"History has seen
many who claim to be deliverer and saviour of the people. They might come with
force and violence and parade their might and splendour as conquerors; The
Pharaohs of Egypt, Sennacheris King of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Darius
of Persia, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Napoleon, Clive of India, Bismark,
the Kaiser, Hitler, Stalin. The story and scene is always the same. They claim
to deliver the people from bondage and to establish justice, freedom and peace.
They come in might, ridding in splendour, dragging prisoners ".
~~John Myer, John Myer: A collection of his sermons and writings,
#1.
Introduction
We are not in a zoo.
But we are ruled by a fief who delights in treating us like we are animals,
some nincompoops! No respect for human rights, life and rule of
law. He behaves like a god and arrogates to himself the power of life and
death. For residents of Kaduna, especially Southern Kaduna, life has been hellish.
Criminality and brigandage have assumed an alarming proportion. In the words of
the renowned British Philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, 'life is short, brutish and
nasty'.
We must give it to
him. El Rufai is an intelligent person. Very smart! He has mastered the jargon
of technocratic governance and has over time become the darling of NGO's,
foreign donors, civil society, and neoliberal institutions (Ochonu). No wonder
the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates have found in him, a worthy and trusted
partner. Recently, he played host to Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of
Britain who came to Kaduna for a mission: to launder the image of El Rufai and
possibly, give him tutorials on the basic rudimentary rules of good governance
(most certainly this won't be for gratis). He has also recently assembled the
creme-de-la-creme of the literary world for the Kaduna Book Festival. Literary
giants gathered in Kaduna to celebrate the gift of literature in our liberation
while they turned a blind eye to the impunity of the erratic governor who has
kept our tertiary Institutions under lock and key for close to one year.
What this closure portends for our children is the ubiquitous loss of a whole
academic year. So the question on the lips of many was why would such
intellectual giants gather in Kaduna to honour a man who by his actions has
shown contempt and disregard for the education of our children? Trust
Nigerians. Many of them took to their tweeter handles to
#boycottkadunabookfestival. The festival still held.
What I have decided to
do is to reproduce wholesale, the opinions of three very passionate and eminent
Nigerians who have taken the governor spot on, chronicling his disastrous and
cataclysmic outing as the chief executive of Kaduna State. His actions and
inactions, to say the least have demonstrated that he is indeed a sectional
leader, fantastically corrupt (apologies to D. Cameron) and an ethnic and
religious warlord. The writings of these men, have their focus on the corrupt
nature of El Rufai and his style of governance. They have also done a
scating criticism of him in very many other areas such as his bad handling of
the crisis in southern Kaduna and his despotic tendencies in conducting the
affairs of the State which manifest themselves in the way he alienates even his
party men, most of whom worked so hard and sacrificed huge resources to realise
his gubernatorial ambition. Today, not only does he treat them with
disdain, but resorts to persecuting those he perceives as enemies.
EL-RUFAI, CORRUPTION,
AND THE MASK OF "COMPETENCE" ( Prof. Moses Ochonu)
Nasir el-Rufai,
governor of Kaduna State, who is perhaps Nigeria's most intolerant and
autocratic state chief executive, has apparently been presiding over a contract
bazaar for his family, aides, friends, and associates, adding yet another
dimension to his growing egregiously offensive conduct and abuses of office
that include slyly justifying the genocide in Southern Kaduna, paying
"compensation" to the perpetrators, recklessly inflaming the volatile
ethnoreligious situation in the state, detaining critics, and opportunistically
and hypocritically insulting former and present political benefactors,
including Obasanjo, Jonathan, Buhari, Atiku, and others.
The said contracts, N3
billion worth, have been predictably abandoned because they were little more
than fraudulent self-enrichment schemes, to begin with.
Nigerian politics is a
den of thieves, but for at least a decade I have been warning Nigerians about a
particular brood of thieves, which for lack of a more elegant descriptive idiom
I will call the den of competent thieves. This specie of crooks comprises of
thieving politicians who mask their corruption with ritualistic performances of
competent leadership.
They are the first
public officials to challenge others to a public transparency contest, the
first to declare their budgets to be public documents. They are lauded by
BudgIT for crafting and implementing open budgets and make sure that they
co-opt renown international and local developmental partners into their programs,
knowing that these agencies would then become their unwitting propaganda arm.
It is good political and technocratic theater.
The competently
corrupt can make mesmerizing presentations with or without notes or PowerPoint
slides and hide their thievery behind confusing numbers, graphs, eloquent
speeches, and pie charts. When accused of corruption or other misconduct they
do not retreat or perform contrition and are not rattled. Instead they
arrogantly go on the offensive. They deploy counterattacks and
counter-accusations as a tactic of deflection, distraction, and defense.
