Early this week, the National Security
Council, presided over by President
Goodluck Jonathan, and attended by the
nation’s top security chiefs, directed states
registering and deporting “non-indigenes”,
“to stop the practice forthwith”.
The practice, according to the Council, is
“more dangerous than the Boko Haram
insurgency”. It expressed fear that “the
registration and deportation of Nigerians in
states could disintegrate the country”. And
so serious is the development being viewed
that, according to ItaEkpeyong, the Director
General of the Department of State Security
(DSS), “to show the urgency, the Council of
state meeting will be held anytime next
week to discuss these issues”.
It is good that the National Security Council
eventually reacted, rather belatedly, to a
trend, which took a frightening dimension
of the profiling of Northerners and Muslims
in parts of Southern Nigeria. But the issue
commenced last year, when the Lagos state
government deported Nigerians from
Anambra state.
Even in the North, the Niger state
government rounded up and deported FulBe
nomads to Kaduna state, this year. While
sections of the elite in Plateau and Benue
states, allegedly including Governor Gabriel
Suswam, wanted FulBe people removed
from the “Middle Belt”.
But the heightened Boko Haram insurgency
and its political manipulation, including
often biased and irresponsible analyses and
reportage in the media, has fed a frenzy in
many circles in the South. Old prejudices
along the country’s fault lines seeped to the
surface helping to further a dangerous
“Masada Complex” of suspicion and
actions not thought through, in terms of
dangers they portend for our country.
Northern traders were arrested in the East
with the security alleging that a Boko
Haram “commander” was arrested in the
operation. Leading media commentators
approved the action, without interrogating
the unconstitutional detention of citizens
who fitted the “enemy” profile.
They wrote approvingly of governors of
Eastern states, planning the registration of
Northerners in their states. An orchestrated
profiling of Northerners has become central
to anti-Boko Haram feeling in parts of the
South; even the PDP exploits fears about
the insurgency, with OlisaMetuh’s regularly
unguarded utterances playing into this new
form of hysteria in the land. Circles around
President Jonathan also frame the Boko
Haram insurgency as orchestrated against
his presidency by Northerners, to further
polarising the country.
Recently, the Igbo Leaders of Thought
allegedly called for withdrawal of Hausa-
Fulani/ Muslim police commissioners from
the South East, because they are security
risks, in respect of Boko Haram. There are
also regular warnings by groups like OPC
and MASSOB to Boko Haram, of retaliation,
if it ever came to their “territories”!
Not surprisingly, a call for a tit-for-tat,
retaliatory action has surfaceed in Northern
Nigeria. Last week, a group called
Concerned Arewa Citizens, threatened to
initiate a bill for the registration of
Southerners residing or doing business in
Kano and subsequently, all over the North.
The group said it would take the step to
protect Kano from “robbery, kidnapping and
other criminal acts”. Even the Arewa
Consultative Forum warned that if the
South East goes ahead to issue identity
cards to northerners, Igbos in the north
would receive an equal treatment.
ACF Deputy Secretary-General, Alhaji
Abubakar Umar warned that issuance of
identity cards by the South East “could
endanger the multi-billion naira
investments of Igbo businessmen living in
the north”. It was this threat, which forced
the National Security Council to act.
As ItaEkpeyong stated: “The council
discussed the reaction by some groups in
Kano State and other parts of the country”.
Frankly, government waited too long to
react; it encouraged the deliberate
polarization of the country, with an eye on
short term political advantage!
Those exploiting the Boko Haram
insurgency to push Nigeria towards the
abyss of perdition,haven’t deeply thought
through the consequences of their action.
There are zealots and ethnic entrepreneurs,
who see the disintegration of the country as
answer to its problems.
There are those equally deluded that
Nigeria can neatly be broken up into neatly
defined ethnic entities, such as the faceless
GBOGUNGBORO columnist of THE NATION
newspaper. But ethnic entrepreneurs can
only open the road to hell with their
chauvinism. Registration and deportations
are emblematic of fascist regimes, such as
Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa.
It does not fit a democratic society.
We should collectively resolve security
challenges without profiling citizens on the
basis of their region or faith. Northerners
and Muslims have suffered most from the
Boko Haram insurgency; and Northerners
won’t destroy their communities just
because they don’t like President Jonathan!
Nigeria’s ruling class has managed to
create one of the most unjust, unequal and
non-inclusive countries on earth.
This is the root of the crises phenomena
dogging Nigeria. Those who reduce these
problems to irresponsible manipulation of
fears about the “other”: North-South;
Muslim-Christian, do a great disservice to
all our peoples. That is why the call to stop
the registration and deportation of
Nigerians is welcome, even if belated!
Those Ilorin Ramadan days
I returned to Ilorin on Monday, this week.
My reason is to take in the spiritual and
cultural ambience of the city of my birth,
during this Holy month of Ramadhan.
This is one of my favourite times of the
year and the incurable traveller that I am (a
Fullo carries the gene of travel!), every year
during Ramadhan, I return home for a few
days. It is a whole process that is wired
into my memory.
The long days of fasting; the Sahur (early
morning meals which I sadly don’t eat
now); Tafsir sessions in mosques; long
hours of devoted recitations of the Qur’an;
those nightly Waazi (night time
preachments) and the unending hours of
cooking and preparations for Iftar(the break
of fast) by our mothers! I think it was the
incredible energy displayed by women
during Ramadhan, that first conscientized
me to the place of women in our society.
Much later in life, I would become familiar
with Marxist and feminist literature on the
exploitation of women.
But I was talking about the spiritual and
culture ambience of Ramadhan; and as a
growing child, there were plays and
simulations unique to this time of the year.
We constructed mini-mosques; attempted
to copy our fathers/uncles who were
Islamic scholars to preach too in those
replica mosques, which used to be
elaborate works of art wearing amazing
colours and dotting neighbourhoods of the
city.
There was an unspoken competition
amongst young people to construct the
most elaborate of those mosques. And I
think the most fabulous was a game (EPA
OKUTA), which employed a stone-like bean
of many colour descriptions and which
taught children basic strategy.
The game is no longer part of childhood
today, what with the disjointed modernity.
The same bean was also ground into a
paste to prepare a delicacy of Ilorin,
KANGU, that is sadly disappearing from the
diet of most families today. I still love it
and before my mother’s death, she would
purchase and send to me in Abuja. And
because it lasts for weeks, I would
refrigerate and eat over and over!
The story was that as a growing kid, I cried
through a night insisting that my mum got
KANGU or nobody was going to sleep. And
they did not! So early the following
morning, one of my great aunts, who sold
the delicacy, over-supplied me the stuff, sat
by me with a cane and insisted that I
finished the whole lot! It cured me of that
longing for months and I didn’t disturb their
nights henceforth!
Those spiritual and cultural tapestries
conditioned the individual that I became,
because so early in life, we were made
aware of the traditions of scholarship,
spirituality and power that we came out of
and consciously, we learnt that we had to
be touch bearers of our traditions into the
future.
It is that deeply felt realisation and an
appreciation of the heritage of scholarship
and spirituality of my Fulbe ancestors that
makes me cherish this return to source
annually during Ramadhan. I take in as
much of our communal ethos as possible;
not forgetting to appreciate the changes
that time and modernity have wrought on
the community.
If we wait long enough, of course,
everything changes. But I never lose the
longing to reconnect with the living heritage
of scholarship and spirituality of this
homestead.