What do the ethnic nationalities want from Nigeria? What do the Yoruba want from Nigeria? What do the Ijaw and the South-South want from Nigeria? What do the Igbo want from Nigeria? What do the people of the Middle Belt want from Nigeria What do the Hausa and Fulani want from Nigeria? What do the Kanuri want from Nigeria? A sincere, honest answer to this question will expose what the root cause of the Nigerian problem is. The desire of any group of people (or humanity in genera) is to have a good life. What defines a good life? 1. SHELTER over your head to protect you from the elements. If you can own it, the better; 2. FOOD on your table 3 times a day. If you can have all the jollies in-between, the better; 3. HEALTH: To be healthy at all times, and to have access to good affordable medi-care when the need arises. If this comes via a National Health Insurance Scheme, the better; 4. EDUCATION: An educated mind is a liberated mind, which can generate ideas to improve on what you met. If it is free and compulsory, the better for the nation; 5. INFRASTRUCTURE: The provision of basic societal infrastructure like roads, water, electricity, gas, drainage; 6. SECURITY of lives and properties. The Yoruba of the South Western part of Nigeria want to provide all these and more for their people. The Nigerian contraption has failed to provide all these since the end of Regionalism and Parliamentary Democracy in the sixties. The military government ended the phenomenal government and policies of Obafemi Awolowo, which had ensured the continuous provision of all the above. In all indices, retrogression was the case in Yorubaland during all the years of the military and the unitary constitution that succeeded it. *The Yoruba want total separation from Nigeria, or in a worst case scenario, Regional Autonomy. The people of the South-South, from whose terrains and land most of the oil that is keeping the Nigerian economy afloat is derived, feel that they have nothing to show for all the years of exploitation and blighting of their land, and during which their main occupation of fishing and farming had been destroyed. On the other hand they can see the oil booming in other parts of the country with many billionaires emerging elsewhere while their terrain remains blighted and their people remain condemned to abject poverty. They want to control their resources so that they can judiciously apply its riches to their needs before the oil dries up. *The South-South want 100% Resource Control. The Igbo of the South East are a landlocked people whose historical evolution as stateless, autonomous and atomistic societies contributed immensely to the small space of land which they occupy in Nigeria relative to their very large population size which has qualified them as one of the 3 majority tribes in Nigeria. Thus Igboland is the most densely populated land space in Africa. In addition, the available land is over farmed and blighted by erosion, and realising that what they have most in abundance is the human resource, which cannot find full expression in such a confined space, the Igbo emigrate in droves to other lands and other climes. In the light of this, and beyond any other demand they may have, the Igbo want full citizenship rights in all parts of Nigeria to guarantee their full right to land, to vote and be voted for and to conduct their trade without let or hindrance. *The Igbos want the Indigene-Settler issue fully resolved. They want access to the sea to enhance their trading activities. The people of the Middle Belt of Nigeria are many and varied, but one thing is clear and common to all of them. Their collective exploitation and domination by the Fulani Sultanate since the Uthman Dan Fodio jihad of 1804. They have been attacked, killed and used as pawns against the people of the south in various wars and uprisings. Till date, all their efforts to have a voice of their own had been denied and frustrated by the jihadists. The Middle Belt is a zone blessed with solid minerals, hydro-electric power generating capacities and fertile agricultural land. *The Middle Belt want freedom from their northern exploiters plus access to the sea. The Hausa are a completely subjugated people whose authentic voices are not being heard. They are completely subsumed under their Fulani conquerors. Do they desire freedom? Nobody knows. But am sure, deep down, they desire freedom from their oppressors. Is the North-East (Kanuri) represented by the agitation of Boko Haram? The leaders seem to be saying no to the extension of the federal government imposed state of emergency. The zone is the poorest in the whole country. Is the Boko Haram insurgency a protest in this regard. Is it why they want nothing further to do with western education? Definitely they desire a better life and the debilitating poverty that is their lot today. The Fulani are scattered all over the north because they have no part of this country to call their own ancestral land. They are not indigenous to any part of Nigeria, but since they totally conquered the Hausa during the Uthman dan Fodio jihad, they have appropriated all of Hausaland, and extended, via British colonial magic, that appropriation to the whole north and all of Nigeria. This imperialistic tendency and greed for other people lands drives the Fulani who, in addition are nomadic cattle-rearers who are constantly in search of grazing pastures to feed their flock, thereby coming into constant conflict with farmers on whose crops the cows invariably feed. The founder of the Fulani Sultanate, Uthman Dan Fodio and his great grandson, who later became premier of the north, in the first republic, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, both declared that they want to bury the Quran in the sea. *So the Fulani want to appropriate other peoples land and dominate from the desert to the sea. We can easily deduce from the above which groups desires will cause the least friction, and which will cause the most, which are realistic and which are unattainable, which can be granted peacefully and which can only lead to bloodshed. -George Akinola
Posted on: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 20:40:17 +0000
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