…Use Religion as a tool to dumb them down…use ethnicity as a tool to fan the embers of hatred and then sit back and watch them burn themselves up…The template has remained the same…albeit with slight modifications from time to time…and nothing has changed. If anything, much worse…Folashade Oshun Let me quickly state that this admonition will step on toes, it will step on even legs, arms, and possibly shoulders; and this is because while not crediting all knowledge and expertise on the topic I am discussing, most of what I am about to share with us are largely true and thus it will hurt.
Whether we address ourselves as Hausa-Fulani or Fulani Hausa, fact is that Nigeria is currently under our leadership, so we have to own up to some amount of responsibility.
Few days ago, several Nigerians lost their lives in Kano, in clashes that involved the Shiites and Policemen…and the Inspector General of Police according to reports had this to say “Citizens should not be killed during riots, but he stressed: “If those involved in the riot are armed to the teeth, killing police officers, the method deployed by the police should be appreciated.”
“Killing police officers! I don’t think it happens anywhere. We have to appreciate a dangerous situation and be sympathetic with the police that are being killed by some of these miscreants.” The IG is from the North, the Shiites are from the North, and while criminality should not be tagged as any other thing than the crime, which it is…It is a shame that again alhajis are against alhajis.
This was how Boko Haram started, if the Shiites were armed to the teeth, how did they get armed from their feet to the teeth, who is responsible for ensuring that ordinary citizens are not armed whether in the legs or the teeth.
The term herdsmen, is like any other term, but add Fulani to it, and one wonders what exactly is the topic of discourse. Benue is north; Plateau is North, Zamfara, and even the President’s home state Katsina is north…however herdsmen of all colorations without refrain have ravaged these same places. Call them Fulani herdsmen, Hausa herdsmen, Cattle rustlers or Alhaji herdsmen, truth is that the umbrella body like Miyetti Allah, and the Alhajis on top have done very little to do much in reverse a dangerous building order.
Do I need to remind Alhajis of what has become a slow but steady extinction exercise being carried out in several Southern Kaduna villages, the North killing the North, the figures are alarming, even when the Senate for all it’s hollowness, made a feeble attempt by requesting for a state of emergency, we hushed the whole episode.
Villages are raided, women and children are killed in scores and people who claim to be brothers or at least brothers burn homes.
The Arewa Peoples Congress seem in recent times a retirement home for lame leaders, while the Northern Governors Forum are more concerned with running to the US like kids summoned by the headmaster and that is when they are not in Germany learning how to light a match stick.
The North is on fire, a fire set by herself. The issues are there, the whole nation despite a collective backward motion seems to be leaving us behind, while schools are springing up in the South, one of our alhajis on top is spending billions to build mosques, like another alhaji gave millions to rebuild burnt churches and mosques and you cannot but ask, when all the villages are empty who would attend these worship center.
While I grieved writing this admonition, the administrative secretary of the JNI who was kidnapped on his way to Kaduna, had been released, but that really is the end of story, just like months back when a top ECWA minister was equally held for several weeks in same Kaduna State.
While we watched the government opera of negotiating with Boko Haram, the same group continues to dissipate some of our best military hands. On one hand it may be safe to say that we are hated because we are Northerners, or because we are Muslims, but that is false, we are Northerners, we are not Muslims, we are Christians, we are Muslims, we are pagans, atheist, we are not Fulani Hausas, we are Hausas, we are Fulanis, we are Tarokh, Tivs, Idomas, Nupe, just to mention only a tiny number, and importantly we are a people against herself for selfish ends. Let me end this admonition in this manner by telling us the story of the Demanding Beggar as told by Mufti Taqi Uthmani.
He had mentioned an amazing interaction between himself and his honorable father Mufti Shafee (Rahmatullah Alayh). He says; “It was the habit of my father to always give beggars something. Once I was in the car with him. At a certain junction, we stopped. A beggar came and asked in a demanding voice for some money. My father took out something from his pocket & handed it over to him.
I submitted: “My father, these type of beggars are generally not worthy of being granted money. Should we give them or not?” The amazing answer, which he stated, is still engraved in the recesses of my heart. He said, “What u have said is correct. However, ponder, if we also have to receive from ALLAH Ta’ala according to our worth, then what will happen to us?”
The North of Nigeria remains at war with herself, just like Nigeria continues to fight herself, like Kano state is upset that it has been removed from the North East Development Commission, the problem is beyond a development commission but the refusal of the leadership of a people to get it right.
As we continue to grapple with an alamajri system, as we refuse to bring functional industrialization, as we continue to major in minor, spend our largesse on mass wedding, the distance between us and reality would continue to widen, and if we would get it right—Only time would tell.
Written by Prince Charles Dickson PhD.
