COL. DASUKI & THE PREVAILING SECURITY SITUATION

The recent tinkering of the leadership personnel of the Defence establishment by President Jonathan even it be cosmetic, appear to wake up some people from a self-imposed slumber.  For whatever it is worth, the visits by the new National Security Adviser (NSA) Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) to the theatres of war have shown those bearing the brunt of the terrorists that some people still care about their plight.  The president failed to visit both Borno and Yobe states, the centres of the Boko Haram carnage giving as an excuse the lack of functionality of the Maiduguri Airport (the shame of it) for his non visit but his erstwhile NSA, Owoye Azazi couldn’t even glorify the people by giving an excuse, no matter how laughable.  The people are really appreciative of the NSA’s visit to empathise with them on the siege they have been under in the past two years.

But the visit alone cannot solve the people’s problems and they are waiting for the NSA to start acting.  Thankfully Col. Dasuki informed Nigerians that he has obtained the phone numbers of those to be contacted for dialogue on how to bring an end to the state of insecurity facing the country, particularly the north.  Col. Sambo has clearly shown his intentions of dealing with the macabre dance of those attempting to bring the north in particularly to its knees, by hitting the ground running.  But as far as I can see there are those who want to ensure that he failed woefully in his attempt.  The renewed and sustained attacks on northern cities is indicative of the desire of the merchants of death to make a statement – of particular interest is the attacks on Police formations in Sokoto state, the home state of the NSA. 

Islam clearly prohibits fighting (war) during certain months, the Ramadan inclusive, so it is clear to all discerning and objective minds that those carrying out these attacks are either not Muslims or do not understand their religion very well.  My gut feeling tells me they are fifth columnists with the intention of giving Islam a bad name and in the process achieve two things – both very dangerous to the corporate existence of the country.  One, to create a religious divide between Christians and Muslims particularly in the north; and two, two cripple economic activities in the region.  They appear to be succeeding on both fronts.  Before the madness in Sokoto, there was the massacre in Plateau state, which ultimately led to the death of a Senator and a member of the state legislature.  This came almost immediately after the visit of the new NSA to the state.  All these things appear funny to me and doesn’t have any linkage to religion nor could be simplistically explained as a reaction by northerners who are bitter for losing power to the south.  Truth be told, if the government and its functionaries are ready to get to the bottom of the madness, all they have to do is fall back on what one of its own began and was truncated midway.

When Major General Mungonu, erstwhile Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI), beamed his searchlight on “Boko Haram” he came close to discovering those behind the killers and before you say ‘Goodluck’ he was removed from office.  But before he was removed, he made startling progress that points to certain politicians from his home state as being the men behind the masks.  Of particular interest was the immediate past governor, Ali Modu Sherriff.  Mungono was threatened to discontinue his line of investigation or be removed, or worse still, lose his Commission.  All these were made public in the run-up to his removal.  Sponsored media articles against him appeared with regularity in newspapers and the threat finally came to pass.  Mungonu’s investigation pointed directly to the former governor but in a bizarre move that can only happen in Nigeria, Mungonu was removed as CDI and Sherriff was appointed Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).  While the General was sent to the cooler, Sherriff is on the way to rehabilitating his battered image.

After Mungonu’s ouster, the spate of attacks heightened with the attendant loss of lives and property because the tell-tale clues he was pursuing were deliberately allowed to fizzle out by redirecting the energies of the intelligence agencies to phantom suspects who couldn’t be allowed to see the four walls of a court room.  To compound the deliberate bungling, we have the State Security Service (SSS) and the Police working at cross-purpose on the same case.  The two agencies always parade different suspects on a particular case, or one service contradicting the other as in the case of the Radio House bomber.  Nigerians came to be cynical about the sincerity of the security and intelligence services and had the distinct impression that somebody, somewhere is lying to protect some people.

A lot of arrests have been made with each suspect branded as the ‘mastermind’, yet non of theses ‘masterminds’ was taken to the courts for prosecution much less conviction.  Are Nigerians then to believe that the government is not interested in getting to the bottom of this “boko haram” issue?  What happens to people like Ali Tishaku, a SSS operative embedded in to the boko haram hierarchy that was to be denied by his employers after ‘coming in from the cold’ with a report that was not in conformity with the current thinking in the SSS?  He had to go to the court to get his freedom from an employer he served diligently.  Where is he and what happened to his report?

With Col. Sambo as the NSA, we believe he will first of all bring to an end this inter-agency rivalry and pursue the real culprits and bring them to court for all Nigerians to see.  The likes of Munguno and Tishaku may be of immense help to the NSA’s cause of bringing to an end the mayhem and destructions in the country given their past participation in curbing the madness.  After all, Lamorde was once kicked out of the EFCC, but recognising his knowledge of the Commission, he was brought back to head the place.