These gestures are all
carefully publicized and calculated to reinforce the public perception that
they are competent, intelligent, and different from the average Nigerian
politician. It is an elaborate charade.
The competently
corrupt are media savvy; they work the press and seduce and induce them into
buying their obfuscation, sophistry, and glib rhetoric. The thing is that they
do not believe that the laws and rules governing the conduct of public
officials apply to them.
Almost a decade ago, I
wrote to criticize the competent corruption of Charles Soludo, whom I took the
liberty of inducting into the fraternity of the competently corrupt even as
details of his shady dealings in office were emerging to complicate the
emerging myth of his competent revolution in the Nigerian banking sector. That
was before Sanusi Lamido Sanusi came and exposed the rot that Soludo incubated
and nurtured as CBN governor.
Because of his
reputation for competence, some people did not believe that Soludo was capable
of corruption and not only rose to his defense but also accused
Saharareporters, which published evidence of his corruption, of trying to sully
his reputation. Some people said, "eh, he was corrupt but at least he did
something good in the banking sector." As long as there were some
Nigerians who saw Soludo as a competent central bank governor and who believed
that his competence and perceived or performed intelligence should cancel out
his corruption in office, Soludo could not be held accountable. And he has not
been held accountable.
Some Nigerians believe
that politicians and bureaucrats perceived as intelligent and competent deserve
different ethical rules, and therein lies the problem.
Nasir El-Rufai is
perhaps the most illustrious member of the club of the competently corrupt. His
articulateness and technocratic awareness relative to other Nigerian
politicians have served to inoculate him against accountability. As a result,
he has arrogantly continued to thump his nose at rules and laws while craftily
and fraudulently playing the competence and "good governance"
cards.
Remember when El-Rufai
was accused by a Senate committee of awarding choice FCT plots of land to his
wives and children? His response was neither denial nor contrition. Instead, he
arrogantly told the committee that his wives, children, and friends were
Nigerians and were thus entitled to said plots of FCT choice lands! This
outburst exemplifies the audacious but toxic mix of corruption, arrogance,
sense of entitlement, and unreflective indignation that one encounters in the
competently corrupt.
El-Rufai didn't see
anything wrong with his conduct as FCT minister. He certainly doesn't see
anything wrong with distributing contracts to his family, friends, and aides as
governor, contracts that have been abandoned according to Saharareporters.
That is how corrupt
but marginally competent politicians behave. They know that their reputation
for technocratic competence, deserved or not, will insulate them or at least
confuse Nigerians. They almost feel entitled to a pass on account of their
grammatical competence and choreographed, elaborate pretenses to governing
ability. They are slick operators, hard to pin down because there are always
compatriots who are taken by their polish and educated conduct and are willing
to overlook all else.
Corrupt politicians
perceived to be competent, enlightened, and well educated are the most
dangerous kind of political thieves because they are the most difficult to hold
accountable. Let me explain. The average Nigerian thieving politician attracts
outright scorn because, in addition to being woefully incompetent, poorly
spoken, unintelligent, pathetically under-read and uninformed, and incapable of
understanding policy and poetics, he lacks the linguistic resources to express
his thoughts clearly, lucidly, and persuasively. Nigerians tend not to accord
these politicians any benefit of the doubt and do not try to mitigate their
wrongdoing. Moreover, because they are inarticulate and unintelligent, their
attempts to explain themselves or defend or deny their wrongdoing only attract
more derision and unvarnished contempt.
When it comes to folks
like El-Rufai, however, there are always Nigerians who will be seduced by the
fact that they are better informed, more intelligent, and have better command
of the English language than the average Nigerian politician. These Nigerians
will extend multiple benefits of the doubt to El-Rufai and his ilk, refusing to
see that intelligence and corruption can and do coexist and that in fact
intelligence, perceived or real, is the perfect camouflage for
corruption.
El-Rufai knows that he
can always count on this cult of competence, this naïve group of compatriots,
to dilute the ethical clarity that should inform attitudes towards corrupt but
pretentiously competent politicians. All that needs to happen is for consensus
on the latter’s corruption to disappear and for ambivalence to enter the
picture. ¯
The competently
corrupt are beneficiaries of ambivalence on the part of Nigerians regarding
their corruption. That is precisely what they want and try to produce:
ambivalence on their corruption profiles.
If we cannot call
corruption by its only name because the perpetrator is seen as being more
intelligent, informed, and competent than the average politician, we are
essentially creating a special coven or category for thieves who are beyond
reproach and cannot be held accountable. These crooked politicians are all too
happy to dazzle us into complicit silence with their refined English and
hackneyed policy jargons. El-Rufai personifies this phenomenon.
