activist, government leader, member of the public – in all of these discrepancies and injustices that we keep on complaining about but which, not only they do not want to change from but also, even they struggle to stop us from speaking against?  There is no society in the world that evil or criminality is value of anyone. But they feel insulted to be told. To them who have been following may WAKE UP articles, they will remember this is these justice, fairness and truth in private and public lives of Nigerians that I have been demanding from everyone that Nigeria may be in peace. Yes, because we have no other country, and defending and protecting the interest of one’s country is part of worship of Allah.

*Bashir Adefaka, an Isolo, Akure South Local Government Area of Ondo State Prince, is Lagos-based Journalist and publisher. Reach him via his email: omope72@gmail.com