THE NORTH UNDER SIEGE

Let me begin this piece by extending my heartfelt sympathies to all those who lost their lives in the killing spree going on in the north in the past two years.  Those who lost people near and dear to them must have gone through traumatic experiences while trying to understand the madness sweeping across the region.  Human life in the north is today ten a dime.  With governments at all levels folding their arms and pretending helplessness while killers are cutting short lives and visiting anguish on innocent people.  The impunity with which murderers operate knowing that nobody will arrest them and bring them to justice makes it more painful to those who lose their loved ones.  I pray God should give them the fortitude to bear their irreplaceable loses

The frequency of these killings escalated, incidentally, with the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan to the presidency of the country equally as well the impunity of the killers increased directly to the longevity of Goodluck in the Aso Villa.  The north has become a basket case, no matter how one look at the situation – politically, economically, socially or otherwise.  By now, I want to believe the intention of those oiling the killing machine ought to be clear to anyone interested in knowing.  It is my personal opinion that their intention is twofold – first, the complete destruction of all commercial activities in the region and second, to engender religious crisis in the region.  The first was achieved by ensuring that places like Jos, Maiduguri and Kano, hitherto major commercial hubs in the region are down and out.  People go to these places only if it is absolutely necessary.  What remains for them is the second objective, which is the spawning of religious crisis in the north.  After killing thousands in Jos, Maiduguri, Yola, Bauchi, Kano and Gombe without achieving their aim, they have resorted to bombing churches on Sundays when the churches are full to capacity with worshippers.  The reactions to the bombings in Zaria and Tirkana in Kaduna appear to have fulfilled the objectives of these unscrupulous people.

With the killings going on in Kaduna, those that want the north on bended knees will be patting each other on the back that they have finally found the North’s soft spot and may continually hit its underbelly until such a time the religious conflagration spreads throughout the region.  With all the contrived attacks on worship places, non achieved what Kaduna did and may even have surpassed the expectations of the perpetrators.  With the destruction of Jos, Maiduguri, Kano and Kaduna the north has effectively being brought to its knees.  For those jubilating, this is a culmination of a project began well before the country achieved flag independence.  What politicians of the first and second republics failed to accomplish in a lifetime of trying despite their best efforts, was achieved in thirteen years.  This is a made possible by compromising greedy, visionless and focusless politicians from the region whose main interest is the accumulation of wealth and continued relevance or lack of it not minding whose underwear they wash.

Almost half a century after the murders of Balewa, Sardauna and those crops of selfless politicians, who were on their way to positioning the region into one of the biggest regional economic powers within the country, their heirs have turned the region into the biggest colony of beggars the whole world over.  Northern politicians in this dispensation have become shameless and uncaring and are completely disconnected with the people that they do not care the number of bodies that litter our streets as long as they will be appointed into any government even it is headed by the devil himself. 

Northern Nigeria is gradually descending into chaos and may very well turn into another Somalia, God forbid. There is no certainty of seeing a whole day out for anyone except those who go around with a convoy of fierce looking, gun wielding security men who shoot first and ask after.  A region that was known as the economic power house of the nation all over the world is today without a single industry that employs up to two hundred people full time.  Successive governors of the region neglected two critical sectors in the area – agriculture and education.  And the two happen to be the drivers of development.  But the prize for the criminal neglect, thievery and selfishness goes to the current crop of governors who operate as if the section dealing with conscience in their brains has been removed.  Their policies succeeded in spawning the current state of insecurity that we find ourselves in today.   Kids that are supposed to be in school are on the street while their age mates, the kids of the high and mighty, pass them by on their way to or from school.  These kids may well turn out to be our undoing not any religious differences.

We have seen the federal government through the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Niger Delta Ministry and the Amnesty Programme office, have been sending their kids abroad for training in skills acquisition.  Why can’t our governors start such a programme locally in order to take these unfortunate kids off our streets, which in my opinion, will minimise the menace of wanton killings and destructions of properties that we are daily confronted with.  The heirs to the first and second republic politicians in the region are only interested in the education of their kids and the amassing of wealth that may either take them to jail or die without utilising.  While the north is burning, they have continuously kept a deafening silence.

To my Christian brethren in the north, I would like to say let’s start using our heads rather than our hearts.  It is becoming apparent that somebody somewhere is bent on making sure Muslims and Christians in the north are continuously at each others throats while whatever agenda they have is gradually and successfully unfolded & implemented.  In none of the cities that have experienced violence has the governments (states and federal) shown any sense of responsibility by quickly nipping potential troubles in the bud.  They always sit back and watch while Christians and Muslims kill each other.  If we are sincere and set aside sentiments, how many of those arrested are ever taken to court?  What becomes of them after the arrests?  And if I may ask, how many of those arrested with explosives or guns are Muslims?  Why is it only mutilated bodies are labelled as boko haram but those arrested in the act of burning churches are either hypnotised, have issues with their churches or madmen?  We should be demanding for answers from our governors not killing each other.

Creating killer colonies like Gonin Gora or Riyom will only exacerbate our distrust for each other rather than solve any problem.  They do not advance the cause of either of the religions nor should any religion be in completion with the other.  They are rather injuries to all not just Muslims and us.  The reaction of the residents of Gonin Gora is directly responsible for the bloodletting in Kaduna and this has been going on since 2000 with no government ready to do anything about it.  Whenever they struck, the Abuja – Kaduna highway is effectively closed to all.  Also the curfew imposed on the people of Kaduna is on everybody not just Muslims.  So we all bear the brunt with all its economic and social consequences.  And where is your president?  Off to the Brazilian beaches with a retinue of one hundred and sixteen hangers-on.

