By Ochereome Nnanna
I don’t think that Nigerians, in their heart of hearts, are tired of living together in one country. Everything points to the fact that Nigeria still holds a very prime attraction for its people because this country gives so much to its citizens.

The only problem is that due to poor quality leadership, the amount of money collected from the federation account hardly finds its way to the people at the bottom. It is not Nigeria that is neglecting its citizens. It is the leaders, especially the local elite.

It is also the local elite that are pitching one group against the other: Christians against Muslims, indigenes against settlers, North against South, Igbo against Hausa, Yoruba and the rest. They are doing it as a form of blackmail either to have a bigger share of the national commonwealth or actually be in control of the ultimate seat of power: the Presidency.

The net effect of this unhealthy leadership approach knocks the heads of ordinary citizens of the country together, thus gravely endangering our most prized common patrimony, Nigeria.

Last year, we were reeling from the effects of deportation of citizens from states like Lagos and Rivers. The people were not necessarily deported because they were from any particular part of the country. They were given the heave-ho because they were the wretched of the earth; mendicants, homeless, miscreants and jobless people needing help.

Rather than being taken to the nearest correctional facilities or remand homes (if they were found to be alleged miscreants) or taken to welfare centres to be cared for as the downtrodden are treated in more humane societies, they were profiled for being poor and non-indigenes, and promptly bundled to their supposed states of origin. Their more well-to-do brothers and sisters from the same areas were not touched or similarly harassed.

The scandal rocked the nation to its foundation. Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, gamely apologised to the Igbos though he beseeched their leaders to run their states better and stop breeding economic migrants to other states. The Rivers State Government, which carried out a similar ignoble exercise “boned” (as we say in Nigeria). It did not show remorse for deporting Northerners from Port Harcourt.

Funny enough, though Fashola apologised, it did not stop his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, from suffering the stigma of the deportation at the Anambra governorship election of November 30, 2013 which they lost woefully.

Again, in spite of Governor Chibuike Amaechi’s refusal to apologise to the North for deporting their indigenes, it did not stop the waves of migrations from Arewa to Port Harcourt, the nation’s foremost oil city, where it is believed plenty of opportunities for job seekers exist. The 486 Nigerians of Arewa extraction recently nabbed in Abia State and branded as Boko Haram suspects were caught on their way to Rivers State.

This says it all. Deportation of Nigerians is odious, unpatriotic and unviable. Nobody can stop Nigerians from living in any part of the country of their choice. You can only make life difficult for them for a very limited time, but your efforts will not only be in vain, it will also backfire on you because we are in a democracy.

The latest ugly face of profiling is coming in the wake of the upsurge of Boko Haram insurgency in the North. The terrorists have been boasting that they would export their crimes to all parts of Nigeria. The embattled Governor of Borno State, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, warned ominously recently that Boko Haram attacks would spread to other parts of the country. With the discovery of an unexploded bomb in an Owerri church, heightened security concerns led to the arrest of the Arewa 486 nocturnal travellers in Abia State.

It was also at that moment that the idea for the registration of Northerners in Imo State was born. Instructively, it was the leader of the Hausa community in Owerri, Alhaji Baba Saidu Suleiman, who in a chat with the media, volunteered that they would do a biometric registration of members of the community to guard against infiltrators escaping from the terrorist den to foul the century-long cordial relationship between them and their host community.

I believe that the Imo State Government wanted to partner with them on this venture, but Senator Abdul Ningi’s alarm in the Senate blew it out of proportion. It was from there that other voices in the North took up the refrain that culminated in the warning by the National Security Council, NSC, that the Federal Government would not tolerate profiling of Nigerians.

Apart from the evil ones working to set asunder what colonial Britain patched together a century ago most Nigerians are agreed that there should never be profiling of Nigerians, either for the purpose of deportation, harassment, discrimination, or general denial of their constitutional rights.

But we have not answered the question arising: How do we tell our law-abiding Arewa brothers (and sisters) apart from Boko Haram infiltrators who are bent on carrying out the orders of Boko Haram and their political backers who have shamelessly and openly threatened to destabilize Nigeria unless they are allowed to mount the seat of President of Nigeria?

Sarkin Hausawa of Owerri, Alhaji Baba Suleiman, offered what appeared a useful solution. The Hausa and Arewa community all over the country owes it a duty to themselves, their host communities and the nation at large, to cooperate in the fight to prevent the spread of Boko Haram terror to non-Muslim areas where they reside.

It is their responsibility, working with other well-meaning Nigerians, to cooperate with the security agencies to crush Boko Haram, save the North and prevent the disintegration of Nigeria. They should not join their political leaders who are foot-dragging and pussyfooting on this dangerous matter.

The reason for this is simple. If terror attacks spread, they will suffer the immediate consequences, and the “big men” causing trouble for political reasons will take care of themselves and their families. It is the common people of Nigeria living in other parts of the country that will be harming one another.

This madness has gone far enough. It must stop.