By Dr Austin Orette
It has become a culture for Northern Nigerian politicians to erupt into subterfuge and engage in effusions of caustic language against their imaginary enemies.
In their orgy of hatred, they always speak in hyperboles. In a democracy, we expect our politicians to debate the issues and point the way forward. This culture of debate involves give and take. You win some, you lose some and parochial interests are subsumed for the good of the whole nation.
This is the way it should be in any functioning democracy except in Nigeria where the fundamentalist Fulani Muslims have decided to put our democracy in a choke hold.
They came out vociferously against the tax bill in the National Assembly, before they read it. They rained fire and brimstone on President Bola Tinubu. Some even threatened war. These are not ordinary people. These are people who have walked the halls of government as governors and other plenipotentiary positions. They know clearly that a bill before the house has to be debated before it becomes law. They would rather scuttle the debate and threaten anyone who supports it, with hellish repercussions. They even threatened secession. They amplified their umbrage and called Tinubu OTP. (One time President). They promised mayhem for the president’s kinsmen.
The next day Sharia became an issue in western Nigeria. They have telescoped their thoughts to us that they will destroy what they cannot have. When they stood there and threatened Nigeria, they forgot how far times have changed and they seem to be the last to know that their world view and position are steeped in stack contradiction to the present.
In the past, the military gave them everything. They have become like spoiled children throwing tantrums for parental attention. They are lost without military dictatorship that spoon feeds and hand position and merit to them without questions. They are suffering from severe cognitive dissonance. They seem to have a historical perception that , they the Fulanis defeated Biafra and kept Nigeria “united “, and as such the whole of Southern Nigeria is a conquered territory that should be under the Islamic Fulani extremist who have contributed to the backwardness of Northern Nigeria.
Whatever bloviated position they achieved was through successive military coups in Nigeria that got positions out of proportion to their merit and contributions to Nigeria socio economic and political evolution and development .The Fulani military that ran Nigeria bequeathed a lot of wealth, power and position to this clique of religious zealots from Futa Jalon. They used the Islamic religion to convince the Hausas that they are of one purpose. This is a lie. The Hausa people in Northern Nigeria are the hewers of wood and drawers of water. They are prisoners in their homeland. They encourage these unfortunate people to join the other ranks of the Nigerian army and use them as foot soldiers for their Jihad against the South that is more educated and more productive.
Through successive coups, they had unearned merit. With this came a lot of wealth they are using to propagate Wahhabism in Nigeria. Instead of using these stolen wealth to develop their part of Nigeria, they use it to keep mostly the Hausas ignorant, poor and uneducated. It is these pool of ignorant people that they can easily weep into a religious frenzy to attack non Muslims. They have used this MO for their political survival in Nigeria.
Things are changing; the world is closer and more competitive. They say they have more land and more people. Why can’t they monetize these factors? It is easier to weaponize ignorance and poverty. They can’t because they purposely made their people to be poor and ignorant. They intend to use them in their proxy wars of religious extremism.
The Fulanis always use proxies to do their battle. The mistake they are making now is that they have always fought the last battle the same way . They go to their most potent ammunition. The Sharia is the tool the Fulanis used to conquer the North and is the tool they want to use to make their foray into the south.
Unfortunately for them, they failed to understand that a Southern Muslim is an educated person who knows the position of religion and culture in his life. The Fulanis are religious extremists and everything they got in Nigeria is due to this extremism. They threatened to leave the union. They are not going anywhere because they know that decision will be suicidal. They will be poorer than Niger Republic or Chad or their brethrens roaming in the Sahel. Anytime the Fulanis lose influence, they conjure up their imaginary relationship with Sharia.
During the debate for the 1979 Constitution, the Northern delegates walked out because Sharia was not included in that constitution. They returned with their egos bruised.
Four years later, the Northern Military overthrew the government of Alhaji Shehu Usman Shagari. Ibrahim Babangida made Nigeria a member of OIC (The organization of Islamic States). Then came Abacha who was the author of the 1999 constitution. Sharia was smuggled into the constitution.
These so called gains for the North were only achieved under unitary military dictatorship. They could not educate their people, they could not build industries. Individually, the Fulanis have made out like bandits in the various military regimes that ruled Nigeria. They are billionaires with oil wells but don’t know the location and coordinates in the Niger Delta.
These predatory achievements were made under the name of Northern Nigeria and Islam. This is why in this time of distress, they are reaching out for their familiar weapon , Islamic extremism and bellicosity. Unfortunately for them at this time they will have to grapple with the monumental squalor and decay they created in the North.
The middle belt doesn’t want to have anything to do with the Northern agenda of Islamism, terrorism and poverty. Soon, the Hausa man will start asking them; why is every Emir a Fulani Person? Where are the Hausa Sarikis? Why is every imam of a mosque in Northern Nigeria, a Fulani? Most of all they will ask, what are we fighting for?
In the First Republic in Nigeria, the North did not agitate for Sharia. We had independent Regions who did not succumb to the indolence of monthly allocation. This was because at that time the North was prosperous and Self sufficient. They had purposeful leadership. The new apostles of Sharia have no weapon to fight their poverty, disease and ignorance. They are behaving like a drunken man at the wheel of a car praying for superstition to rescue him out of an imminent accident.
No one should be perturbed. This is their last Jihad. What we are witnessing is the spasms of a dying oligarchy.
Dr Austin Orette writes from Houston Texas