We are being systematically destroyed by the twin evils of religion and ethnicity.  They destroyed our unity and communality, something the region was known for and envied, discourage our interaction and steal our peace by creating a siege mentality and sowing hatred amongst us.  We then unwittingly fall into the traps set for us by our elites for their benefits that come at the expense of the rest of us.  It is my hope that we can, collectively as northerners, overcome our primordial sentiments for the collective good of the region.  As the Yorubas will say, Arewa, Ronu.

YES TO SOVEREIGN NATIONAL CONFERENCE

The recurring call for the convening of a national conference – sovereign or otherwise – is more and more sounding like a broken record.  But to me, the call is sounding more like a bargain or blackmail tool, which some people use from time to time to help them achieve certain objectives.  This is very okay with me because it shows a sense of purpose on the part of those using this particular tool for gaining advantage in every national discourse so far.  What riles me is the perception of some of us that the convocation of the conference will be to our disadvantage.  I cannot fathom what informs this line of reasoning by, particularly the political class of the north.  The call for the convocation of the conference has been on since after the Beninoise convoked their own and booted out Matthew Kerekou.  This also coincided with Babangida’s annulment of the June 1992 election, which some ethnic bigots fortuitously interpreted to mean that a section of the country is against the presidency by a Yoruba man.  So for all intents and purposes, those calling for a Sovereign National Conference are simply copycats and also merely ethnic champions masquerading as nationalists.

In the years between 1992 to date, there have been at least two national conferences that readily come to mind.  The one convoked by the late General Sani Abacha in 1995 – 96 that succeeded in fractionalising the country further into six geo-political zones by adopting the Ekwueme model and the one called by Obasanjo in 2004 – 2005 to specifically amend the constitution to make way for his ambition to rule Nigeria for as long as he lives.  These are the two that readily come to my mind and from where I am sitting none addressed the myriad problems we are faced with as a nation.  Rather, the Abacha conference succeeded in breaking up the north into three “zones” – a project began in the 1960s and a lifelong ambition for some.  Though they have succeeded in splitting the north, the region’s politicians helped in no small measure in bringing this reality to fruition by either being complicit or docile in some instances.  Today, northern Nigeria is the most fractured of the entire pre-military foray into politics in 1966.  This fractionalisation, sadly, is not only physical but also mental.

The call this time may not be unconnected with the ill-advised call for the revision of the revenue allocation formula by some northern politicians, particularly our governors.  In all the previous conferences, the north got the short end of the stick due to our self-imposed roles of guardians of the sanctity of the unity of Nigeria.  But we always come out bruised literally and metaphorically.  The region is perceived by outsiders as weak and a burden to the rest of the country due to the way it has been projected by our politicians in the last thirty years or so.  Flowing from leadership failure at all levels in the north, we are more fractured today than at any point in history.  The region is racked with crisis that is destroying what remains of its commercial activities; our governors and other leaders care less what happens in critical sectors like education, health and agriculture; our youth are ill-equipped to face the challenges of present day world because since they are not “ex-militants” government doesn’t care whether they go to school or not; and our elders are all busy playing the ostrich while the region is gradually sinking into pre-historic times with mini-wars raging all across the region.  If these problems are not enough to call for a conference, then I shall be damned! 

I am all for a national conference (sovereign or not) for all the “ethnic nationalities” to come together and chart a way for either our continued existence as a country or for the breakup of Nigeria into 250 or more countries.  But before then, I would like to call on the conveners to carry out a census of the “ethnic nationalities” with a view to determining who is what so that ALL should be represented.  This is to avoid a problem where all northerners can be lumped into a convenient contraption called ‘Hausa. Fulani’.  This will raise more questions than provide answers.  Beginning from my state, Adamawa State, I know a Yofo man will never allow himself to be represented by a Yandang or Gengle or Sate nor a Chamba Leko be represented by a Chamba Ganye.  In the Numan Federation alone, the Bachamas are distinct from the Mbulas, the Battas, Lungudas, Kanakurus and the Kwas.  The Mumuye of Tola has nothing in common with the Chamba of the area.  The Fulanis have the Wuitis, the Kesus, the Ba’en and the Mbororos.  The Veres of Fufore don’t see eye to eye with their Batta neighbours.  In Karim Lamido local government of neighbouring Taraba State, you have twenty-seven distinct “ethnic nationalities”.  This is the local government that the late Deputy Inspector General Police, John Haruna came from.

I am pointing out these “nationalities” to educate some of us on the diversity of the “nationalities” that make up Nigeria because as I write this piece, I am already all set for the conference and I would not like to be part of any talk shop regarding the future of Nigeria that one single “nationality” will be excluded from.  We have seen how every subset of a tribe call itself a “race”, a “nation” and a “kingdom” in the last thirteen or so years.  Therefore, to give every local potente his dues, I suggest that every subset be represented at the conference table.  The hunger that drives the rise in ethnic assertiveness must be satiated for we, the poor to have peace of mind otherwise the demon unleashed by politicians who are comfortable in being ethnic chauvinists than truly community or national leaders will devour us all.  The fad now is that whoever fails to make an impact on a larger platform retreats to his ‘laager’ for relevance.