RELIGION, GOVERNMENT
AND SOUTHERN KADUNA KILLINGS ( BISHOP JOSEPH DANLAMI BAGOBIRI, CATHOLIC BISHOP
OF KAFANCHAN)
The Governor in most
cases seemed to have abdicated his responsibility of being Governor to all us,
and instead gave in to the luxury of waging an unrelenting media campaign
against Southern Kaduna people. He unabashedly takes sides with the armed
herdsmen (His kinsmen) thereby failing in his responsibility as a true
statesman, becoming therefore a biased umpire who blames and criminalizes
Southern Kaduna victims as the cause of the mayhem.
Southern Kaduna has
for so long now been under siege by terrorists who are confirmed to be Fulani
Herdsmen that are often well armed with sophisticated weapons. The attacks have
been unrelenting, bloody, unprovoked, unwarranted and indeed unjustified on
innocent and vulnerable peasant communities of our environment. As a result of
this hundreds of people have been killed, several communities burnt with the
inhabitants internally displaced, and in many cases, the remaining houses not
burnt have been vandalised and stripped of roofs, windows and doors to discourage
them from returning back to their homes.
We wish to commend all
people of good will who have stood in solidarity with the southern Kaduna
people by their condemnation of these forms of unjustified aggression against a
defenseless people. We are also grateful to all those who have given support to
the victims materially and through their prayers in view of the very little
attention received from Government at both the State and Federal levels or
their agencies. The impact of the relevant agencies responsible for relieve
services such as NEMA and SEMA have been minimal. And because of Government’s
bias towards the people, there is no plan for Reconstruction and Rehabilitation
of the ruined environment as is the case with the North Eastern region of Nigeria,
including parts of Plateau and Kano States.
It is our considered
position that if Government had wielded into this matter with sincerity and
seriousness, in the way she responded to the menace of rustication in Zamfara
State and Birnin Gwari area in Kaduna State, things would not have gotten to
the messy state they are today. The federal government exhibited a spirit of
nonchalance until recently when the Vice President made some pronouncements,
warning that decisive action must be taken so that the crisis will not consume
all of us in the nation. The attitude of the state government has been marred
by lots of complicity and bias which exacerbated rather than ameliorate
tensions.
The Governor in most
cases seemed to have abdicated his responsibility of being Governor to all us,
and instead gave in to the luxury of waging an unrelenting media campaign
against Southern Kaduna people. He unabashedly takes sides with the armed
herdsmen (His kinsmen) thereby failing in his responsibility as a true
statesman, becoming therefore a biased umpire who blames and criminalizes
Southern Kaduna victims as the cause of the mayhem. The Governor has made
several efforts in the media to discredit figure of casualties that were
arrived at through painstaking research, and is known for trying to change the
true narrative by presenting the victims as the villain and the aggressors as
the prey. The Governor has the penchant of using state apparatus to insult,
denigrate, intimidate, arrest and put in prison all voices of reason from
Southern Kaduna who dare to challenge his handling of this crisis. Among those
that have fallen victims of his tyranny are: traditional rulers, journalists,
youths, political leaders, academics, while threatening our lawyers and other
leaders (Religious and Unions) with arrest for daring to speak out against the
genocide.
The primary
responsibility of government as enshrined in the constitution is the protection
of life and property of citizens irrespective of ethnic and/or religious
persuasion. Any breach of this fundamental principle of social contract
contravenes the very reason for which Government exist for. Unfortunately, our
government both at the Federal and State levels have failed woefully in this
regard because of their inability to rise above ethnic and religious bias. If
anything, government has shown outright partisanship in favor of the herdsmen
to the disappointment of the majority Southern Kaduna indigenes and Christians.
Because of Government’s inability to serve as an un-biased umpire in the face
of these crises, we are sometimes tempted to belief that there is a well
planned Jihad against the people of Southern Kaduna, and Christians generally
in Northern Nigeria as this is amply demonstrated by the incessant attacks and
atrocities committed against the aborigines of the Middle Belt region in
Northern Nigeria. The sole aim of these attacks is to conquer our people and
occupy their lush lands and turning same into grazing fields for the marauding
nomads. The Governor of Kaduna State is pursuing this detestable policy by his
plan to forcefully take over lands in Southern Kaduna and turn same to Grazing
Reserves and Routes for his kinsmen. To show Government’s insensitivity on this
volatile matter, there are ongoing expansionist plans to annex more land to the
already existing grazing reserves at Ladduga in Ikulu Chiefdom of Zangon Kataf
Local Government area and transmute that locality from being a district into an
eimirate.
