By Sen. Ahmed Babba Kaita
No gainsaying the North is passing through a very difficult time; somehow reduced to some sort of a garbage bin where every trash is dumped and life moves on without anybody noticing either from within or without. One could easily and provably say the biggest crime in Nigeria today is being a Northerner.
Today, from Muhammadu Buhari, the northerner elected president with a landslide and whose popularity also unprecedentedly sent a ruling party packing (from top to bottom) down to the poor northern citizens struggling to survive whether at home in the North or elsewhere, no northerner is saved the seemingly coordinated, very divisive and totally unnecessary onslaught against the North by the South. This trend must stop and must stop now!
That the river is calm doesn’t mean there are no crocodiles beneath. That the North is taking physical and verbal insults stoically and with dignified silence doesn’t mean the North is either out of reprisal options or is lacking in expertise in how the play the game the way it’s crazily and irresponsibly being played. The silence of the North which, by the way, is no longer golden, is to sustain the corporate integrity of Nigeria by enhancing and encouraging mutual respect and civilized political responses that may speedily develop Nigeria into the giant envisaged by our forefathers — a dream captured adequately in our constitution and made manifestly clear by their sacrifices to the Nigerian project for which some of them gruesomely paid the supreme price.
Simple adherence to the thoughts and beliefs of our leaders past as wrapped in our constitution could have resolved most of the real (even the imaginary) contentious issues on which basis the North is being physically and verbally assaulted by mostly misguided youths in the south who are operating with the tacit approval of their elders — elders who in turn seem to be misreading the dignified and matured silence of the North as a sign of fear and weakness.
But nobody should not ignore the fact that respect is reciprocal, that building a country is a joint-business anywhere in the world and Nigeria will not be the first exception. Great countries didn’t just spring from the belly of the earth. They were built with the brains and muscles of the youths and the wisdom of the elderly when pumped positively into the system with a sincerity of purpose. It’s then easy to understand that, pumped into system negatively with insincere purpose, the results are predictable on the negativity scale. The predictability of our negative choices is guide us safely away from these options no matter the cost.
The truth is, we may be diverse and belong to different tribes, regions and religions but we should understand that we share identical genetic make-up which undoubtedly make all of us susceptible to identical human tendencies and certainly open to the manipulation of the bad among us. In simple language, no region is holding the patent for violence, rudeness and incivility. As humans, we are all structured to be violent and inconsiderate at will, what matters is our ability to make our choices by forecasting and weighing the end results for proper assessment of the potential benefits and or lack of.
Notwithstanding, we should agree that no matter the dignity in the silence of northern leaders, it can hold only for a limit and its only reasonable to assume the limits of both the silence and patience of the North are now stretched to the fullest possible maximum especially given self-preservation as the first rule of human survival and the consistent degradation of northerners into somewhat an endangered specie in Nigeria. It will take only a little more for the system to snap and if anything, we should all be worried about the foreseeable consequences that could spell doom not only to Nigeria but to Africa as a continent. This, more than where the presidency goes or to whom, is what should be giving us sleeplessness. We first must have a country before we decide where or to whom the presidency goes.
This is a wakeup call to the leaders of all regions to review their options. The idea of people in the south killing northern dwellers legitimately in their midst to exploit their rights as citizens should be discouraged by the government no matter whose toes must be stepped on. It’s easily provable that only a few renegades in the south are orchestrating the ongoing mayhem to resolve political deficiencies and frustrations. Or does it make sense that the south, particular the Ndi’Igbo enclave, will be toying with the idea of setting Nigeria on fire with trillions of dollars investment scattered in every square inch of Nigeria? Only a pauper without a shop will toy with the idea of setting a market on fire.
Unless this rule is not applicable to Nigeria, we must agree the people attempting to set Nigeria on fire by pitching one region against the other are doing it for a fee — sponsored by few crisis-entrepreneurs who could pay or blackmail the remaining majority into conspiratorial silence. It will add up if we look at the illogicality and unreasonableness of Nnamdi Kanu usurping the powers and voices of the entire Ndi’Igbo!