Northern politicians, community and business leaders screaming for an increase in the allocation of federally generated revenue will do well for the region to get cracking on how to prepare for the inevitable national conference.  They must also prepare an economic blueprint for the region because we will very soon be weaned from suckling the crude oil tit that we, as we are being told to our face, contributed nothing in its production, transportation, refining or even retailing.  I am thinking of going into the processing of cow products (being a mbororo, you know).  I am looking for partners to start the processing of things like fresh milk & yoghurt, kpomo and transportation of frozen meat because my agenda does not include interstate transportation of live animals.

Such a conference may be the only way to awaken us from our oil-induced stupor to rediscover our dignity and revive our economy and other institutions of the region inherited from those founding fathers of the north long gone to the beyond but still remain our reference point.  If nineteen governors cannot manage the New Nigerian Newspapers, NNDC, Arewa Textiles and various BCGs scattered all over the north, then it is time to sit and consider turning over the region to our traditional rulers, whom the British used during the days of indirect rule.  Those were the days when the north was feared and respected by all.  Not now when a suspected armed robber turned “militant” will be rewarded with a $103million contract for insulting the collective people of a whole region.

IN OIL THEY TRUST

It is now becoming crystal clear to me why and at what price northern leaders, temporal and spiritual, sold out the North to the likes of Asari Dokubo, Ateke Tom, Tompolo and the rest.  The recent calls by our political elites led by Babangida Aliyu, Niger State governor, for an increment in their “share” of the federal revenue allocation, gave us a window to what it is all about.  Their price is nothing more than their continued stay in office to resume funding their voraciousness from the oil proceeds dispensed from Abuja.  Their commodity for sale?  The collective present and future of the region, its people and its economy.

While the average northerner is struggling to survive one day at a time and therefore doesn’t have the time or inclination to find out what happens to what is already ‘allocated’ to his state, our governors are finding it difficult maintaining their lifestyles, with their “share” of the oil money that is becoming more outrageous by the day.  While over 95% of northerners cannot afford to eat three times a day, or send their kids to school, or even take their pregnant wives to the hospital for safe delivery, Babangida Aliyu went to town with a begging bowl ostensibly on behalf of northerners to beg for an increment in their monthly ‘stipend’, which a friend called “irresponsibility allowance” for our governors.  I have been wondering how any such increment will impact on the lives of the people of the north, who have seen the deterioration of infrastructures in the region in the past thirteen years – schools, hospitals, roads, manufacturing concerns and agricultural activities.  In the same vein, Dubai, England and Germany have stealthily entered the everyday lexicon of the poor, because on a daily basis he is told his chief executive is in one of the countries visiting either as a medical tourist or on vacation.

Watching the Yoruba elites unfold what they called Developmental Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) made me wish I had such focused leaders as our “rulers”.  The people of the old western region, despite their unmatched educational, infrastructural and developmental levels are still determined enough, committed enough and honest enough to think of a collective developmental agenda for their people without a thought as to whether the federal government will increase or decrease states’ share from the federation account, or even think that the oil wells may very soon dry or any force majeure.  Lagos State at a point in time during the Obasanjo presidency went for more than two years without its allocation for local governments.  We did not see Tinubu, the then Lagos State governor grovelling before Obasanjo or wailing for the release of what was rightfully theirs.  Yet northern leaders are begging Ali Baba (as in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves) to increase their own share of the ‘loot’.  I am yet to read anywhere of a governor in the north unfolding plans on how to improve his state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). 

When countries like Vietnam, South Africa, Thailand, Taiwan and even Japan with smaller land mass and population than the north, are tilling their soil and maximising their human potentials to become economic powers, our leadership is making an issue out of revenue allocation.  Why should the allocation to northern states be increased?  What moral or fiduciary justification do Babangida Aliyu and his colleagues have to call for such a sacrilege?  Is he trying to turn every northerner into a servant because he is one?  We are already almajiris and parasites but to add servitude to the legion of our negatives will be too much for anyone to bear. 

My advice to Babangida Aliyu and those who clamour for more money to fund their consumerism is to put their acts together by exploring and exploiting the resources found in their respective domains, rather than looking down south for succour.  They should, for instance, come out with an agricultural blueprint that will take the north to at least back to the 1960s.  Our present crop of leadership has succeeded in taking us into the 12th century and it appears that they are proud of their achievement.  They have spawned Boko Haram and turned its violence into a franchise.  I have always maintained that the Boko Haram is an offshoot of political thuggery created and nurtured by our leaders.  Such groups like the ECOMOG in Borno of Ali Sheriff and the Kalare of Goje’s Gombe can easily be turned into killer squads.  With no education or jobs and therefore nothing to live for, they could be available to any would be mischief-maker.  To people like this, whose hands are soiled with the blood of innocent political opponents, it is better to commit suicide than to remain hopeless.  With their principal employers now out of government houses, no “work” is readily available.

