WAKE UP: Why Nigeria is not to blame at 61

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

“Those in the National Assembly, who call themselves South East National Assembly Caucus whereas they are actually dangerous, unpatriotic opposition politicians are a set of leaders. Remember, they belong to opposition political party and have publicly exposed themselves to security search-net as the real sponsors of the senseless killing by the terrorist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the Igbo region of Nigeria.”

I read some self-styled public analysts on social media writing Nigeria off to say that it has nothing to celebrate at 61. And they talk about insecurity, economy and infrastructure. They then come back and say it is because the nation is governed by Muslim and Northerner. Mbanu! to speak Igbo for once to say not at all. That we still have this set of divisive elements, creators of hate speeches and twisted information existing in our midst, is an indicator that it is not yet time for people like us to go to sleep with our pens down.

At 61, Nigeria should have gotten better than we are. But when we blame the leadership, we need to clarify. Generalizing the cause only always make solution elude our quest for getting better.

Those in the National Assembly, who call themselves South East National Assembly Caucus whereas they are actually dangerous, unpatriotic opposition politicians are a set of leaders. Remember, they belong to opposition political party and have publicly exposed themselves to security search-net as the real sponsors of the senseless killing by the terrorist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the Igbo region of Nigeria.

Recall that shamed by a statement of Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly Worldwide blaming their conspiracy of silence for the self birthed and deliberately nurtured insurgents of the region, this so called South East National Assembly Caucus held an emergency meeting at Abuja (Nigeria, not Zoo, not Biafra) residence of their once-upon-a-time most senior government officer, Senator Ike Ekweremadu. Emerging from there, they gave President Muhammadu Buhari condition for peace: release the man that led their own region to the destruction and losses of own innocent souls it suffers – Nnamdi Kanu. President Buhari must go after these unfaithful, disloyal lawmakers no matter whose ox is gored!

One of them and currently the highest officer their party has in the legislative (national government) arena, Oyinnaya Aberibe, as it turned out, personally and single-handedly saw to disguised freedom by bail on medical grounds from prison of Kanu, only to also hypocritically aid him to jump bail and escape abroad where.  For two years, he was causing the Igbo race (definitely not the whole Nigeria) globalised cinema of embarrassments. From London to Israel and from there to some so-called mischievously orchestrated American Congresses, Nnamdi Kanu moved around like VIP and was using his Radio Biafra to spread Fake News about Nigeria to the satisfaction of these same elements self appointed South East National Assembly Caucus that can best be identified as opposition party lawmakers from the region.

From the activities of this fool without commonsense using his satanic radio without confidence to conveniently reveal its location, negatively brainwashed and radicalised Igbo people recruited into its IPOB and Eastern Security Network (ESN) killed Hausa living and doing their legitimate businesses in the East, Rivers and turned Fulani to killers of Igbo in the region’s bushes, thereby creating serious and dangerous propaganda against the Fulani herdsmen in the Igbo Land as if they have another mountain besides the heavens, if the ships are down in matter of meat and general food that their lives need for survival. Thank God for leaders of the North, who successfully controlled their followers and no reprisal recorded.

All that Kanu, his IPOB and sponsors as now being self-exposed in the so-called caucus wanted to achieve was set Nigeria against itself and they achieved the aim but they were quick to shift the blame to President Muhammadu Buhari, blackmailing him with an acclaimed “Islamized/Northernized” based agenda to take over Nigeria and hand it to his Fulani race and convert all Christians to Islam. Such a theory that has no connection with commonsense and yet believed by some professors and other respected educated members of Southern societies.

I insist, for being part of this propaganda, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) will never go free in the divine court of justice.  Not even its pretentious silence faking innocence at this time will safe it and its participating leaders and members. It was CAN that carried this evil propaganda far to Donald Trump’s United States of America and said the Muslim Northern President (Buhari) in power was equipping government security agencies and with them had been killing Christians in Nigeria. So much unthinkably that CAN told Trump that the globally known truth of coronavirus lockdown was persecution by Muslim Northern President in power against the Church and Christians of Nigeria.

Recall not only Church but Mosques were also shut. Killer IPOB being faced in battle by security agencies was being presented to some hypocrites in the guise of international human rights abroad as killing of Igbo people, as if Igbo people agreed and are united with the regional terrorists to do what they do. More unfortunately, you would find it difficult to believe that not all Igbo believe that scam looking at the loud celebration of the criminalities in the states of the region when they are carried out. Sadly also, some of the major television and radio stations that would have featured interviews and public commentaries had the type of terrorism going on in the South East happened in other region (North) suddenly became dumbfounded, nowhere to be found. Those are the evils CAN did in collaboration with IPOB.

Somebody would argue: “Why are you divisive in your writing?” That is part of their characteristics by which they are easily known. They do evil and will never like to be pointed to it. Only him that does not live in our planet would deny this was the collaborative role between IPOB and CAN. Did Trump not publicly ask President Buhari, in a face-to-face meeting in Washington DC, “Why are you killing Christians in Nigeria?”

Was the aim of CAN and IPOB not for America to stop the supply of Tucano A-29 fighter jets Buhari already paid for, to Nigeria, even though the opposition National Assembly under Saraki-Ekweremadu objected to the payment? Did Trump not block us from having the planes needed to fight these terrorism behaviours both in North East and South East until he was disgraced out of power and now ‘China-aided’ government of Joe Biden restored commitment to supplying them to us, and we have had the first batch of six from the 12?  Are we not now making progress in the fight against insecurity in Nigeria with those equipment?  Why are CAN, some opposition politicians (North and South) and those South East National Assembly Caucus against defeat of terrorism in North East and South East? Politicking? No. It is madness!

