By Abuchi Obiora
Though it may appear flowery, victorious, and deceptively colorful and arranged as the mammatus cloud to those who, in their illusions, have smoldered its ambers, a thick smoke of disintegration is gradually building up and thickening in Nigeria, getting ready to engulf the country in an unimaginable conflagration.
The botched and near-kidnap of Chief Sunday Adeyemo (also known as Sunday Igboho), the Yoruba nationalist and Odua nation freedom fighter in Cotonou, Benin Republic, by the agents of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to face a treasonable felony charge was another attempt to ignite the smoldering smoke of disintegration in Nigeria, following after the re-arrest in Kenya of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in a manner regarded by the international community as kidnap.
Sadly enough, as sections of the country agitating for self-rule as a result of non-inclusion in the core administration affairs of the country are being chased and pursued to oblivion by the Nigerian government, the same government seem to look the other side as bandits, Fulani headsmen and Boko Haram insurgents plunder parts of the middle belt and northern Nigeria and host Islamist Republic flag in some parts of Kaduna and Niger state.
As these developments take place, Nigerians have observed that it is double-speak for the government to pay ransom to the bandits (who also brazenly collect taxes in some villages of Kaduna state) and turn around to brutalize the harmless self-rule agitators whose actions are not as detrimental to the overall interest of the country. The same government has openly negotiated with the sinister groups, handling them with kid gloves and sending emissaries to them on peace missions that most often herald more dastard attacks on innocent Nigerians.
With the clamp-down on the IPOB and the self-determination machineries of the Oduduwa self-rule agitators, the re-arrest of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and the extradition efforts by Nigeria to bring Chief Sunday Igboho back to Nigeria, the government is seriously biting more than it can chew. I repeat, this development in Nigeria is very annoying to Nigerians when contrasted with the free and easy reign of terror by the bandits and headsmen who kidnap,, kill, torture and maim Nigerians and extort money from them as ransom.
It becomes even more annoying to Nigerians when one remembers that these blood-sucking groups whose threats to the existence of the country is both dangerous and real unlike the indigenous Nigerian ethnic nationalities (whose only grouse is the absence of socio-political balance in the country) is given both overt and covert cover by the same government clamping down the organizations seeking for self-rule.
It is suspicious, and could easily be interpreted or misinterpreted as a hidden ‘Islamization’ agenda in Nigeria that the government of the day openly continues to hob nob with bandits and the Boko Haram insurgents who have been recognized and branded as terrorist groups by the international community.
The Federal Government of Nigeria instituted proceedings in the Republic of Benin, to extradite Chief Sunday Igboho to face treasonable felony charges in Nigeria. But a factor, most probably not considered by the government of Nigeria put the kibosh on the extradition attempt. That factor is the common ancestral origin of the key players in the government of Benin Republic with the Yoruba in Nigeria.
The Nigerian Government forgot that the descendants of Oduduwa in Benin Republic were formally part of the Defunct country, Dahomey, also peopled by the Nigerian descendants of Oduduwa before that country was balkanized by the colonial masters of the British and French government, wherefore the inhabitants began to live in the two countries of Benin Republic and Nigeria. This is much the same way the Kanuri of Banki, Kirawa, Gamboru Ngala, etc in Borno state find their kinsmen in the adjoining country of Cameroon in the north east axis of Nigeria.
As a matter of fact, the best of tradition and culture of people descended from Oduduwa is presently practiced in Benin Republic by the descendants of Oduduwa there because the Yoruba of Nigeria were earliest ‘Christianized’ by people like Samuel Ajayi Crowther and other returnee slaves of Oduduwa ancestral origin. Evidently, Chief Sunday Igboho’s choice of Cotonou in Benin Republic as the point of his exit from Nigeria on asylum to Germany was a perfect choice because he could get no better protection from his kinsmen any other place outside the shores of Nigeria. It is not also unlikely that much of Chief Sunday Igboho’s legendary and much advertised (traditional) war arsenal were procured in Benin Republic where such arts prosper.