While the northern political leadership see nothing wrong in begging an increasingly recalcitrant Niger Delta militants for scraps, and while falling head over heels in trying to outdo each other in eulogising Ojukwu, a man directly responsible for the massacre of over a million souls and vicariously responsible for the total wipe-out of post-independence northern political and military leadership, the atrophied infrastructure of the north is bombed out of existence.  Do they really care about how the families of the Balewas, Sardaunas, Akintolas, Ogundipes, Maimalaris, Pams, Largemas et al, may be feeling.  While they were busy rewriting history by helping turn a rebel into a statesman, has it occurred to them that it is the same money they are complaining as being inadequate that will, if properly applied, turn the north into an economic Eldorado.

Our leaders are very comfortable importing rice from distant lands like Brazil and Thailand while our land lies fallow.  Let us not even talk about mineral resources.  Let us just assume we are not going to dig further than is necessary to plant a seed.  The north is blessed with vast arable land, with a rainfall of about 1000mm per annum, which is just right for farming, many rivers, lakes and streams and a population looking for what to do.  What are we doing with these God given resources? Nothing!  This crime is on a par with genocide, as far as I am concerned.  I am strongly of the opinion that resources should be controlled 100% by inhabitants of where the resources are located.  Northern governments and northerners should be denied access to any revenue accruing from oil sales so that we may be forced to look inwards. 

The South Africans extracted fuel from coal during the apartheid regime when sanctions were imposed on the country.  It is a proven fact that the north is literally awash with coal but since the advent of the ill-fated Lagos state/ ENRON IPP project up to this moment, no single northern state deemed it necessary to generate its independent power supply and, therefore, our economy is at the mercy of PHCN.  While most industries in the south can rely on gas as an alternative power supply, nothern industries had to fold up for lack of power.

Mr Jonathan, please if you can do us a favour – the northern lumpen, that is – STOP THE MONTHLY FEDERAL MONTHLY ALLOCATIONS.

Arise, O Compartriots!

There are two issues that are topical in this harmattan season that has dominated the commentary and opinion pages of our newspapers and airwaves. These are the twin issues of insecurity and the unwarranted in the pump price of petrol (PMS). These two issues that ushered in the year 2012 brought the country to the edge of the precipice and nearly sent us over just in the first week of the first month of the year. So much has been said and written on the two issues, particularly the increment on the price of petrol, that whatever one may say will just be gratuitous. This one issue has succeeded in uniting and bringing out Nigerians on the streets for the first time despite the contrived religious crisis that is tearing the country and personal relationships apart. For the first time, the political class in Nigeria failed to gauge the mood of the masses correctly by imposing such crass hardship on a citizenry already overburdened by poverty, insecurity and uncertainty. A citizenry getting to grips with the fact that the leadership is not ready to provide basic necessaries of live like schools for their kids, hospitals, potable water, etc. because the political class take their kids abroad for schooling and travel abroad for such ailments like headaches and stomach discomfort.

With Jonathan’s ill-advised increase in the pump price of petrol, he has unwittingly introduced another dimension to the sufferings of the people and has further compounded everything by projecting a “to hell with you attitude” to the same people he claimed voted for him 99% just seven months back. He refused to even glorify their protest by keeping aloof from the melee of strikes organised by labour and civil society to remonstrate his high-handedness. Apart from a colourless and uninspiring speech he delivered through the Goebbels era look-alike NTA, the only other time he deemed fit to come down from his Olympian height to talk to us was in a church, where he told a partisan congregation that Boko Haram has now taken over his government. With these two evils bedevilling the land, Jonathan has missed a chance to be ‘president’. Rather he chose to be an Ijaw Christian leader in the mould of Tompolo. Asari Dokubo and Ateke. Though the increase in the pump price of petrol affected all Nigerians that are not political appointees, the man has resorted to making it an ethnic issue, inviting ethnic thugs like Asari Dokubo to threaten nationalists. I was of the mistaken opinion that Jonathan is the president of Nigeria and not that of the Ijaw ‘nation’.

This leads us to the heightened level of insecurity. Jonathan’s conduct and style of governance, in my view, is directly responsible for the impunity by the murderers now marauding the northern part of the country. In the past two years since he took over as acting president through the campaigns and the subsequent massively rigged 2011 elections his conduct has been that of deception camouflaged as timidity and dovishness. But beneath this veneer of timidity lies a calculating mind that is proving to be very dangerous for the corporate existence of the country. Sadly enough, there are no elders around Jonathan to tell him to change course.

A pattern is emerging from the madness of Boko Haram that is fast becoming a part of our existence where, in one breath Jonathan asked Nigerians to learn to live with and in another told us that the movement has taken over his government. What are we to believe and act accordingly? The emerging pattern is that some people, apart from the followers of Mohammed Yusuf, have taken over the brand name and patented it for their motives. A Christian woman, Lydia Joseph, was arrested in Bauchi in the process of burning the biggest Catholic Church in the town. Four months on, the only explanation we got to hear is that she had a problem with one of the congregants and therefore decided to burn the church. How plausible is that? Then in December last year another Christian, disguised as a nation muslim complete with a turban, was arrested in the process of burning another church in Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State, Jonathan’s home state. Must he be disguised to settle his score with the Church’s leadership? Again Nigerians were told that the man had a problem with the church, this time the pastor. Much earlier, about two years ago, when a Christian in Calabar attempted to ram his car at an aeroplane at the Calabar airport, Nigerians were told the guy was a loony. In July last year, Yakubu Bitiyong, a member of the Kaduna State House of Assembly and a former commissioner in the state was arrested for terrorists related activities and the case just fizzled out without any explanation. But when a person of indeterminate pedigree accused a sitting Senator of the federal republic, the lawmaker was picked up pronto with a compliment of photojournalists and branded the masquerade behind the terror campaign in the land. What message is the government and its backers sending to the populace? That some people can commit murder and go scot free while others cannot?

