Thanks to Abba Mahmood for this insightful piece. Nigeria And Its Loose Cannons by : Abba mahmood 7/11/13 On page 63 of the Sunday Sun of November 3, 2013, Niger Delta militant Dokubo-Asari is reported as saying that, in 2015, Jonathan will rule “with or without elections”. He further castigated the political adviser to President Jonathan, saying: “Gulak is an enemy of the president. He is promoting the Gambari interest at the expense of the president.” Dokubo even said, “Every blessed day that I wake up, it is my prayer that Nigeria should disintegrate.” Known anarchists such as Asari, who do not even want to be called Nigerians but are pretending to be helping the president, walk freely. The police do not go after them but they go after elected governors who meet in government houses. These loose cannons do not want to be Nigerians but they want to hold the country to ransom so that Dr Jonathan will continue to be president of Nigeria! Two months ago, I got a copy of a book on the amalgamation of Nigeria written by Major General Sam Momah, the minister of science and technology under both generals Abacha and Abubakar. In the introductory part of the book, precisely page 7, he makes a curious revelation that I never heard of before: that the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates to form Nigeria in 1914 by Lord Lugard was meant to be for 100 years! He does not quote where he got this information. And, a little over a month ago, I read an interview by a Niger Delta activist who goes by the name Alhaji Mumaka Unagha in Delta Voice newspaper, Vol.7 No.152, Oct.3-17, 2013, page 11, where he says that by December 31, 2013, all instruments that bind the union of Nigeria will cease and Nigeria will be no more! Then came a piece of opinion paper written by Prof. Ben Nwabueze entitled “North and South Divide as an Obstacle to the Creation of a Nation and National Front”. Nwabueze is the leader of the group that goes by the name “The Patriots” which recently went to the villa to call on President Jonathan to convene a sovereign national conference. Many have described him as a “constitutional” lawyer but there is nothing called constitutional lawyer in English. His main contact with decision-making in Nigeria was when General Babangida appointed him secretary (minister) of education in the Shonekan-led interim national government (ING). He, in other words, helped to bury the June 12 election and was part of the illegal contraption called ING which a Lagos high court declared illegal. So much for a lawyer and a patriot! Before, or since then, Nwabueze has never aspired to any elective office. He is afraid of seeking a proper mandate from the people but is comfortable with serving a military dictatorship that came to power via the barrel of the gun. When he was serving the military, he saw no contradictions but now thinks a military-decreed constitution is illegal! That is why he is advocating a “sovereign” national conference of “ethnic” nationalities to determine the “basis” of our existence as a nation. Nwabueze”s paper on the North-South divide is full of anger and bitterness about the relative cohesion of northern Nigeria vis- a-vis the bitter competition among the southern groups. Nwabueze argued, unsuccessfully, that there is nothing as “northern Nigeria politically, geographically and culturally”. He has not seen the contradiction in the fact that since he is arguing against its existence then he has consciously and unconsciously accepted that the north indeed exists whether, as he said, it is “true” or “middle” north. He reserves his greatest venom on Watareghu Paul Unongo. Nwabueze cannot understand how Unongo, a Christian from Benue State, will continue to describe himself as a northerner and even be a spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum! Hold your breath “learned friend”. Benue State is an integral part of the defunct Northern Region, so Unongo is a northerner. Besides, Chief Paul Unongo’s father was a Tiv from Benue while his mother was a Fulani from Kano! Can Nwabueze’s outburst unwind this bond in 2013? Just like the Europeans did not clothe these Savannah empires or teach them statecraft, the unity among the various ethnic groups in the northern states preceded colonialism. The late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the only premier of the Northern Region of Nigeria, was a direct descendant of the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, Usman Dan Fodio, but his mother was a Bachama/Mumuye from Adamawa/Taraba state. Gen. Gowon’s paternal grandmother, Malama Laraba, was Fulani while his dad was Angas which is a subgroup of the Bolewa, Mallam Adamu Ciroma’s group, which in turn is a sub-group of the Kanuri of Borno Empire! Mazi Nwabueze should reconcile himself with the fact that the unity goes back to centuries and is deep-rooted. Nwabueze quotes the respected bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, who wrote in his book Witness to Justice about some Nigerian security chiefs appointed by Abacha who happened to be from the north. But he conveniently refuses to mention that, throughout the Abacha administration, the director-general of the State Security Service (SSS) was Mr Peter Nwaduah, an Igbo. He also refuses to mention that all the service chiefs – army, Bamaiyi; navy, Akhigbe; and air force, Eduak – were all Christians. Indeed, before Akhigbe, Abacha appointed the first service chief of Igbo extraction since Ironsi, Admiral Allison Madueke, husband of the current petroleum minister, as chief of naval staff. Prof Nwabueze quotes Chief Idika, the Kano State chairman of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, who said in an interview with Vanguard newspaper that the Boko Haram insurgency was a creation of northern political, religious and traditional class. Is it? How come that the Shehu of Borno, the second highest traditional ruler in the north, and the deputy governor of Borno were attacked by the insurgents in a mosque in Maiduguri? How come one of the most powerful traditional rulers in the north and indeed Nigeria, the respected Emir of Kano Alhaji Ado Bayero, was attacked this year and some of his bodyguards died in the process? How logical is it that northerners would create what is killing them as a strategy? It must be a stupid strategy! Prof. Nwabueze must remember that a substantial part of Cameroon Republic was part of Adamawa Emirate before the advent of colonialism; a substantial part of Chad and even Libya were parts of the old Borno Empire; and a good part of Niger Republic was part of the Sokoto Caliphate, but for the colonial incursion. But no one is making any claims to all these. If he is ignorant of his past, others are not. Thus, living in diversity is nothing new to those he tries to castigate. The first-generation leaders of Nigeria were criticised for not being nationalistic enough. It appears subsequent leaders are even less nationalistic. Ignorant people who are not educated or exposed enough, and who are looking for what to eat, can be forgiven if they exhibit their ignorance. But it is very sad when otherwise experienced and exposed elders try to embark upon the misrepresentation and misinterpretation of Nigerian history and even try to put the country on fire. Professors are supposed to profess the truth and lawyers are supposed to deal in facts and not beer parlour fictions. Nwabueze is not scientific in his analysis; his writing in this regard lacks any logic, and his presentations have no basis in history or reality. It is a pity that instead of trying to move ahead as Africans, to confront the challenge of bad governance facing us as Nigerians, Nwabueze is dwelling on a past that he appears obviously ignorant of. Our problems are not tribes or religions but corruption and bad governance.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 17:40:20 +0000
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