The killings continue
unabatedly in fields and bushes, thereby preventing farmers from visiting and
cultivating their lands. This is happening today as the Military and other
security forces mount road blocks in towns and major roads while bushes remain
un-safe for farming. In the Godogodo and Pasakori attacks in Jemaá Local
government area for example, the military merely watched and supervised the
killings and burning of homes on the pretext that their mandate did not include
fighting the herdsmen. When the youth mobilized themselves to repel the
attackers, the soldiers deliberately blocked them from entering the town. The
herdsmen and their collaborators turned the towns into killing fields and
killed mostly women, children and the elderly who couldn’t run for cover. The
level of barbarity was such that pregnant women got their wombs blown out and
massacred before their children. And these innocent children were not spared
either. This level of viciousness was never witnessed even in the brutal
tyranny and regime of Adolf Hitler. What is most intriguing is the level of sophistication
of weapons; Ak 47, Machine Guns and many other deadly instruments of death are
being freely used by the Herdsmen, leaving many wondering how these weapons got
to their hands.
El-Rufai, promotion of
philosophy of un-forgiveness
The Governor has
described the Fulanis as vindictive and un-forgiven people. This may simply be
the projection of the Governor’s own mindset to an entire people. Our
experience living with Fulanis for decades does not prove this. The indigenous
communities of Southern Kaduna have been living peacefully with the Fulani
herdsmen who came to join them as neighbors until the architects of the view
that the average Fulani man is vindictive and un-forgiving came into power. The
mayhem and killing with impunity in Southern Kaduna and the Middle Belt region
and beyond by the Fulani Herdsmen, using sophisticated weapons is a recent
development fueled by this kind of philosophy. To present any person or group
of persons as genetically revengeful and to go ahead to support and sponsor a
praxis of retaliation as we are witnessing in Kaduna State today, is not only a
detestable behavior but an evil mentality that will not engender social
cohesion and harmonious coexistence in a plural and heterogeneous setting such
as ours.
The natives and
herdsmen of Southern Kaduna have always had their differences as is common in
herdsmen and farmers relationship everywhere in the world. These differences
sometime end up in clashes and skirmishes resulting from invasion of each
other’s spaces, but such differences have assumed an un-precedented height
under the current government with the use of very sophisticated weapons of
destruction. What we are witnessing in Kaduna state is not the so called
un-forgiving spirit of the Fulani people towards others, but the transfer of a
hate mentality from a handful of people in leadership within the State to an
entire ethnic group, with disastrous consequences. All humans are created by
God with rationality and the milk of human kindness in their hearts. This often
shows itself in love expressed in mercy, compassion and forgiveness. No
rational human person is created without the disposition to overlook some
offences committed against him or her. Only those with dead consciences are
indisposed to show compassion and forgiveness.
A world that
does not forgive is doomed to fail. An eye for an eye philosophy renders the
whole world blind it is said. Describing an entire people as un-forgiven is not
a plus but a minus for such people. If the Fulanis stop the aggression in
Southern Kaduna today, there will be peace in the environment and the entire
State. The non retaliation of Christians to great abuses and violations of
their human rights is termed as weakness, which is not correct. God has put the
feeling of mercy and compassion in each of us regardless of our ethnicity and
religious affiliations. If Southern Kaduna had been trouble shooting people,
they too would have established militia groups and go on rampage in domains
other than theirs. But alas this is not what is happening. They are being
attacked in their sleep and places of worship right in the land that divine
providence has given as their own. And even at that, they are told not to
defend themselves in the face of aggression.
The earlier we
rediscover this truth of conscience (that all rational beings are imbued with a
spirit of mercy and compassion) and begin to live this truth to the full, the
better for our Society. Therefore the promotion of the philosophy that any
offence committed is like a debt that must be avenged for either now or in the
future is not only false and un-wholesome but it is the figment and projection
of the personal idiosyncrasies of a few but powerful people. This mindset if
not checked and corrected has the potential to erode the fabric of any social
organization.
Government should stop
impunity in Southern Kaduna
The killings with
impunity in Southern Kaduna must not be allowed to continue. And Government in
the State has a special and irreplaceable role in bringing this scourge to an
end. The current Government in the State must follow the example of past
Governments by initiating measures that would unify rather than divide the
people of the State on ethnic and religious lines as this Government has been
doing since its inception. We have had our challenges on harmonious coexistence
in the past. But past Governments demonstrated statesmanship in Governance by
bringing stake holders across board to parley on how to resolve our
indifference. The current administration in the State seems to dread this kind
of interface which had proven to be effective in the past. Government must
change its attitude from alignment with people of one ethno-religious group in
the State, she must resist the temptation of acting as the mouthpiece of one
group against others and begin to display true statesmanship in seeing and
treating the entire state as its constituency.