We have just seen Nuhu Mohammed, an alleged boko haram sponsor and his son paraded before media men by the military authorities, in handcuffs and a display of things recovered in his house, in the same Kaduna where Bitiyong was arrested and many cannot even tell you how he looks. What message are we sending to the citizens of this blighted nation? That justice is Janus faced?

In the heat of the petrol pump price increase imbroglio, Jonathan commissioned some old men, claiming to be elders, from his south-south geo-political zone to meet and issue threats to the rest of the country on a matter that affects the whole nation. Jonathan has taken the nation to its lowest point by playing this divisive card on Nigerians who rigged him into office. While campaigning across the country, he didn’t mention anything like being a president for the Ijaws or the south-south zone. He craved for trust by Nigerians with his “I was not born rish” slogan. Some people genuinely bonded with him, but even then I had my reservations for a man who repudiated an agreement he signed simply because he want to contest the presidency. Again I was not comfortable with the way he manipulated the issue of zoning at his party level to make it look as if northerners are against him simply because he comes from the south and not because as a ‘gentleman’ he should make his word his bond. Anyway, Nigerians irrespective of whether they voted for Jonathan or not really went through hell the past week.

The most dangerous game played by Jonathan is the issue of insecurity in the land. I am not sure, but my reading of the situation is that insecurity in northern Nigeria is rising directly proportional to the rise in peace in the Niger Delta. Is there is a correlation? I don’t know. Recently in Adamawa State, one of the most peaceful states in the country, a spate of killings racked the state from Mubi in the northern part of the state to Yola the state capital. While the killings in Mubi was discovered to be among rival Igbo businessmen, the one in Yola had to do with a pastor transferred from his church for financial recklessness. But since it was convenient to lay the blame on our current bogeyman – Boko Haram – mum is the word on the true position of things. Is that how we are going to progress. To heap insults on the collective psyche of Nigerians, some people from Jonathan’s region are threatening to secede simply because the rest of the country had the sense to oppose a senseless economic policy by their “son”. Is secession the agenda? Why wasn’t we told before the election?

My advise to the rest of the country is to prepare for such an eventuality which may come before 2015, the year the Americans predicted we will disintegrate. With the way things are going, I am sure we won’t disappoint the Americans. My Christian brothers and sisters from the north should be well advised to disregard anyone telling them that they don’t belong with Muslims in the north. For those who do not know, there is no state in the north that has no substantial number of adherents of both Islam and Christianity. The script is unfolding a page at a time. Let us all give it the desired attention verse by verse not to miss the next instalment.

FLIPPANCY OF OUR LEADERS – ORITSEJAFOR AS A SHEPHERD

Let me begin this piece by extending my condolences to those who lost their loved ones to the many bomb blasts and gun shots across the country and also congratulate the remaining living on the unprecedented new year gift by our shoe-less president – the doubling of the price of petrol. This gift is from a president who we were told we can trust with our lives; a man that was touted as a listening man because of his humble background. We can now definitely wait for the rest of the gift from fellow Nigerians who provide services and goods to take a cue from Goodluck Jonathan. For sure, the rest of us will be transformed into the living dead.

I had always hesitated to comment on issues that border on religion or ethnicity but this government is sure to make the deaf talk. Though the government came to office illegally, but I thought they would use the dubious legitimacy conferred on them by the courts to be just and fair to all. It has become clear to all that the government is not ready to be a government for all but for a select few. Emerging events like the government’s actions, pronouncements and those it associates with doesn’t give one the confidence that a better Nigeria will be realised in this eon. I am now scared that the promised “fresh air” may after all may turn to be asthmatic. The symptoms for a fragmented Nigeria are emerging daily, though we appear to be playing the ostrich. The result of the divisive campaign of the PDP is gradually coming home to roost. With political turning a blind eye to atrocities committed by their “supporters”, while religious stoke the embers of hatred in the name of ‘protecting’ their herd.

