On Boko Haram and the gang of ‘One-Nigeria-at-any-cost

By UCHENNA NWANKWO

SINCE the enthronement in 1999 of General Olusegun Obasanjo as the President of Nigeria, there has been a steady drumbeat of violence against Christians by Hausa-Fulani Moslems in Northern Nigeria. Some historical data are in order here.

At national independence  in 1960, the operating and accepted Constitution for Nigeria decreed secularism. The said Constitution was co-authored and endorsed by Ahmadu Bello, the Premier of Northern Nigeria and grandson of Sultan Usman Dan Fodio, founder of Sokoto Caliphate and modern Islam in Northern Nigeria. Soon after, enemies of a true one Nigeria started gathering combustible and explosive materials against the constitutional order in the country.

In 1984, General Muhamadu Buhari’s military junta, in which two Fulani Moslems served as both Head and Deputy-Head of state or government, executed three young Nigerian drug peddlers for a crime which the secular laws of Nigeria stipulate light imprisonment. Over and above the requirement of the Nigerian Constitution, the Buhari administration decreed a punitive law they copied from Muslim theocratic states of the Middle East.

With this, attempt to islamise Nigeria had started in earnest.Shortly after he became military President of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Babangida who had sworn to protect and defend the country’s secular order provocatively but secretly made Nigeria a member of Organization of Islamic Countries. Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe who challenged the imposture lost his job as Chief of General Staff and nearly his life.

Following this Muslim moonslide victory over secularism, the respected Muslim scholar, Sheik Gunmi could boast that “Christianity  is  nothing”; and “that a Christian  would never be the President of Nigeria”. No Moslem cleric or statesman called him to order. Thus, the Nigerian political, cultural and religious space were poisoned and saturated with intolerant thought forms  by people who claim that they worship God.When a Christian became President in 1999, the Hausa-Fulani Moslem North erupted in a paroxysm of violence.

The ostensible excuse for the arson, brigandage and mass murder was a supposed quest for full Sharia Legal System. Public figures like General Buhari were on hand to laud the project. He sneered at critics by claiming that “it is Muslim hands that will be chopped off and not that of non-Muslims”. President Obasanjo ignored this affront to secularism and felt that the issue would go away. But it has not.

The matter has in fact grown worse! As usual after Mr. Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential victory, riots erupted in the Moslem North where General Buhari had won handsomely. But this was a dress rehearsal for worse things to come. A group known as Boko Haram has since appeared, daily gorging itself with the blood of innocents, especially Christians and Southerners.

Boko Haram affixed itself and its name and membership perpetually in infamy when on Christmas day 2011 it attacked Christmas Day worshippers in a church in Madalla near Abuja killing dozens. These gruesome murders have continued and Christian clerics like Ayo Oritsejafor who protested has been called names by all manner of characters who call themselves Moslems.

The question for all of them is: Would there still be Nigeria if it was a Christian that bombed and killed Moslems who might be worshipping in a Mosque on one of Islamic   holy days! But what does Boko Haram want or not want? Answer: they do not want Western education; they want a thorough Sharia and Islamic society; and lately they have ordered Southerners to vacate Moslem Northern Nigeria.

We fail to identify anything evil or criminal in these demands if they were shorn of murder and thuggery. We also fail to understand why the “One-Nigeria-at-any-Cost” gang that runs the country to its own sole interests has refused to see beyond its nose. True Nigerian nationalists and thoughtful Nigerian nationalities and their leaders have for decades asked that the terms of the Nigeria project be discussed and agreed to reflect changing realities whether cultural, religious or whatever.

It is only our irrational patriots (the One-Nigeria-at-any-Cost gang) who use whatever power they have to block such calls pretending that any such conclave would inaugurate the break-up of Nigeria.We do not share in these baseless fears. Moreover, if Nigeria exists only to distribute deprivation and death to Christians and minorities or majorities, then people must be given the opportunity to choose to live or die early, horribly and wastefully. Life we think comes from life and never from death.

Moreover, the endless surges and recessions of military, political, economic and religious power in history is supreme evidence that a fixed and unchanging status quo is utterly beyond human attainment. Right now, Scotland is considering breaking away from the United Kingdom after hundreds of years of being part of that union. Therefore, all those declaring or acting to show that the 1914 amalgamation (or even the 1999 Nigerian Constitution) is sacred are engaged in a bankrupt and futile exercise.

No one can replace the peoples of Nigeria. No one can successfully deny them their just rights indefinitely. Ndigbo Council for National Coordination (NCNC) holds that if Nigeria must exist as one country, then it must do so on the basis of equity, justice and the equality of its citizens.We now speak in utter contempt of all those individuals, organisations and authorities who had encouraged hapless Christians and Southerners to remain in the North assuring them of security of life and property which they know to be empty.

Those who are now being cruelly assured of safety in the North must remember: The Nigerian Police Headquarters as well as the United Nations building in Abuja are all discrete and stand-alone structures. These could not be protected from Boko Haram’s attack. During the 2011 Nigerian Independence anniversary, the Nigerian government with all its army, navy, airforce, police, SSS, NIA, etc cowered before Boko Haram’s threats.

So how can the same powers be able to protect millions of people spread over thousands of kilometres and in virtually every hamlet in Northern Nigeria? Unless we are asking those Southerners who want to continue to reside in the North to take up arms to defend themselves and not rely solely on government’s efforts, there is really no need to urge them to continue to live there.

We protest the apparent policy of using Southerners resident in the North as cannon fodders for the Federal Government of Nigeria by the dubious gang of “One-Nigeria-at-any-Cost”. We therefore appeal to the Federal and state governments, the Police and others to stop giving empty and cruel assurances of security to hapless and threatened groups as well as urging them to stay put in the North.

Finally, we appeal to the Federal government to organize a Nigerian national conclave to thrash out the terms of association of individuals and groups in the country, so that Nigeria may live. We hold that the continuing suppression of such a conclave or conference makes the Federal Government the primary instigator of political crisis and insecurity in Nigeria.

We thank Governor Murtala Nyako who against great odds is striving to show the light in Adamawa State and to protect non-indigenes in his domain, even though he has no police force under his command to even begin to tackle such a problem.

Our gratitude also goes to all those Nigerians who have spoken up against the evil being perpetrated in the North, including ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar who has pointed out that “this spiral of violence, especially coming two weeks after the terrorist attack on Christian worshippers at the St. Theresa Catholic Church at Madalla on Christmas Day, is unacceptable because it is targeted at destroying Nigeria ‘s hard efforts to sustain unity in diversity, and that the attack on defenceless citizens anywhere carries the risk of polarising the nation and weakening the efforts to take a united stand against terrorists and their evil agenda”.

We affirm that the NCNC remains committed to the Nigeria project but abhors and rejects the idea of a Nigeria that will be built on the bones of Christians or any other legitimate and law-abiding group in the country.

M r. Nwankwo, an architect & Chairman, Ndigbo Council for National Coordination, wrote from Lagos.