On the contrary, Chief Sunday Igboho’s wise choice of exit point is diametrically opposed to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s Choice of Kenya as a place to transact his business. This is because Kenya is a country greatly populated by the descendants of his traducers, the nomadic, migrant and warlike Fulani ethnic stock, that presently call the shots in the government of Nigeria.
In the same manner the Nigerian Fulani immigrants of 1804 have been in charge of subsequent governments in Nigeria since 1960, the descendants of Oduduwa have strong roots in Benin Republic. There are other ethnic nationalities in that country but the issue of tribe and ethnicity is not escalated and pronounced there as is the case in Nigeria. Apart from the practice of ensuring the rule of law which guarantees equity, justice and fair play in that country, citizens of Benin Republic are also bonded and effectively united by the French colonialism system of total assimilation in terms of language, tradition, and culture in all areas of life up to such seemingly little things as culinary habit.
For these aforementioned reasons, I knew that Nigeria will not be able to win a case in Benin republic for the extradition of Chief Sunday Igboho to face a treasonable felony charge in Nigeria. I had reasoned that the descendants of Oduduwa will see that action as an insult from a government controlled by an ethnic nationality whose grip on Nigeria and Nigerians reverberates around the world as it constitutes a topic for discussion in different socio-politico economic and academic forum. The sons and daughters of Oduduwa around the world including those in Benin Republic will deem it a collective insult on them to ask them to release one of their own for trial by a government with people they do not trust at the helms of affairs. My thoughts played out especially seeing the type of mammoth crowd that escorted Chief Sunday Igboho to the court in Benin republic, to hear the case of his extradition instituted by the government of Nigeria. I have never witnessed such a crowd in the trial of any political prisoner around the world, including the South African hero of apartheid, Nelson Mandela.
As a public affairs analyst and commentator, I am obligated to factor in both the events and the mood of the people in my analysis and commentary. In this respect, I have observed that the primordial tribal, ethnic, sectional and religious considerations in today’s Nigeria have shown how bad the country has gone under the leadership of President Mohammadu Buhari.
Everybody in Nigeria, more than ever before, thinks and show loyalty only to his ethnic group or religion. To buttress this fact, it was reported in the newspapers that, prompted by Yoruba elders, a former Nigerian president, Chief Olusegun Obansanjo, met with some leaders in Benin Republic to negotiate asylum for Chief Sunday Igboho. It was reported that the former President pleaded with that country’s leadership not to allow Igboho’s extradition to Nigeria. The former President made the plea when he took a condolence visit to a former President of Benin Republic, Nicephore Soglo, who lost his wife.
My opinion as regards the request of the former President is that that visit is a very strong statement to the Nigerian government by the Yoruba ethnic nationality in Nigeria. The government should better watch it, because the Yoruba who are known to be very good at achieving their purposes peacefully, and legally through international diplomacy (remember the National Democratic Coalition ‘NADECO’ days) is seriously irked, like the Igbos are, on the way Nigeria is being misruled by the 1804 migrant Fulani ethnic stock.
Though the reins of power, hence covert and overt control of the country’s judiciary lies with the incumbent government wherefore it may exhibit executive lawlessness through directing the judiciary to dance to its whims and caprices, it remains an incontestable fact, also seen as such by the international community, that the Nigerian government has no moral right to charge to court and prosecute Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and Chief Sunday Igboho, both Christians. This is because their followers have inflicted no harm on both the Nigerian citizenry and the Nigerian nation when compared with their northern Muslim counterparts…. the bandits, the herdsmen and the Boko Haram. This northern Muslim criminals, have, on the contrary, either received ransoms or enlistment opportunities to the Nigerian military services from the same Nigerian government.
