Only one who cares nothing for his/her nation will work tireless to destroy it like many of our leaders and even the rest of us do.
Newton Jibunoh
The saying that one cannot have one’s cake and eat it may be lost on our dear nation, Nigeria. Here we eat the nation’s cake and still manage to share it at the same time. Certainly, this played a role in how and why I became an activist almost 50 years ago and now at more than 80 years old, maintain my stand by writing in The Sun newspaper every week, even though I may not be able to carry on for too long. In this week’s column, I have looked back as much as I can while agreeing and yet still disagreeing with the fact that my activism may have brought little or no benefit to my country, Nigeria, that I love so much. I will start with some benefits before the disappointments as the latter are too many to count and will most likely take up the entire article, if I choose to begin with them.
So, for the benefits, I start with the friendships I enjoyed with the late Alhaji Ado Bayero, who was the Emir of Kano, and Engr. Magagi Abdullahi, the then Deputy Governor of Kano State. These friendships, which started as a result of my activism, enabled me to conduct a pilot project of reclaiming degraded land with my Wall of Trees project. I was able to bring back greenery, restore farmland and grazing fields to Makoda, Dambatta area of Kano State, that was being ravaged by desertification. We were also able to slow down migration, which was a big problem as farmers with no more fertile land were moving to greener pastures and abandoning Makoda. As a sign of gratitude, the community built a thatch house for me in the middle of nowhere and fenced the house, which was inaugurated by the Emir of Kano himself.
After the project at Makoda, I was conferred with a national honour of the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON). The inauguration of the pilot project was witnessed by the British High Commission, the Kano State governor, his deputy and the Emir of Kano. If the pilot project were replicated the way we had planned along the fringes of the Sahara, there would have been very little or no migration by herdsmen that are now about to destroy the nation.
Another benefit of my activism was the repair of the third mainland bridge, something I am drawn back to by the recent announcement of another repair work coming up soon. Many years ago, Basil Okafor, who was then the editor of The Sun newspaper, and I almost lost our lives navigating through rough waters while trying to take photographs of the exposed reinforcements and cracks in the bridge during our investigation of the bridge’s settlement and the expansion joints. Okafor published the story with the headline “3rd mainland bridge will collapse in 10 years if nothing is done.” The story and pictures were published after a lengthy interview with me. A few weeks later, the bridge was closed and some remedial works were carried out.
My activism journey also brought me close to the then governor of Lagos State when he started the cleanup of Lagos State. He made me an Ambassador and I participated in most of the greenery works at that time. I also became part of the greening of Ogun State and, currently, Asaba, Delta State.
All these works I performed under the umbrella of my non-governmental organisation, FADE (Fight Against Desert Encroachment). My cherished friendship with the current deputy director of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, started during the course of my activism. Back in Makoda, we encountered a problem, which was water. To ensure the continuity of our Wall of Trees project in the region, a
All these works I performed under the umbrella of my non-governmental organisation, FADE (Fight Against Desert Encroachment). My cherished friendship with the current deputy director of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, started during the course of my activism. Back in Makoda, we encountered a problem, which was water. To ensure the continuity of our Wall of Trees project in the region, a tree planting competition was constituted among secondary schools, where each school would allocate a plot of land for developing a mini forest as we liked to call it. There was, therefore, a need to ensure each school had sufficient water for proper irrigation to nurture the trees they were planting. In cases where the school had no water, we, as FADE, drilled deep boreholes for them. In one instance, I remember one of the schools within the vicinity of one section of the Hadejia-Jama’are River Basin Development Authority’s irrigated farms. The principal approached the farm for assistance with water delivery to the school, and was turned down. I decided to wade in.
I received audience from the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Millennium Development Goals, who at that time was Mrs. Amina Mohammed. Amina, as I call her, escalated the matter to the management of the river basin authority. Within a few short weeks, a water line was extended to the school for their use in nurturing the plants and other needs. The school now has constant water supply that they can purify for potable water needs. Her intervention was so swift and thorough. From then on, I developed a deep respect for her.