The spate of killings that ushered in the Jonathan government graduated into bombings and indiscriminate destruction of lives and properties by faceless groups loosely called Boko Haram. No one as yet has claimed meeting the leadership or representative of this killer group, therefore for all we know it can be anybody or any group from any part of the country. The bombings and killings are mostly concentrated in the North East corner of the country, with Maiduguri and Damaturu, predominantly populated by Muslims, bearing the brunt of the group. Political, religious and even traditional leaders in these two cities and environs were targeted, mostly in broad daylight and killed while our security men looked on helplessly. The deployment of soldiers to these areas only heightened the spate of killings and insecurity. No one is safe in these two cities. While the killings were going on, nobody deemed it worth his trouble to either condemn the killers or compel the government to act decisively with a view to bringing to an end the massacres talking place around the north east and to some extent, Plateau state, another theatre of war that refused to end since 2001. Through all these years, not one person was arrested, prosecuted and punished according to the laws of the land. This attitude from the government emboldened the killers to start killing people in worship places like what happen at the Eid praying ground in Jos when Muslim faithful were massacred while praying. Nobody of substance came out to condemn this dastardly act. Again they struck at the St. Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla. This time around the cacophony it generated in terms of condemnation was unprecedented. The Sultan of Sokoto, the Jama’atu Nasrul Islam (JNI), the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) all came out to condemn the reprehensible act in no uncertain terms with the Sultan going to Abuja to restate his fealty to Jonathan.

Then came Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). When the pastor visited Jonathan, he was practically frothing at the mouth while threatening the nation with a retaliatory act against the Muslims for an act that was universally condemned by all and sundry, irrespective of religious affiliation. The pastor’s logic for holding the Muslim community responsible for what happened in Madalla left me wondering if the spate of killings in the North East had his imprimatur. I cannot remember him coming out to condemn the killings, maiming and wanton destruction of properties in the northeast or condemning the Niger Delta militants when they held the country hostage before the amnesty programme extended to them by ‘Yar Adu’a. Another thing was that right after Oritsejafor made his threat, two explosives were thrown into an Islamic School in Sapele, in Oritsejafor’s state of origin. Will Muslims then be right to hold him responsible for this barbaric act, going by his reasoning? What are we to assume from the arrest of a man from Delta State dressed in kaftan and turban, a dress code associated with the northern Muslim, attempting to bomb a church in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State? Are Muslims, Oritsejafor’s subjects of hatred, to assume the would-be bomber is one of the pastor’s soldiers?

It may appear that Oritsejafor’s threats worked because a day after his tirade, Jonathan declared a state emergency in four northern states. Ironically, on the day the emergency was declared two communities in Ebonyi went to war with each other purportedly over land dispute where at least sixty people lost their lives while properties worth millions of naira were destroyed. Mum was the word from the CAN president. I thought we would hear the now well-known acceptance of responsibility from the Boko Haram.

As long as our leaders can give tribal marks or religious affiliation to violence in whatever form, then Nigerians will continue to be in trouble. The 2011 elections begot the violence that we are condemned to today with all Nigerians sleeping with one eye open or not sleeping at all. The recent violence unleashed on the populace is the increment in petrol prices, which is threatening to snuff the life out of our living dead. Am yet to hear Oritsejafor condemn this inhuman act that may put over 90% of his constituents into a life of penury and servitude. And if his statistics are to be believed, then majority of Nigerians will bear the brunt of Jonathan’s provocative act.

Before I am verbally lynched, I want us to ponder certain questions and give ourselves honest answers. Does the fact that Jonathan, Azazi the National Security Adviser (NSA) and Oritsejafor all come from the Niger Delta, has anything to do with the exponential rise in violence in the country? Does this fact confer immunity on the perpetrators and therefore their impunity? Lest we forget, Azazi was the one indicted by an Investigative Panel set up to unravel how weapons got missing from the Armoury of 1 Division, Nigerian Army, Kaduna while he was the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Division. It was the biggest theft ever of arms and ammunition in the military and all the weapons were traced to the Niger Delta militants. The man resurfaced as the NSA without answering questions raised by the findings of the Panel under his kinsman. To complete the troika, Oritsejafor emerged the leader of the Christian faithful in the country.

The demographic configuration of northern Nigeria is drastically different from the southern part. Of the fabled 250 ethnic groups in the country, over 240 should be found in the north, with practically every tribe having adherents of either Islam or Christianity. It is not unusual to see siblings belonging to different religions. This therefore calls for restraint among and between us. It is on record that a month after the convocation of a conference of “ethnic minorities” in Jos in 2001, communal violence broke out and ten after, peace is yet to return to this once destination of choice. If some people succeed in igniting a religious war between adherents of the different religions in the north, only God knows when, how or where it will come to an end. Retreating to either our ethnic or religious shells won’t help us out of the material poverty we find ourselves in. let us tarry awhile, think deep and try to unravel in whose interests these killings are taking place.

We should all come together to fight the poverty elevation of the Jonathan administration, its educational apartheid policy where you have over six thousand people from the Niger Delta are currently in various countries undergoing one training or the other while not a single person from all the three political zones in the north, Muslim or Christian, is considered worthy of being trained or educated. The unemployment and lack of opportunities ravaging the north does not discriminate religion or ethnicity. If you go through the list of projects the Jonathan said they will execute with the ‘windfall’ from the petrol price increase, you realise 90% of the projects are to be located outside the north.

How does fighting each other improve our educational level or employment opportunities or even reduce our poverty situation? It is time we sit up and realise we are in this for the long haul. Our common enemy is the government and not Muslims or Christians among us.

WHAT IS IN A NAME?