By winning and dinning with bandits and terrorists and enlisting them to the Nigerian military services, the Nigerian government is unwittingly, and may be intentionally or unintentionally, working towards replicating a situation that has just played out in Afghanistan where a group called the Talibans returned to power after losing it for twenty years. Hitherto, the Talibans were regarded by the international community as terrorists. The defunct Afghan government had made the mistake (or was it deliberate) of enlisting the ‘repented’ Taliban members into the military services. Having returned to power, the Talibans are warming up to introduce total Sharia system in the governance of Afghanistan, a country with clusters of other religious groups including Christianity.
It is both nepotism, religious bigotry and double-speak for the Nigerian government to aim at snuffing out harmless organizations and hob nob with dangerous organizations and persons inflicting harm on Nigerians and visiting Nigerians with death.
In a statement that went viral, Mr. Peter Obi, an erstwhile governor of Anambra State who is being pressured by some Nigerians to stand election to the office of the executive President of Nigeria in 2023, was quoted to have compared Nigeria with a car having a failed engine whose owner is more interested in changing his drivers than refurbishing the engine of his car to achieve optimum performance from any driver. With that statement, Mr. Peter Obi joined the increasing number of Nigerians who have seen, like we have seen and written about in the last thirty years, that restructuring Nigeria is the only panacea to a achieve even and total development in all the regions of Nigeria, as well as ease out the tension in the country’s socio-political fabric.
The Nigerian system needs an immediate restructure, and this is the only solution that can permanently put to rest all sectional agitations for self-rule from Nigerians, including the Biafra and the Odua agitators.
Before I end this discourse, I must thank the federal government for facilitating the release of Sheikh Ibraheem Yaqoub El-Zakzaky, the leader of Nigerian Shia Muslims, from prison custody. Though belated the release may be, it is still a good step in the right direction. By releasing Sheikh Ibraheem Yaqoub El-Zakzaky from prison custody, it seems to me that the government was more interested in the expediency to shore up its human rights record perceived to be very bad by the international community and the United States of America who had bitterly complained and told the government point blank that Sheikh Ibraheem Yaqoub El-Zakzaky was being held for political reasons.
With this background, the timing of the release of the Sheikh in the light of the recent sale of some air war machines to Nigeria by the United States of America seems, to say the least, ominous. The insinuation of some Nigerians that the coincidence in the timing of the release of the Sheikh with the sale of the air war machines to Nigeria by America is not actually ‘coincidental’ is plausible. The former may have been done to pave the way for the latter. Evidently, the former worked to be the bait action from the government of Nigeria, which ended the stalemate in the protracted negotiation for the purchase of the equipment by the Nigerian government.
Speculative, though this may be, yet, it becomes a plausible reason to hold on to in the absence of the non-release of the Sheikh for a long time after a competent court of law had granted him freedom through bail. Secondly, this opinion may not have been necessary but for the legendary influence and control of Nigerian government on the country’s judicial system, which is very often perceived by Nigerians as selective in the application of justice.
For whatever reason Sheikh Ibraheem Yaqoub El-Zakzaky was released, it was and still is a good step in the right direction.
The government must follow this good gesture up with building bridges across the troubled waters of national cohesion and unity amongst the different ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. These bridges must include, of necessity, the dousing of the mutual suspicion and tension across these ethnic nationalities who seek for self-rule as a result of the injustice in the system.
Of note, the government must start this process by immediately releasing, unconditionally, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, desist forthwith from hounding and hunting down Chief Sunday Igboho and, begin immediately to fly the olive branch to the agitators for self-rule, assuring them of the restructure of the country.
With the groundswell of common opinion from all the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria (who constitute the nucleus of the country) for self-determination, the government will continue to be ill-advised to its peril and chagrin of Nigerians, not to restructure the country. How long the government will sustain this unpopular position with the consequent periodical breakdown of law and other, socio-political and economic downturn as a result of sabotage and lack of co-operation from the citizens of the country, is a matter for anybody’s guess.
A stitch in time saves nine!
ABUCHI OBIORA
FOR:
Global Upfront Newspaper
REMARK:
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