By Ochereome Nnanna

THE controversial issue of “deportation” of Nigerians to their states of origin reared its ugly head once again in the past couple of weeks. This time, the venue shifted from Lagos in South West to Rivers in the South-South and Imo in the South East. Coincidentally, they are all states under the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors!

According to media accounts, on Saturday, 25th January 2014, some 84 young Muslim men from Katsina State were rounded up in the premises of the Imo College of Advanced Professional Studies (ICAPS) in Owerri, where they were reportedly undergoing skills acquisition. They were forcefully sent back to their state on the suspicion that they were members of the Boko Haram Islamic terror group. They were said to be mostly illiterate and spoke only Hausa.

A couple of days later, a larger contingent of 320 people of Arewa North extraction, comprising men, women and children, who were being conveyed in a convoy of 17 buses, was intercepted at the border between Imo and Rivers en route to Port Harcourt. They were taken to the Rivers State Police Command Headquarters in Port Harcourt and an intensive inter-agency security debriefing or interrogations commenced. Some have reportedly been sent back to Jigawa State, from where they were said to have taken off in their southward journey.

At least, those caught in Rivers State were taken into custody for security processing. At the end, those found to be security risks will be made to face the laws of the land while those found to be innocent travellers should be allowed to continue to their destination (not forced back to their states of origin). Nigerians have an inalienable constitutional right to decide where they want to live and earn a living, provided they do so under the law and with full regard to the sensibilities of their new host communities.

This was not the case with the bunch rounded up in Imo and sent back to Katsina State, if media reports were anything to go by. Nobody explained how these 84 illiterate youth came to camp at ICAPS, who sponsored them, who their leader was. No effort was made to hear their side of the story. In fact, the law enforcement agencies did not seem to play any role in the whole matter.

At least, when Lagos State “deported” some indigent Igbos to Anambra State, there were some (if poorly done) attempts to process them and escort them to their state with a combined team of policemen and agents of the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) brigade. Absolutely nothing was said about the processes involved in the Imo repatriation, which is typical of Governor Rochas Okorocha’s total disregard for due process and decency.

The two contingents were said to have come from Jigawa and Katsina, respectively; two states I am very familiar with. On the one hand, Jigawa is about 98% Muslim population. It is probably the most Islamised state in the country. It is also one of the most peaceful, with only one recorded incident of Boko Haram attack in the home of former Inspector General of Police, now self-exiled Mr. Hafiz Ringim, who hails from Ringim town.

The former IG is probably regarded by the Jihadists as a personal enemy and organised that attack from outside Jigawa State. I can authoritatively report that Boko Haram has no base or footing in Jigawa State. I have been there several times in the past six months, travelling day and night and sensing no evidence of fear or anxiety about terror attacks.

Katsina, on the other hand, is Jigawa’s next door neighbor to the West. It is the only state in the North that has NEVER experienced Boko Haram activities.

Be that as it may, it does not make the manner of influx of these harassed travellers any easier to understand. Can you really blame anybody for developing apprehension over the sudden convergence of 84 young men from the section of the country associated with the terrorists, suicide bombers and murderers of innocent school children in their hostels at night, travellers and people worshiping God in churches?

What track record has Imo established in training its own youth in skills acquisition that will attract the interest of 84 illiterate youth from the far North? With the recent confirmation that the Apo uncompleted buildings dwellers were members of the Boko Haram planning an attack on Abuja, added  to the recent boasting by “Abubakar Shekau” that he would soon attack the South, can you blame anyone for taking proactive, self-preservation measures?

Again, is it normal for 320 people of the same ethnic or cultural stock to travel in a convoy of seventeen buses out of their cultural homeland unless they are refugees from war or natural disaster? Do people migrating to another part of the country for greener pastures usually go in such large numbers or convoys? They should not blame anybody for being alarmed and anxious in the light of things happening in the North perpetrated by their own people.

The Boko Haram terrorism has imposed a great burden on people of Arewa stock in Nigeria, sad to say. It is sad because the vast majority of these Nigerians are peaceful and hardworking, contributing their quota to the economic, social and political development of the country. They have always been part and parcel of the Nigerian social tapestry, and will always be, irrespective of whether Nigeria breaks into a thousand pieces or remains one united entity. There are certain essential economic goods and activities that only they can provide.

But unfortunately, they have allowed their misguided leaders, preachers and foreign enemies of the Nigerian nation to get them mixed up with incendiary political ideas and activities that have only served to widen the gulf between them and their fellow countrymen, first in Arewa North and now (increasingly) in other parts of the country.

This situation is likely to be exacerbated if (we sincerely pray not) Boko Haram makes good its threat and extends its attacks to the South. This is why I have shouted myself hoarse on this page pleading with our fellow countrymen and women from Arewa North to disregard the evil machinations of some of their leaders who seek to portray Boko Haram as soldiers of the Islamic religion or warriors fighting for the forceful return of power to the North. That kind of mindset will only worsen the already poor quality of national identity between Nigerians.

We must continue to insist on the sanctity of the citizenship rights of Nigerians, irrespective of whom they are or where they wish to settle and live their lives. But security of lives and property is paramount. An old Biafran saying has it that a person surrounded by enemies must protect his life at all times and must never fall asleep. We must continue to raise the alarm whenever we see security threats around us, but we must report them to the security agencies which have been empowered by the constitution to tackle such matters. We must not indulge in abuse of fellow citizens’ constitutional rights. We must leave that to agencies of state to handle according to the law.

I join President Goodluck Jonathan to urge the new Service Chief and all Nigerians never to go to sleep until Boko Haram is crushed to pulp and the people of North Eastern Nigeria are able to sleep peacefully at night and live normally during the day.

Nyako: Beware of poison!

IT was shocking to see Governor Murtala Nyako, a retired Admiral of the Nigerian Navy, warning his Abia State counterpart, Chief Theodore Orji not to poison him at the Presidential Villa Abuja last week.

“I am telling you, don’t poison me here. I am not comfortable with you here. If anything happens to me here, wallahi, my people will take you to court”, he was heard saying to Orji. The Abia Governor, like a father, tried to calm him down, saying: “For how many years have we been sitting together? Is it this zero hour that I will poison you?”

“Who knows”, growled Nyako.

Due to the alphabetical order of sitting at the Council of State and other meetings at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Abia is first and Adamawa is next. Orji and Nyako have always sat together. I do not know where this poisonous jibe came from. Some say it was because of Nyako’s defection from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC). If that was correct, what about the Governor of Ebonyi State, who sat on the other side of Nyako? Is he not from a PDP state?

From the serious countenance Nyako wore and his repeated swearing (wallahi) I did not see it as a mere joke. Rather, it came across as a childish display of politics with bitterness from a septuagenarian elder statesman who should know better than to shout wolf where there is none. It is from the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. Governor Orji should consider moving to another seat. You never can tell…