The current Government
got it all wrong right from the beginning when it openly stated that she will
treat the citizens of the State not on the merits of their being Kaduna state
indigenes but on the basis of who voted and who did not vote for the party that
won the election. This is a wrong premise to operate under a democracy such as
ours, which promotes and respects diversity particularly on political matters.
We cannot all become members of one Party in Kaduna state. It is unfortunate
that this kind of segregational mindset seems to be teleguiding government’s
policies, utterances, appointments, and the distribution of infrastructure for development
and social initiatives. This Government has taken discrimination on religious
and ethnic lines to a height that has never been witnessed in the history of
Kaduna.
Today we are
left with a situation where there is much concentration of development in the
North and Central Senatorial districts to the utter neglect of the Southern
Senatorial District which is predominantly Christian. The Northern part of the
State monopolizes the Executive, the legislature, the Judiciary and occupies
all slots of federal appointments such as the ministerial and those of
parastatals. This disgusting mentality of premeditated discrimination and
marginalization is shown by the lopsidedness in both political appointments,
locations of infrastructural facilities, and worst still the delineations of
political constituencies and polling units which institutionalizes rigging at
source. While the Hausa/Fulani dominated areas in Kaduna State have cornered
over 48 Federal Institutions to their domain, southern Kaduna can hardly boast
of one of such institutions in her domain. Instead of the current government to
work towards redressing this disturbing, inhuman and unjust imbalance, she is
rather shamelessly contemplating the removal of the Kaduna State University
(KASU) Campus and the College of Education (COE) from Southern Kaduna to his
Fulani dominated space. What a shame and a slap to justice, fairness and
objectivity in dealing with people.
Government must watch
her utterances and actions especially on the following areas: Her handling of
the indigeneship question which deprives the citizens of the State rights to
occupy some offices within the State, because these have been given to
non-State indigenes and yet the Governor makes no effort in finding placements
for Southern Kaduna people in places like Katsina and Sokoto States for
instance, to justify his negation of the Constitutional principle of
indigeneship; the concentration of key political appointments in the hands of
people of one religion; the use of provocative and denigrating language on the
issue of the population of Christians and Muslims in Kaduna State; the
deliberate attempt to silence any voice of reason that is at variance with that
of Government; the abuse of the instruments of governance in the wrongful detention
and imprisonment of people Government feels un-comfortable with; the arrogance
of showing “we know it all” which disallows wide consultation before embarking
on major policy decisions like the feeding programme in primary Schools ( a
misplacement of priority), which has become an avenue for corruption and
siphoning of public funds; and several un-guarded utterances on thorny issues
affecting the lives of millions in the State, which are a clear manifestation
of the Governor’s insensitivity to concerns and plights of many in the State.
Managing Kaduna as
El-Rufai’s personal estate
In all these we have
watched with pains and patience for about two years now how Government in the
State is being managed as a personal estate in a way that excludes many stake
holders from the State. We want to state emphatically that Kaduna State is for
all of us, regardless of political, ethnic and religious affiliations.
Therefore, the Governor should stop running it as his personal establishment.
Kaduna State is the only State that we can call our own. And because Kaduna
State is our State, we are contributing significantly for its progress not only
on the Spiritual level, but also our works in the areas of education,
medi-care, social upliftment and building of capacities of the people.
Government must recognize us as equal stake holders in the management and
running of the affairs of the State. We will not accept being treated as aliens
in our State.
Those that divine
providence have enthrusted with the chilling responsibility of governing the
State politically must govern justly and in a manner that includes not one that
excludes other segments of the State. We therefore ask for Good Governance in
Kaduna State that will include the following:
That those who take up
the mantle of leadership will see the whole state as their Constituency and so
should devout themselves conscientiously to ensure Justice and fairness for all
irrespective of Religious, ethnic and political considerations.
That they will work
hard to ensure equitable distribution of political offices among adherents of
the two main religions in the State. That they will see to it that in the
application and use of resources that had accrued to the State and the siting
or locating of developmental projects and services for the improvement of the
quality of life of the people, that due regard is given to the North/South
divide in the State and that no part of the State is placed in a disadvantaged
position. That the delineation of constituencies and siting of polling units
which was arbitrarily and fraudulently carried out in the past to ensure
rigging from the source in favour of one section and religion in Kaduna State
must be revisited and corrected using both the geographical and numeric data
that were ignored when the current policy was foisted on the people.