There are some more benefits but I will pause at these for now because I would like to share some of my disappointments. Though many, I will try to list the ones I can this week, to continue next week. Most of my disappointments started over 40 years ago; to be able to back my activism with detailed data and information; I had to go back to the Ben Gurion University in Israel to study the science of desertification. To date, I have not been able to explain how our population went from six million at Independence to close to 150 million in the year 2000 despite the huge amount of money that has been invested in population commissions. One of the projects the massive funding of the population commission was used for some 20 years ago, was the identity card project. Till date, we are yet to properly catalogue every citizen and give them an ID card. Those of us that even registered for one have not been able to collect our cards.
Migration is at an all-time high, bringing with it conflict and chaos. Mind you, I am not against cross-border migration, many nations of the world have been built by immigrants. The recent FIFA World Cup victory is there for the world to see that migration can be a thing of good, as majority of the French players were the children of migrants. We have Nigerians in parliaments around the world. Even Germany that sought to exterminate Jews and blacks some 70 years ago is now reaping the benefits of the migrants who they didn’t exterminate and have lived to flourish in the nation. But what these countries have is an almost perfect record of those in their cities and where to find them. We don’t, and, if left unchecked, this can become a cause of grave concern.
Over the weeks, I have written a lot about various pertinent issues from corruption being a curse and proffering solutions, to writing about the origin of the herdsmen’s crises, with some solutions to help curb the violence. One thing that rings true in all the different scenarios is the lack of patriotism that abounds in the country because only one who cares nothing for his/her nation will work tireless to destroy it like many of our leaders and even the rest of us do. I recall an incident during a visit to Accra, Ghana, and how I witnessed a citizen arrest at work. It all happened when a taxi driver lost control of his car and ran into a cable pole by the roadside. The impact caused the pole to come down. Immediately, people gathered and the taxi driver was arrested by members of the public before the arrival of the police. It was very different from mob justice, which is against the law of the land and humanity. The driver wasn’t assaulted but made to stay put until the police arrived. The main lesson for me was the respect people had for public property. The cable pole, to the people, belonged to everyone and so they had a responsibility to safeguard it or, like in this case, ensure that it was properly attended to. Here in Nigeria, the taxi driver would have been on his merry way because, as long as it is for the ‘government,’ no one cares.
Next week, I will be discussing the issue of patriotism because most of us lack a sense of belonging and it is not easy to be patriotic when you don’t belong.
The fraudulent political name Nigeria is dead and gone forever- it is Yugoslavia of Africa. There was never a country or nation in this natives territory of Disintegrated Republics. It has been frau from the beginning in 1914 to this end using the fraudulent political name Nigeria and fulani fraudulent criminal sultanate political government with its emirates with the brainwashed terrorism mercenaries nickname military, police etc. which has come to an end under the natives Disintegrated Republics which must be defended with the Sword in this final conquest of the Liberation Revolutionary Warfare of the natives which ends in Sokoto- the sit of the satan of this natives territory. Nothing on earth will keep fulani fraudulent criminal sultanate political government with its emirates in this natives territory of Disintegrated Republics. Nothing on earth will keep the dead fraudulent political name Nigeria in this natives territory of Disintegrated Republics. Nothing on earth will keep the enemy’s brainwashed terrorism mercenaries nickname military, police etc. in this natives territory of Disintegrated Republics. Freedom of this territory natives of this generation from the bondage of the fraudulent political name Nigeria controlled by British bandits and fraudulent criminal America with their fraudulent criminal UN of 20th century world international order using fulani fraudulent criminal sultanate political government with its emirates and the brainwashed terrorism mercenaries nickname military, police etc., is a must with the Sword in this final conquest of the Liberation Revolutionary Warfare of the natives which ends in Sokoto- the sit of the satan of this natives territory. Freedom of northern natives from fulani bondage via fulani fraudulent criminal sultanate political government with its emirates is a must with the Sword in this final conquest of the Liberation Revolutionary Warfare of the natives. Any this territory native who do not join the Revolution with the Sword now under the natives Disintegrated Republics, must go down in the hands of the enemy or with the enemy in this final conquest of the Liberation Revolutionary Warfare of the natives which ends in Sokoto- the sit of the satan of this natives territory. God given Victory is the natives. Only the Sword decides. God Is With Us!!!