A very dangerous pattern is emerging in both the politics and socio-cultural relations of the people of Adamawa state that in my opinion will not augur well for the state if left unchecked. These days whatever action or inaction taken by either the state or federal government is given religious or tribal connotations. Failed politicians are running from pillar to post trying to convince a large segment of the people of the state to always look at actions of the various tiers of government with suspicion. Those who lost out in the political chess game systematically embarked on a deliberate campaign of hate against a certain group. Rather than retreating to re-strategize and fight another day within the civilised norms of political battle, they resorted to taking the Hutu solution for their perceived Tutsis. The conflagration that may be the consequences of this primitive approach may affect everyone when the shit really hits the fan.

People who should know better than to stoke the embers of ethno-religious hatred, unfortunately are at the forefront of this campaign. People that ideally should provide leadership to all, irrespective of creed or tribe – those who were once trusted with leadership positions, academics, technocrats, etc. – in trying to reinvent themselves, are the ones beating the drums of war and hatred on flimsy excuses, banking on our naivety and gullibility. My take on this is that, while holding public and civil service offices, these people never took a single decision that wasn’t coloured in either religion or ethnic sentiments. The current ethnicisation of issues in the state (in the open, anyway) began barely five years ago with the lost of power by some people and to them, the surest and easiest way of getting back to reckoning is to appeal to these twin primordial sentiments – particularly religion – which is a very emotive issue to all and sundry in Nigeria. Every single decision taken by any of the tiers of government, particularly as it affects Adamawa State, is interpreted to be in favour of a certain segment of the society not minding that it may not be in the interests of those perceived to be benefitting.

The recent renaming of the Federal University of Technology, Yola provided an opportunity for these opportunists to once again come out with the usual unthought-of rhetoric. The federal government decided in its own wisdom to rename its university in Yola to Modibbo Adama University of Technology, from the Federal University of Technology, in honour of the founder of the Fombina Emirate over two hundred years ago. The Fombina Emirate once extended to as far as the Cameroun and in its diminished form the foundations of the present Adamawa state. When the colonialists came to the area and discovered an administrative and judicial system that was at par with what obtained in their country, if not better than their own, they were so impressed that on the creation of the Northern group of provinces, the area was named ‘Adamawa Province’ in honour of Modibbo Adama. This was done without prejudice to any tribe or religion. It was purely done to give honour where it was due. His pioneering administrative skills were what were honoured by the colonialists and nothing else. The current emirate and chieftaincy system all over the state owe its existence to Modibbo Adama.

When the Babangida regime decided to split the defunct Gongola state into two, one was named Adamawa state and no one read any meaning into it. Before then, General Buhari had downgraded this same University that its renaming is turned into a matter of life and death for some, to a campus of the University of Maiduguri and named it Modibbo Adama Campus. Not a single eyebrow was raised because no political capital was to be made out of it then. It was the Babangida government with Professor Aminu as Education minister that upgraded the school once again and reverted to its former name of Federal University of Technology. Yola (FUTY). No one complained of any ethnic biasness. Why is it now that the federal government has decided to rename the school once more in honour of Modibbo Adama, the decision has suddenly taken such a nihilistic dimension? Why do otherwise cultured people, including academics, threatening thunder and brimstone for such an innocuous action by the federal government.

Institutions and other government establishments have been named to honour or immortalise certain individuals in the country since time and this was never done with any ethnic or religious biases, as far as I know. University of Sokoto is now Usumanu Danfodio University. We have Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Bayero University Kano, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nsukka, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi and so many other institutions of higher learning are named after individuals whom the government believed have contributed immensely to the development of the area one way or the other. Yet these names hasn’t improved or decrease the quality of scholarship of the institutions. In every state capital of this blighted nation roads, buildings, bridges and other important places are named after individuals not because of their religious or tribal affiliations. There is even a road in Bauchi named after Boni Haruna – I can’t fathom his contribution or connection to the town. I believe I have more claim to being honoured by the people of Bauchi – at least I attended the defunct Government Secondary School, Bauchi.

With the rumoured intention of the federal government to name the Yola International Airport as Aliyu Mustafa International Airport, the knives are out once again. For those who do not know, the late Lamido Aliyu Mustafa is the immediate past Lamido Adamawa and the father of the current Lamido. He died in 2010 after being the Lamido for fifty-seven years. His reign was firm, decisive and just. He had worked with administrations from the colonialists to the current Nyako administration. The late Lamido was a father to all and was never known to turn back anyone from his presence. His sense of justice and fairness was what endeared him to all that came to his court. That was why he was able to reign for such a long period of time without any problem. How can immortalising such a man be a threat to the peaceful coexistence between and among the people of the state? If there is any ulterior motive to this opposition, then we should know.

Resorting to ethno-religious ‘cold war’ will not move us forward but rather retard our growth. It can only endanger suspicion and mistrust among the people of the state. Those at the vanguard of promoting such will be well advised to stand before their mirrors and ask themselves soul-searching questions. Most, if not all, of them had the opportunity to write their names in gold and be counted when the time for counting comes but chose to write their names in charcoal. It was nobody’s fault that they are now footnotes in the developmental history of the state.

I just hope the common folk will wake up from their slumber to realise that ethnic irredentist always use them as cannon fodder for their politically motivated violent battles.