We also demand that
giving the destruction that has taken place in Southern Kaduna in terms of loss
of lives and properties, that the policy of reconstruction and rehabilitation
undertaken by the Federal Government in respect of the North East and some parts
of Plateau and Kano State must be extended to Southern Kaduna not as a
concession but an entitlement. We ask that a bill for this be presented at both
State and National Legislative assemblies.That they will see to it that the
success achieved so far in the promotion of a culture of Religious and ethnic
harmony in the State by the Makarfi and other past administrations in the State
are not only sustained but further built upon and strengthened.
Spate of persecution
of Christians in Northern Nigeria
Christians in Northern
Nigeria and especially in Southern Kaduna today, have in the past seven years
been facing some of the worst persecutions ever experienced in the world as a
result of their faith. The persecution of Christians in Northern Nigeria is so
severe that within 10 years (2006-2014), according to the report of a
research carried out by the Open Doors Ministry on the impact of persecution
and violence on the Church in Northern Nigeria reveals that: 12,000 Christians
were killed, 1,3m displaced and 13,000 churches were either destroyed or
abandoned (Anne Mulder report).
So we can safely
surmise that we have been programmed to be annihilated because we don’t share
the same cultural, religious and political convictions as obtainable in the
entire North West, North East and North Central Geo-political zones of the
Country. These systematic attacks have political and economic undertones. They
are aimed at intimidating the populace and weakening their political and
economic engagements thereby heightening their level of poverty.
In Southern Kaduna,
which is also within the Northern geographic area (where Kafanchan diocese is
located), the persecution, killings and destruction of the Church is not only
phenomenal but unprecedented. There are mass graves littered in different
places within the region that include: Katsak around Gidan waya and Godogodo in
Jemaá Local Government Area; Fadan Karshi axis in Sanga Local Government; Moroa
Chiefdom in Kaura local Government area; Zonkwa axis in Zangon Kataf Local
government area etc. Between 2014 – 2017 current records show that well over
1,000 people have been killed in more than 4 Local Government Areas mainly by
Fulani Herdsmen in Southern Kaduna. These sporadic attacks occurred in about 56
villages/Communities. These sporadic assaults left several people injured and
some are maimed for life. The number of houses destroyed are over 1,500 and not
less than twenty churches were destroyed and properties worth N5billion are
lost which include houses, shops, schools, food stores/barns, farmlands and
vehicles[i] etc… These casualties resulting mainly from the attacks of Fulani
Herdsmen who constitute the forth deadliest terrorist organization in the world
today, qualify Southern Kaduna to enlisted in the Federal Government programme
of Reconstruction and Rehabilitation of our ruined environment.
Discrimination against
Christians in Northern Nigeria as structural, institutionalized matter
Discrimination against
Christianity in favour of Islam is a matter of everyday experience for those
who live in the Northern part of Nigeria. It is not an isolated phenomenon. It
is something structuralized and institutionalized. This is further compounded
today with the extension of the scope of Sharia from merely affecting matters
that are personal and civil in nature to those that now affect the criminal
dimensions of our existence, where some States now own their Islamic Police
force called Hisbah that enforces the Sharia law. In most instances when
Christians and Muslims are involved in criminal activities such as violence
through insurgency and looting that sometimes accompanied such crisis and both
are arrested and brought to face Justice before the judiciary, the Muslim
culprits often get released during trial while the Christian suspects are left
languishing in detentions and sometimes in prisons over offences that both
sides committed. This is one of the dangers of operating a dual legal system or
ideology in one Country.
In some places in
Northern Nigeria where Sharia operates, Muslims sometimes get away with murder
cases, as was the case with the Christian woman (Bridget) in Kano. She was
lynched to death over trumped up charges of blasphemy. Her killers were quickly
acquitted and discharged under a Sharia Court.
Discrimination
and marginalization of Christians in Northern Nigeria are common daily
experiences. The areas where these evils are perpetrated are many and are
widely spread and entrenched in the length and breadth of the Northern Region.
Christians for instance suffer persecution and marginalization in the following
areas:
1. Refusal of
Government to grant permit or Certificate of Occupancy for the building of
Churches. This makes the situation of our Churches vulnerable to demolition by
over enthusiastic State Governments, especially those that have adopted Islam
as a State religion contrary to the prohibition of this by the Nigerian
Constitution in Section 10.
2. Destruction of
Churches at the slightest provocation by Government and sometimes by extremists
who like taking the law to their hand. A recent example of this is the
destruction of two big churches in Jigawa State belonging to the Redeem and The
Lord Chosen churches in that state.