The hows and whys a randy post independence urchin like Kanu achieved the leadership of an otherwise meticulous community with unmatched respect for leadership at all levels and in all situations is better left to imagination. The truth, however is, the Ndi’Igbo, up to the point they conceded power to Kanu, has one of the finest methods of leadership selection process. Perhaps, no tribe in Nigeria could be said to put more emphasis on age, character and wisdom in its leadership selection process than the Ndi’Igbo. Surely, students of Chinua Achebe from all corners of Nigeria will attest to this by reviewing his epic novel “Things Fall Apart” — incidentally, an excellent lesson in not how to allow good things fall apart, a lesson today’s deactivated leaders of the Ndi’Igbo ignored and which its new leaders like Kanu might not have grasped if they read at all.
The story isn’t any better in the Southwest. Sunday Igboho is to the Yoruba what Nnamdi Kanu is to the Ndi’Igbo — a violent tool of political negotiation. Perhaps, for every northerner that was lost to the negative influence of Kanu, another was lost to the equally negative influence of Igboho and to the eerie silence (in some cases, even support) of notable Yoruba leaders. It’s too coincidental for Governor Akeredolu to give an unconstitutional seven days notice to Northern fulani to vacate Ondo State only for a barely literate motorcycle mechanic, Sunday Igboho, to unleash mayhem and start killing Fulani and their cattle while razing down anything that may indicate they ever dwelled in the region.
Despite his deficient social and intellectual make-up, Sunday Igboho is the the Akoni Oodua of Yoruba Land, earned supposedly for fighting for the right of the Yorubas (read: killing in the name of the Yorubas). And if Igboho is not enough a deliberate creation to subdue the North by violence and blackmail, the equally illogical elevation of another murderous character, Ganiu Adams, the erstwhile OPC warlord, to the noble and prestigious position of “Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yoruba Land” will certainly putting the missing pieces in the puzzle. Nigerians cannot forget how Ganiu Adams ran amok and unleashed a murderous frenzy that ended the innocent lives of northerners in their thousands in the Southwest while the “Onis” and “Obas” and indeed, nearly all political leaders and leaders of thoughts watched in conspiratorial silence. Like Igboho, Adams was not rebuked much less, held accountable to the lives he killed or the investments of his victims that were lost forever.
Interestingly, rather than leaders of the Southwest to condemn the atrocities of these two hooligans and other hooligans with lesser visibility and submit them to the judicial processes they are subscribed as Nigerians — subscription indicated by their allegiance to the Nigerian constitution, they (Southwest leaders) affirmed their consent and approval in the method of violence and blackmail adopted by Adams and Igboho. This is easily provable given the determination of leaders of the region to build and arm “Amotekun” the contentious security outfit that could be anything other than what it’s pretentiously being described as.
Is the North not enlightened enough to decode these negative signals? Certainly no! The North is just civilized to keep to the terms of and conditions of the Nigerian project for as long as the region’s signature remains on the birth certificate of Nigeria. That’s not saying, however, the North will perpetually refuse to exploit extra-constitutional options to negotiate the safety of the lives and properties of its people if doing so is the only way left open to protect the region. We certainly don’t want to get there!
This is a wakeup call to all of us. Respect is reciprocal and like I said earlier, no region has the monopoly of violence or rascality. We are all slaves to our emotions and sentiments. That the North could keep its emotions and sentiments within the acceptable level expected of a volatile country like Nigeria, such tolerance should not be confused with foolishness or weakness. That the North is always looking the other way when President Buhari is being insulted with a frightening consistency from his days as a presidential candidate to now he’s serving his 2nd and final term for no reason other than his ethnic, regional and religious background, doesn’t mean the North is not versed in the art of insults to his critics using insults as a tool. The North is only more circumspect and fully subscribed to the concept civility and fairness as a tool for building a good country and nobody should take that for granted.
Nigeria is ours to build or mar. It requires more than we are individually putting on the table to create the atmosphere needed to make the greatness Nigeria is yearning for to happen and the earlier we get down to the real business of putting Nigeria on the path of healing and regrowth, the better and safer for all us. As a guide, we should always remember that for any northerner exposed to the silly antics of hooligans in the South, there two southerners exposed to the antics of hooligans of equal retrogressive make-up in the North. This is saying we should do anything within our individual powers to stop the thin thread holding up together from snapping.