Nigeria since 1970 has remained a Hausa-Fulani Prisoner-of-War camp for all other Nigerians. Nothing has changed, Obasanjo and Jonathan Presidency notwithstanding.
1. Since 1970 all police commands in the South-East have been commanded by Hausa-Fulani. That was understandable for say the first 20 or so years after the civil war to ensure that the Igbo constitute no threat to national security. Does this still make sense 44 years after? By 1990 Germany and Japan, defeated in World War II by the Allied Forces, had been allowed by the allied powers to expand from internal security to international defense.
2. The major internal security threat the South-East is facing now is invasion by Boko Haram and volatile and violent cattle Fulani, who are already in the South-East. Both Boko Haram and cattle Fulani are all Hausa- Fulani like most Police and Army Commanders in the South-East. The people rightly do not trust Nigeria can protect them in the event of an attack and so impose some measures to enable them know when trouble makers infiltrate their communities. The National Security Council (NSC) in which there is probably very minimal South-Eastern presence, if at all, met and declared that registration of new residents is illegal in communities, yet movement of residents into Abuja Hotels is documented on a daily basis. What a contradiction and double standard?
NSC remembers that deportation of Nigerians within Nigeria violates the Constitution, simply because Hausa-Fulanis may be (not yet) involved.
3. I do not remember reading any statement from the National Security Council when in 2013, 70 Igbo people were deported from Lagos to Onitsha. I do not remember any action of the National Security Council on this matter probably because the Igbo have insignificant representation, if at all, in that Council and because the Igbo are not Hausa-Fulani and are therefore inferior citizens?
4. The South-East has no reason to trust the Nigerian Police, dominated by the North since the same Nigeria Police failed to protect even the Governor of Benue – a northern state but not Fulani. Benue fought the civil war for Nigeria, like all Northern states. Yet on 11th of March 2014, Cattle Fulani herdsmen shot at Governor Suswan in his own state. Failing to get the governor, the cattle Fulani went to the Governor’s ancestral village, Anyii, and after killing 22 people sacked Anyii village and 29 other communities within 25 kilometers from the Governor’s village.
On 13th March, the National Vice President of Miyetti Allah cattle breeders association, (MACBAN) Alhaji Hussaini Bosso, issued a statement explaining that his association wanted Governor Suswan dead because he was funding the Tivis who had killed in Benue alone 82 Fulani herdsmen and 6,700 of their cattle and in Plateau 43 Fulani and 4,682 of their cattle. Till date, I have not read that Alhaji Bosso or any cattle Fulani has been arrested. Rather the Police High Command explained that the Fulani herdsmen are like spirits and before you know it, they had disappeared to a Neighbouring country and furthermore, the Benue villages are inaccessible.
Apparently intimidated by the keepers of Nigeria’s P.O.W.camp, Governor Suswan surrendered and sued for peace. On April 1, 2014, the national President of MACBAN), Alhaji Bello Madejo, emerged, perhaps from the spirit world, and signed a peace accord in the Banquet Hall of the Government House, Makurdi with Rtd Brigadier Atom Kpera, Chairman, Benue State Reconciliatory and Peace Building Committee. The agreement was witnessed by Deputy Inspector General of Police, Mr. Michael Zuokomor, representing the IGP.
The net effect of the agreement is that the cattle Fulani would graze their cattle in Benue but mind their cattle from straying into Benue farms (perhaps with micro chips implanted into the brains of their cattle to limit their movement). This innocuous statement, extract from the agreement, establishes the superiority/inferiority complexities of the agreement.
“We also agreed that the Fulani have not been chased out of Benue; they should feel free to remain and co-exist peacefully with Tiv/Aguta rural farmers.”
Benue is the State of Senate President, Gen. David Mark, Nigeria’s number 3 citizen. South-East has no Senator David Mark and only one or two governors from the Sout-east are in the National Councils of State and the Security Council.
On 24th April 2014, Nigeria’s Expanded National Security Council was summoned. The Sultan of Sokoto was there. IG Police, NSA, Minister of Defence and Head of Customs were all there along with about 10 northern governors who are Fulani.
On Fulani Cattle Fulani menace, Niger State Governor reported that the Council recognized that ranching is the order of the day but Nigeria would continue the antiquated and out-moded pastoralism (allowing cattle to roam at large ) which is peculiar to Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria and Sudan. No thought seemed to have been given to irreplaceable thousands of lives these violence-prone Fulani herdsmen have cost Nigeria nor the billions of naira damages they have cost Nigeria. The Expanded National Security Council seemed to have shifted the PRIMARY PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT TO THE WELFARE AND SECURITY OF FULANI CATTLE as against the Constitutional requirement that THE SECURITY AND WELFARE OF THE PEOPLE SHALL BE THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF GOVERNANCE ( Section 14 (2)b of the 1999 Constitution).
INDEED NIGERIA IS A FULANI PRISONER OF WAR CAMP.
When shall this imprisonment end?
Every people are the architects of their own fortune. God has bestowed all humans with similar endowments. The United Nations and African Union recognise these rights as equal between all humans by various covenants, conventions and charters. Nigeria is signatory and has adopted all of these instruments and are therefore bound by their protocols.
It is up to the SouthEast to go to the President and insist on these rights, failing which protocols for enforcement of these rights should be explored.
Evil thrives when honest men keep silent. Silence is the enemy. The law has no sympathy for those who sleep on their rights. If there is nothing left, the freedom to shout is a commonly available option.
A stitch in time saves nine!!!
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OkpalaEze Nri Emeka Onyesoh
