By: Ifeanyi Izeze
Self-deception as defined by the English Dictionary is “the act of fooling oneself, of wilfully not accepting the obvious.” It also means self-deceit and self-delusion.
How else could anybody have described the spate of insecurity ravaging the country today worse in parts of the country described as northern Nigeria if not to say that as long as the self-acclaimed northern leaders refuse to come out plain on the source(s) and motives for these killings in the region which is gradually been exported to the other sections of the country, the more the situation would deteriorate and become even more difficult to checkmate.
It’s our collective responsibility as Nigerians to make this country work-safe and secured, as we or rather some of us don’t have any other place to run to as our country. But the way some people have carried on in matters that affects our collective wellbeing as a nation of people, you’ll begin to think that Nigeria is just an option to them.
Throughout my life, I never had the privilege of living anywhere outside Nigeria. All my life has been spent here in the country and no one can convince me that the Fulani herders, cattle ‘rearers,’ as we popularly called them that had lived together peacefully with their hosts anywhere they found themselves across the country suddenly metamorphosed into killer machines even in the north in areas you can right say is their traditional territories.
States like Zamfara, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto etc. used to be the traditional home states of the Fulanis (the ones we call the nomadic Fulanis). These states are they not worse off in terms of senseless killings by what has become convenient for our leaders particularly northern leaders to call “Banditry”?
When this thing started, it was deceptively coloured to look like a Muslim against Christians fight but even the vision- impaired can clearly see that it is far from that. The mayhem in some northern states- Zamfara, Katsina, Kebbi, even Sokoto states including parts of Adamawa state are far heavier on the Muslims.
Agreed we have cases that purely Christian communities in the north have been deliberately targeted for annihilation but that’s another aspect of this now ever-evolving security challenge that’s conveniently called banditry.
In a recent interview on Channels Television by Professor Kunle Olawunmi, Retired Army General and a former Director, Directorate of Military Intelligence, it was said that when this madness started as Boko Haram in the Northeast, that the military, the NIA, and the DSS in 2012 or there about moved into action and some of the people causing trouble were arrested and interrogated. According to him, some names of sponsors of the terrorists were mentioned and tragically they were not arrested for reasons best known to the security chiefs and those that ran the government at that time. And now, as he disclosed, some of the names mentioned are state governors in the north, some in the National Assembly particularly the Senate, and interestingly, some even in the Presidency as we talk.
Haven been around the political circles for some time now, it can be authouritatively stated that this whole thing about banditry came up in the events running up to the gang- up against Goodluck Jonathan in 2012- 2014 and ultimately into 2015 Presidential election.
It would have been expected that after General Buhari was declared winner of the 2015 presidential election and Jonathan accepted the results as declared by INEC without making any trouble, that the built-up counter-combat force engineered on ground to checkmate whatever Jonathan and his people may want to do, would have simply be dismantled or vanished into the thin air but it was not to be so.
The urgent task before the northern leaders (political and religious) is to sit back together and first tell themselves the bitter truth about how their areas got to where they are today that most of them now live in Abuja and Kaduna and dare not go to their various communities and/or states. And even the Abuja and Kaduna safe havens are fast becoming not -too -safe for them also.
The truth option is all that is needed in this matter (first amongst themselves, the northern leaders political and religious) as that would be the first step in any honest effort towards finding a workable solution to the spate of these senseless bloodsheds going on in the region and elsewhere in the country.
What is happening in the north is drawing the already grossly backward region into a more pitiable situation as no meaningful development- human and socio-economic, can take place there in a region that should be in a hurry to catch up with other sections of the country.
Whether they want to hear this or not, the North today is in real terms the “Conquered” region not even the Southeast that lost the civil war. And regrettably, the region conquered itself by cult followership of selfish and greedy leaders- political and religious who know what to do but would not because they deliberately want to keep their people subjugated. Everything is turned into politics even minor things that can be done to improve the lot of the citizens in that part of the country.
A former state governor in the Northwest, the zone now worst hit by this banditry nuisance was copiously captured on television interview few years ago saying he can no longer continue “to pay these people indefinitely.” He said “they should return to where they came from.”
The big question now is: who are or rather who were the people being paid by some northern state governments to pacify them not to become recalcitrant?
Where did they come from and do they finally returned to where they came from or allowed to just dispersed or rather dissolved into some states where they now constitute obvious nuisance to peace and security of lives and properties?
No matter what colour anybody is going to give to what is happening in some northern states, whether it’s because of illegal mining or extortion from local farmers, what is not good is not good! That’s all I would say.
Nobody can convince me that this menace of banditry and senseless killings in the north and elsewhere in the country is by our own Fulani herdsmen. The herders we know in this country before now don’t kill men, women, and children in communities where they tend their cattle, sheep/rams, and sometimes even goats.
Our own Fulanis as we knew them used to be very peaceful and friendly carrying their herders’ stick and knives at best. Are these same people the ones that suddenly metamorphosed into AK 47, K-2 and other sophisticated riffles and at times even machine guns and rocket launchers.
And if not, where did these ones come from, who brought them, who are they fighting with or rather who are they working for and to what end?
Is it not curious that up till now there has never been a single regional outrage over the continuing massacres and dastardly acts against our peoples not just in the north but also in the south? Where are all the fire-brand northern leaders/elites in this matter or is there a conspiracy of purpose that the rest of us do not know?
It was unbelievable that some northern leaders- political and religious including the Governor of Kano state and his likes could be so outraged by whatever happened in Uromi, Edo State between the Edo state local Vigilantes and people freely travelling around with riffles and huge catches of naira notes calling themselves hunters but could not raise an iota of concern and spirited condemnation about the daily massacres of the same northerners in Zamfara, Katsina, Plateau, Benue states amongst pockets of incidents scattered across the north. Haba! How do you explain the selective outrage? Is it not suspicious?
Is the killing in Uromi different from the mindless killings in Zamfara, Katsina, Plateau, and Benue? Are the people killed in these northern states not as northerners as the ones that lost their lives in Uromi? Wallahi, the way the people who say they are our leaders particularly in the north are carrying on is out rightly disturbing.
It’s not just a matter of perception or outright bad-belle, it is clearly obvious that the people who call themselves northern leaders- political and religious, are completely detached, indifferent or ineffective in responding adequately to this heinous crimes being committed on daily basis in their domain. And this is curious, except they are telling the rest of the country that there is something they know about this whole thing that others don’t know. God will definitely judge every man by his works. I am very sure of this!
(IFEANYI IZEZE: iizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)
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