3. Discrimination and
unequal opportunities in the areas of employment, recruitment or admissions in
Public educational facilities, lopsided nature of appointments into key offices
of Government and parastatals.
4. Forceful take-over
of Mission Schools in 1972 and lack of compensation for the owners. Some of
these Schools had their Christian names changed to Islamic names.
5. The refusal to
allow the teaching of Christian Religious knowledge in Government Schools.
6. The abduction and
forceful conversion of under aged Christian girls to Islam
7. None broadcast of
Christian programmes particularly in the State owned mass media.
8. None provision of
burial grounds for deceased Christians etc…
9. Lack of fairness in
establishing Federal Presence: In Kaduna State for instance, there are 19
Federal institutions in the Northern senatorial zone, 29 in the Central zone
and not a single Federal tertiary School in the Southern Senatorial Zone.
10. Unjust delineation
of electoral wards, constituencies . This has put the Southern Senatorial Zone
in Kaduna State in a politically disadvantaged position. This policy that is
often described as rigging election from the source has effectively made it
impossible for anyone from SK to ever emerge as the governorship flag bearer of
any major political party. Neither can SK ever decide any issue in the State
House of Assembly, because of the great preponderance of representation from
the Muslim side.
All these are
expressions of injustices perpetrated in the name of religion. We are also
witnesses of the systematic proselytization through stealth, forced migration
and now the use of UNSPEAKABLE AND UN-IMAGINABLE violence often expressed in
martyrdom and mass murder of the indigenous people of the Middle Belt in
Northern Nigeria
Conclusion:
Despite these
imbalances in our Nation and in our State, here we are again celebrating
another feast of the resurrection of Christ. The fact of our Lord’s
resurrection revolutionized the lives of the disciples of Christ. It
transformed them from being a timid and sometimes a seemingly clueless group of
disciple, to a fearless and courageous team that turned Jerusalem at some point
upside down. Our faith therefore in the risen Christ must so influence and
transform our lives as it did to the lives of the disciples of Christ
particularly at the times of persecution such as we are facing. The injustices
in our Society not withstanding, we exhort believers not to be fainthearted but
courageous in facing the challenges of our time. We are to renew our faith and
commitment to the living and resurrected Jesus, who triumphed over death and
evil as the way to surmounting all the abuses and discrimination that we suffer
in nigeria today.
"SOUTHERN KADUNA
UNDER SIEGE BY FG, DANBAZZAU AND EL-RUFAI (George Makeri)
Yesterday 25th July
2017, enter El-rufai and Dambazau into Kajuru, Adara land, in their bid to make
Kaduna great again. The Fulani community in Kajuru welcomed them, lamenting a
reprisal attack carried out by the Adara youth against Fulani earlier attacks.
The Miyetti Allah spokesperson said, 'ba za mu yadda ba.' Meaning 'we won't
forgive'. El-rufai pledged 'justice' would be done and the Fulani crowd there
present shouted: 'Allahuakbar'. Dambazau nodded his approval. The 'Amirullah'
Governor El-rufai has declared a jihad on Adara in Kajuru in the presence of
the Al-amin Dambazau...
Baba Onomza was riding
his wife home when they both heard an unusual noise outside. The young man
moved to pull free from his wife, but the wife, enjoying the ride, held him
back - she wanted him to take her home first, before attending to any other
business. The husband reluctantly succumbed to his wife's yearning.
Unfortunately, before Baba Onomza could complete his duty as a husband, he saw
his door, made of cheap wooden material, gave in to the blows of some security
men. The next thing, he was whisked from his wife to a waiting van. He met
other young men like himself stuffed together like sardines in the van. The act
of making Kaduna great again has begun in Adaraland.
I was not going to say
anything about the Kajuru skirmishes, but one of my fans pleaded with me to.
Some Fulani bandits entered an Adara community in Kajuru. In response, some
Adara youth from that community went after the murderous bandits. After the
crackdown on the dangerous bandits, the brave Adara youths were feeling like
Jack Bauer and expecting a pat on the back for bursting a notorious Fulani
criminal syndicate - a feat the Nigerian police could only hope to accomplish,
only in Nollywood or Kannywood. What they got instead, were handcuffs from the
police who were under instructions to work only for Fulanis - be they stalkers
or lunatics, robbers or murderers. The Fulanis mobilised to move into the
village for mass massacre of the Adara folk, but met an impasse. As they were
retreating, they hit on easy targets killing over ten Adara folk. Going by
El-rufai's reprisal philosophy, the Adara youths mobilised and hit back at the
Fulanis...
The truth is, these
Adara people, (we call them 'Anumapa' meaning Adara people from the hills) are
still holding tradition strongly. The youths are equally eager to die than the
Fulanis are eager to live. It would be fatal for the Fulanis to attempt invasion.
