Nigeria: Why Southern Kaduna is in Everyone of Us.

It is Zango Kataf today, but it might be your city, your countryside tomorrow. They have the money and they have the power. And they are not afraid to use them. They are less than 5% of our population. But they are everywhere, spreading their tentacles with impunity, unleashing mayhem, and perpetuating their interests unhinged. And they are the unseen hands of Nigerian political power equations and security meltdown.

April 25, 2016, about 500 armed Fulani Herders invaded Nimbo Village in Enugu State at about 6 a.m. in the early morning. They came without notice, and at about 7 a.m., they began the onslaught. They slaughtered, killed, maimed, and disappeared into the tin air just the way they came. It was a very successful mission. And I remember seeing the State Governor crying like a baby on TV at the sight of a butchered cadaver of a lady, with machete cuts all over her head.

If they had wanted to sack the traditional ruler of Nimbo Village and impose one of their own as the king, similar to what took place in Kwara and some parts of Kogi, Kaduna, and the entire North West pre-amalgamation, they would have succeeded. How did they get to Nimbo Village? How come when the Governor called Abuja, the IGP, and the State Commissioner of Police for help, help did not come? So, there is Southern Kaduna in every one of us, in our villages, and in our state capitals.

Same period: Two Ibo women were abducted by Fulani Herders, and the villagers came together to initiate a rescue operation. And like a bolt from the blue, some armed military boys descended on Ogwaneshi village in a military vehicle and arrested about 70 young men and elders of the village. Their offence was that they were allegedly planning a reprisal attack on Fulani settlers who kidnapped the two women. They took the arrested men to the Umuhia Army Station and released them after about two weeks. Who gave the order for their arrest? Now, you know the military connection or collusion.

There are some forces within the Nigerian Armed Forces who are above the law. Their loyalty is neither to the army nor to the Nigerian nation-state, but to about one per cent of the Northern Hausa/Fulani oligarchy who control the wealth and power of this country. If you want to know what they do with power and how they use power, go and read El-Rufai's book, "The Accidental Public Servant." (I don't mean this in a negative sense). (If I am not a fan or admirer of President Goodluck Jonathan, it is because he didn't know what to do with power.) If you think what's going on right now in Southern Kaduna is a Northern problem, think again. It's already happening in your neck of the woods.

Southern Kaduna is burning. Yes, indeed, it is burning, and people are dying in record numbers. And the Middle-Belt, made up of Benue and Plateau, has been burning since the amalgamation. Not left out is the North-East of the famed Prince Idris Alooma of the Kanem Bornu Empire. Today, the cosmopolitan detribalized Maiduguri is turning apart, and at war with the unknown. Thanks, of course, to Boko Haram. But the Governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Zulum, disagreed. “It is complete sabotage… I cannot end my interview without clearly stating what happened yesterday. As far as I am concerned, there was no Boko Haram yesterday (Wednesday). It was a serious shooting by the Nigerian armed forces while ‘residing’ in Baga. The situation is very embarrassing.” Premium Times, August 02, 2020. 

Historically, there is something peculiar about the enumerated cities or regions in the preceding paragraph. They overpowered Uthman Dan Fodio and resisted his foreign warriors, who waged a conquering mission against them many years ago. This time around, the invaders are waging an undeclared war in continuation of Uthman Dan Fodio's mission, which was unaccomplished. If you think it is Southern Kaduna's problem today, think again. And remember what happened to Nimbo village in Anambra State on April 25, 2016. 

I am not a bigot or an ethnic chauvinist. I am of a minority tribe, and I do not subscribe to the "it is the turn of my tribe to produce the next President" brouhaha. The religious and ethnic background or the geographical location of my President does not matter to me. My focus is on equal rights and justice, egalitarianism, and what is good for Nigeria as a country, and everyone of us.

Thanks to President Buhari, bigotry, cronyism, and ethnic chauvinism are tearing Nigeria apart. He has transformed a popular democracy into an Oligarchy. And armed bandits are roaming our villages and countrysides killing, kidnapping, raping and dispossessing lawful citizens of their earnings and cultivated farmlands. As lawlessness and bloodshed desecrate the land, the Service Chiefs are luxuriating in obscene wealth, unconcerned. To borrow President Donald Trump's term, President Buhari's administration is a complete disaster. I hold this view not because he is a Muslim or a Hausa/Fulani of Northern extraction, but because it is the indisputable truth. He is a disaster.