More sadly, Yoruba race that has no reason to complain against Buhari or the Muslim Northerner in power suddenly joined them. Surprisingly, leader of thugs of the opposition political party in the South West, Sunday Adeyemo a.k.a. Sunday Igboho, gingered by one kind professor, started the agitation for Yoruba Nation.  They wanted an Oduduwa Republic. Why? To impress that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway left undone by their own Olusegun Obasanjo, who ruled for eight years despite over N300 billion spent without anything to show, was re-awarded and seen to have been reconstructed by the Muslim Northern President in power – Muhammadu Buhari.

They were angry and therefore wanted Oduduwa Republic because they have their own as Vice President and head of the economy team, and other members fully represented in the administration of the country, under the same Muslim Northern President in power. They are angry because Buhari – from the most hated North – is building Shagamu-Ore Expressway and putting more industries on ground in the region to make Nigeria now manufacturers of vehicles, self dependent in terms of local refineries, Made-in-Nigeria products and boosted exports that the country requires to restore the strength of its Naira against foreign currencies. They are angry because this Muslim Northern President put more Yoruba in positions of authority even than the Igbo, in whose region IPOB senselessness they support thrives. They were telling the world, sponsoring international protests up to United Nations General Assembly that in Nigeria, Fulani is the number and only enemy of the rest of Nigerians.

They tell the world that any criminal that has kidnapped or killed Igbo or Yoruba in Southern Nigeria is a Fulani and by this they mobilised the interests even of supporters of party in government against the government of Buhari. They are yet to tell the world, who the kidnapper and killer of Fulani in the North are.

Afenifere, through the late Yinka Odumakin, did it well for them by saying no police station in Yoruba Land they reported cases of kidnapping and they were not told they had order from above not to touch them because they are Fulani. Which of the police stations in Yoruba Land, he didn’t mention until his death.

In Nigeria, ethnicity is one easy way to overcome the consciousness of the people – be they Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo. These unpatriotic politicians know it. Reason the likes of Nnamdi Kanu (a reportedly rusticated cultist) and Sunday Igboho (a known opposition political thug leader) had their ways. Despite their criminal activities, the media still find a voice for people, who see them as no more than fighting for their rights to be self-determinant. Is Nigerian Press meant for defence of the South while finding fought with anything North alone? I belong there, so, I do not see it as that. Those that allow their ethnic and religious consciousness to compromise their professional ethics as taught in Journalism should hold themselves responsible.

This is what opposition and profoundly  ethnicized brains in the polity quickly picked and described as “Nigeria has never been this divided”. It is misplacement of thought and generalisation of cause of problem that will help the nation in no way out of the quagmire.

Fortunately for those that stood with Nigeria and the Buhari Administration, either convinced by confessions or media interviews granted by freed kidnap victims, a Yoruba serving senator or police arrest and reports,  while criminals from among Fulani cannot be exonerated or shielded from criminal tendency anywhere like it is of other tribes, it has been revealed that those kidnappers and killers of Yoruba and Igbo people of Southern Nigeria were more their own fellow tribesmen. Traditional rulers were even also said to be sponsors of those kidnappers to make money for themselves.

But, while governors of Northern Nigeria are suspending, sacking and busy exposing traditional rulers found to be accomplices to these terrorism and banditry acts, governors of Southern Nigeria could only see the need for laws banning open grazing as the only effort they can make.  Yet, people are still being killed in Anambra, Imo, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo and so on and so forth. Anyway, to any reasonable cow owner and breeder among the Fulani people, they should see anti-open grazing law signed by the Southern governors as a blessing in every disappointment. A cow that is stationed in ranch is more meaty and produces more economic value chain than the cow, which wanders around. This is the problem.

But is this what some people are blaming Nigeria for and why the country cannot celebrate its achievements at 61? I am not party to that thought. I am not because, the fact that I still sleep, wake up and am able to fend for myself and family daily, while going about my professional practice without dropping in my street or me hearing about it having in communities next to mine shows that Nigeria is not to be blame at 61 as they would want us to.

Rather, we should all join hands and expose elements from the society, who found their way into journalism, media ownership, security, judiciary, academics, civil service, hospital, marketing of manufactured or imported goods especially food, and who are behind the protracted problems that we have as a nation. Civil society criticising government for not stopping the IPOB terrorism ostensibly orchestrated by some regional leaders against their own region, only for the same civil society to raise human rights issues while the government is doing it, the question is: what is the mission of such cool society group?

Some of us are quick to celebrate Europe, United States of America, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, others while disparaging (sponsored or by self volition) their own country Nigeria. They fail to realise that, in those doing well societies, it is not only the government but combination of government policies, enforcement of law and discipline, obedience and commitment of the people to their nation’s good that make it work. Okay, if you celebrate the foreign society, should you not be ashamed to be arrested while breaking the laws of same society? It means Nigeria is not the problem but you, the Nigerian. Sad, many Nigerians still celebrate Hushpuppi, the world class thief that specializes in cyber crimes, and Africa’s richest kidnapper and murderer, Evans, both now under trials home and abroad.

All those responsible for these evils militating against security, peace, unity and development of Nigeria are those Nigerians must be seen to be able to identify and flush out at Nigeria at 61. Not to sit down somewhere and tell us how Nigeria, despite the progresses that have occurred when considered to what the security and economic situations had been before 2015, is still crawling at 61.

God bless Nigeria and Happy Independence!

*WAKE UP is opinion article column of Journalist and Publisher, Prince Bashir Adefaka. Reach him via his email: omope72@gmail.com