And anytime the Fulanis fail in their bid to invade a community with serious
consequences against them, they deploy federal might on the community. Since
yesterday, federal forces have been invading different Adara homes and
conducting tireless arrests. As I write, more Adara people are being arrested.
Ironically, not only were Fulani people not equally arrested, but the Fulani
civilians were the ones leading the team of federal forces into the homes of
those to be arrested. Yet Al-amin Dambazau will stand on a righteous ground to
say people should stop giving criminal elements ethnic nor religious
colouration.
Adara people are being
arrested for daring to defend their communities. This is the usual aftermath of
any Dambazau visit. We saw it in Ife, Mambilla Plateau in Taraba, etc, and now
in Kajuru my native community. Earlier this year, a man's hand was chopped off
by a Fulani neighbour in Damishi Chikun Local Government area as he bemoaned
cows invading his small farm. In his own words, the farm was his own cow. I and
my Comrades went to see this man at the hospital and all we heard were tales of
woes. As the poor farmer had expended well over 600, 000 naira, he didn't have,
trying to get well. His underage kids were detailed to be arrested by the police,
while his Fulani aggressor walks freely. The police and the court were both
acting the role of Sir Toby in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night on the matter.
We all know in Nigeria
today, only the Fulanis kill and keep killing with the government looking the
other way. But whenever, on very rare occasion, the Fulanis are killed, the
government becomes involved with Dambazau talking peace in the public and
declaring war in the secret by ordering for massive arrest of non-fulanis. Even
Senator Kwankwaso flew past Southern Kaduna (that has been an abattoir of human
slaughter by the Fulanis) to be in Ife, preaching peace there. The Police boss
swung into action by arresting over 20 persons of exclusively Ife origin,
absent the hausas who instigated the skirmishes in molesting and bullying an
Ife daughter, the moment Dambazau left. The governor Darius was summoned to
Abuja over the Taraba Mambilla matter. Presently, the same arrests are being
conducted against my own Adara after Dambazau was spotted in Kajuru alongside
the Governor El-rufai. The notorious Doctor Haruna Usman openly threatened
reprisals right there before Dambazau and El-rufai. Not only is Haruna still
walking freely but El-rufai became Haruna's errand boy by publicising the
statement. Like the arrest conducted in Ife, Haruna claimed he has a list of
people to be arrested. It is Haruna who will now show El-rufai who to arrest
and who not to. The same Haruna who claimed responsibility for the Godogodo
massacres in December 2016.
Why El-rufai, unlike
Ishaku Darius of Taraba, was not summoned to Abuja, beats me. It is clear to
all that religion and ethnic prejudices guide the decisions of this country's
leadership with Dambazau in the lead. This makes coalition among all other
non-hausafulanis in this country very necessary, since the government never
recognises them whenever they are attacked by Fulanis, but does the reverse
whenever Fulanis are attacked. This makes the visit of Dr. JD to the IPOB
leader a welcome development. More of such visits across the length and breadth
of Nigeria should be encouraged and supported by all non-hausafulanis as we are
gradually being turned into aliens in our own country by the mistakes in power.
I do not subscribe to joining the Igbos as second class citizens, because I don't
fancy that, but as equal citizens on the table. Southern Kaduna leaders must
learn to extend the hands of friendship across the Niger with the Afenifere and
the Igbos. El-rufai's idea of making Kaduna great is obvious enough.
POSTSCRIPT:
The pain is indescribable
in the hearts of these writers. And each of them wrote genuinely out of love
for our dear state, sheer patriotism. What one sees very glaringly is the
massive deployment of intellect without wisdom. Of what use is intelligence
without wisdom, empathy and human KINDNESS? Undoubtedly, El Rufai lacks these
key ingredients. He is interested in grabbing power and holding onto it
regardless. He needs to understand that democracy doesn't work that way. The
one so elected into public office must have an incredible bout of
tolerance for diverse opinion. What has transpired in the State within the two
years of his administration is nothing other than arbitrary display of might
and subtle attempt at clamping down on dissenting voices. Luka Biniyat is holed
up in prison and ridiculous bail conditions have been imposed. This impunity
has to give way for a more accommodating attitude. The Governor must realise
that he is governor over all and must strive to rule with fairness, equity and
justice. It's disheartening to see how he has polarised the State. These days
we hear that he is junketing from one LG to the other for Jumaat prayers
and of course leveraging on that to score some cheap political points.
Unfortunately, a sectional leader like him aspires to occupy the highest
office in the land. We wait to see how this pans out and hope for a change of
heart and style of governance.
