By OCHEREOME NNANNA
AT last, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) met and spoke out since the Boko Haram terrorism received a turbo-charged boost from quarters that are gradually being exposed by our security agencies. The Forum’s tongue had been stolen by the cat (so it seemed) as the Al Qaeda-inspired foreign agents bombed, killed and destroyed in parts of Nigeria’s Muslim North.

Apart from their self-appointed media image launderers who obviously seek dialogue with the federal government on their behalf with a view to being given post-amnesty contracts (as is the case with the erstwhile media defenders of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND) all well meaning Nigerians had been unequivocal with their condemnation of these terrorists. Those who have stood on the side of Nigeria’s survival and development cut across ethnic and religious divides.

They have been unanimous in their conviction that in every part of the world (including the Muslim world) you don’t dialogue with religious fanatics or politicians masquerading under religion to kill innocent people. You annihilate them and later on look into what grievances they may be peddling. Even here in Nigeria, that had been the ways we solved the Maitatsine, El Zakzaky, and the first chapter of the Boko Haram uprisings.

The brutal repressions of these fundamentalists were done when Muslims (President Shehu Shagari, General Ibrahim Babangida and President Umaru Yar’Adua) were in power. Nobody then spoke about “dialogue” or “amnesty”.

The case of Boko Haram has been clear and unequivocal: they want an Islamic republic of Arewa in which Western education will be outlawed. The real Boko Haram group has not shifted grounds on these demands. It is the opportunistic politicians and merchants of crisis that are distorting Boko Haram’s revolutionary intents in the North as a fight for “justice”, all in vain attempts to justify their claim that Boko is doing the same thing that MEND did and must be compensated as MEND was.

When ACF finally spoke, what came out dismayed many but did not surprise those of us who understand their raison d’etre. ACF is just like Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo and Afenifere Yoruba. These are noisemakers of the Arewa, Igbo and Yoruba political elite respectively. Most of them had occupied prominent positions in and around government. Having lost their jobs they formed these groups to make political demands on the system and threaten fire and brimstone unless they are listened to. As soon as they get what they want they pipe down until they are hungry again. Then they schedule another “summit”.

The ACF was formed in July 1999 once it became clear that former President Olusegun Obasanjo was not going to implement the Northern agenda in his second coming as he did in the first. It was a protest against the perceived loss of power by the North. Even now, its pronouncements upholding the activities of Boko Haram is still part of the protest against the loss of power by the North to President Goodluck Jonathan.

These protests are utter rubbish. There is no such thing as loss of power. That a southerner is holding the presidency today is no guarantee that a northerner will not hold it tomorrow. Clearly, these ACF types believe that only the North should hold it. They are not prepared to face the reality of today, which is that the days of sectional domination of Nigeria are over.

In their recent meeting in Kaduna, the ACF came out with a self-contradictory position, which shows that their viewpoints are not guided by patriotic principles.

On the one hand, ACF led by the Chairman, National Executive Committee, Alhaji Mohammed, justified Boko Haram’s ultimatum on southerners to leave the North on the grounds that a group in Delta State was the first to ask northerners to leave. He added that southerners are “free” to leave the North. On the other hand, when asked whether the North now supported the age-old call for a sovereign national conference, he was quoted as saying: “the Forum concluded that the terms of our national union and those by which the Nigerian Federation are run have been well defined in our Constitution”.

In other words: Nigeria must remain one indivisible, indissoluble entity; the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) not Sharia or anything else, is the supreme ruling law. And no part of the country may be ruled apart from as enshrined in the said Constitution (Chapter I Part I Sections 1 to 3, Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999).

If you are a genuine believer in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) you will be bound by principle to condemn ANY call for Nigerians to leave any part of Nigeria by any ground no matter devilishly motivated. Even though they have borne a heavy brunt of the Boko Haram madness, no Igbo group has given any ultimatum for the Northerners in the East to leave, and no group ever supported such a call or threatened reprisal. No Yoruba group has done so or supported such a call or threatened reprisal.

Even in Delta State where the ultimatum on the North was issued, nothing happened when the unholy ultimatum expired. Besides, the Governors of Delta, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Abia States have been on record as making public broadcasts assuring northerners in their domains that they are safe. It is not as if only Boko Haram and their pussyfooting supporters have the monopoly of xenophobia. It is just that some people are more civilised than the others when it comes to matters of accommodating fellow Nigerians from other parts. Some cultures endorse xenophobia as an acceptable way of registering resentment, while some others find it barbaric.

Telling southerners they are “free to leave” is a very important thing to say (may be Aliko and his co-travellers did not understand the full weight of their utterances). It simply means ACF cannot guarantee the safety of southerners in the North. It means: go, or take whatever you see. That is not expected from a genuine believer in our Constitution.

If southerners are “free” to leave the North it follows that northerners are also “free” to leave the South. The country will thusly be de-amalgamated. The North will have to raise its revenue and fend for itself as an independent entity governed by the Islamic codes dictated by Boko Haram. The South will also fend for itself with its rich endowments, and governed by a code of democracy agreed by the various constituent nationalities. There are many who actually look forward to such an arrangement since it seems nihilist groups like Boko Haram and their supporters are not interested in a shared federation.

ACF is one of the problems with the North. The float of mind of its rank and file is responsible for Boko Haram’s bloody, revolutionary uprising. ACF is actually one of Boko Haram’s targets on its way to an Islamic republic of Arewa. They are the class of leaders who created the social injustice in the North which rendered the lower classes poor, destitute and now murderously angry. ACF is only trying to suckle up to Boko Haram for the safety of its members and class.

Just like its peers in the South, they are parasites clamouring for attention. No governor, minister or serious politician who wins elections attends their meetings. They don’t even know the interests of the North. So, why bother with them?

Thanks, Fashola for remembering them

WHEN the Ikeja Military Cantonment bombs exploded on January 27th 2001, the whole country shook with grief.  The casualty profile cut across ethnic groups and religions. The tragedy consumed hundreds of Nigerians, both those living in the Barracks and a whole lot more outside, especially children who stampeded to their death in the Oke Afa Canal.

A bumbling President Obasanjo visited the scene and had to be cajoled by the angry crowd of Nigerians before he reluctantly went into the Cantonment to inspect the damage. He promised compensation for the victims, but forgot all about it as soon as he left the scene. Eleven years later, the regime of Mr Babatunde Fashola decided to rub some comforting balm on the nerves of families which lost their loved ones with a token of N250,000 per family.

In more developed countries, vigilant lawyers would slap expensive class lawsuits and punitively extract heavy compensations for the bereaved families. This would make a juicy legal thriller by John Grisham!

After all, it was the federal government and the military’s act of omission and negligence that led to the death of people they were supposed to protect.
What about our numerous human rights lawyers? Don’t make me laugh!