Nigeria: of patriots, activists and citizens

Even the goats have had enough

 

The majority of Nigerians, while assuming the citizenship of the federal republic do not care much about issues that affect them because their assumptions are more comfortable and comforting than tedious self-analysis. During so-called free and fair elections, bags of rice, salt, grains and bales of clothes, are used to cheapen the worth of citizenship. Perhaps Nigerians should not be entirely blamed because the leadership has deliberately disempowered them through cynical divide and rule tactics coupled with religious fatalism. The leaders have resisted nationhood and sacrificed unity on the altar of greed, parochialism and deliberate institution of mediocrity. The average Nigerian citizen has been reduced to being aware of just one sense - that of survival, and is compelled to do everything possible to survive, irrespective of status.

Recently, a so-called elder statesman from the Niger Delta, whom Nigerians knew as a close confidant of the former president of Nigeria, turned quisling, by denouncing his political protégé. In a bid to survive or gain some relevance in the new dispensation, Edwin Clark suggested that former President Jonathan lacked the guts to tackle Nigeria's institutional corruption. Coming from a man who publicly declared that Jonathan was the best thing to have happened to Nigeria is to say the least, pathetic. It is deplorable when people assume high-sounding titles such as 'elder statesmen' but are in reality ethnic champions who use available federal opportunities to feather their nests - especially their bank balances. While Edwin Clark was condemning his so-called political son, he was esteeming and kissing up to PMB. Mr Edwin Clark thus clearly proved that he is just an ordinary citizen trying to survive the enigma called Nigeria. Someone said - "the man is entitled to his opinion" especially in the dog-eat-dog political arena of Nigeria. But Mr Clark's posturing as a principled activist or patriot is maddening.  He might be an elder but he is certainly no statesman.

In a swift reaction to Mr Clark's assertions, Reuben Abati, who witnessed the old man's obsequiousness at close quarters when Jonathan was in power offered a comprehensive retort.  Reuben Abati was a respected columnist and writer before his appointment as image-maker for the administration of former President Jonathan. While some feel that Mr Abati betrayed his vaunted brilliance and integrity by joining such an inept government, I think he simply did what he had to do, in order to survive, when the opportunity presented itself - and so would many of his critics, hypocritical self-righteousness aside.  Mr Abati's dilemma is the fact that activists are not necessarily patriots. He wrote as an activist who understood the truth and was able to accurately gauge its impact on a largely reprobate society such as Nigeria. The next step for Abati after his activism should have been patriotism but this proved too daunting. The paucity of true patriots in Nigeria's socio-political space has proven inimical to building a true nation. Under sufficient aura of power and privilege the idealism of activists usually fades, their feelings become soothed, rationalization takes over and they begin to exhibit the same human foibles they were once critical of in others. The same barbs of a 'sell out' were thrown at Adeniyi who worked under the late President  Yar'adua, but one wonders what 'sell out' means - do we expect these guys to go into Aso Villa to unseat or oppose their principals? That is not their job.  As long as they are part of government, they must defend it, unless they quit in righteous indignation - a lost art in Nigeria's governance.

The problem here is that Nigerians on the average are either survivalist citizens or pliable activists pretending to be patriots. A patriot strives to protect his nation against its government, because the most important asset of a country is its people. Once patriots are convinced of a vision, they live and breathe it, for as long as it takes, to bring about its fulfilment. Fidel Castro is a good example of a man who rose from the lower ledges of activism to the pinnacles of patriotism at a price most of us would shy away from. His focus and dogged determination redeemed a nation's soul and kept out a super power, just ninety miles away, for the better part of fifty years. 

Africa is in need of a new wave of patriots - men and women with nothing to lose, ready to give their lives for the struggle. At independence, there were idealistic Africans, who could have taken the continent to greater heights but most were exiled, jailed or killed by their compatriots in active connivance with external forces. The real tragedy is that in today's Africa, patriots are rarer to find than a pearl in a dustbin while those same old malevolent external forces are still welcomed with open arms.

"Africa will come of age when it stops the rage against itself" -JR

Nigeria: Marauding Cattlemen And The Burning Fuse

Fulani Cattleman On The Move

Nigerians generally condone all sorts of assault on their fundamental human rights.  The government and those in positions of leadership assume that the average Nigerian neither appreciates nor understands the rights of citizenship. Government always emphasizes the need for citizens to sacrifice for the wellbeing of the nation, while the responsibility of rulers to the people is often left in the hands of God, or chance, by the hypocritical use of palliative religious and tribal brainwashing. More than five decades after our flag independence and with so many individual achievements in the arts, sciences, economics and political fields, we are still a nation groping in darkness, wondering how we lost our way.

That grazing animals are allowed to roam with impunity in a largely agrarian country such as Nigeria is a degrading anachronism. Apart from health risks to other animals and humans, due to cross-border movement of cattle, cattlemen have razed whole farming communities, accompanied by wanton killings as retribution, when farmers dared to protect themselves. 

Rearing cattle is probably as old as the first domestication of these animals in antiquity. But in modern times, most of the countries that have sizable cattle production industries have devised comprehensive methods for creating ranches and grazing reserves for animals. In this way, everyone is happy because the animals can feed in peace and loss in weight and injury due to never-ending chase after green grass is avoided. The health status of the animals and vaccination regimes can also be easily monitored. 

In Nigeria, Fulani cattlemen have not only disregarded the rights of settled farmers by wilfully destroying their crops when cattle graze on them. They have become a serious threat to the livelihood of large swaths of north central Nigeria with ruthless incursions into the southeast and southwestern parts of the country.  The Fulani have been implicated in instigating communal clashes in states such as Plateau, Taraba, Kaduna and Benue - in order to secure political, cultural and land rights. 

The incursion of cattlemen into the southwest has been going on for years, with many skirmishes, but the latest raid that involved the abduction of a senior statesman in Ondo state has generated a lot of flak. The gentleman, was abducted on his birthday from his farm, kept incommunicado for about four nights, and released only after an unstated ransom was paid. This was after inflicting machete cuts on farm workers and the senior citizen. Curiously, the news as at the time of this writing was that the cattlemen came back to the same farm to deliberately wreak havoc.  

It appears that since the conquest of the animist kings of Hausa land in ancient times by the Fulani, the amalgam has maintained a dim view of the autonomy or rights of other people in the space called Nigeria. To make matters worse, the departing British colonial powers found them easier to work with and virtually handed the country over to them at 'independence'. On the average, the Hausa-Fulani are very close-knit and have fiercely defended their way of life [which involves cattle grazing] at all costs. They are the least likely to integrate with others, amongst the many tribes in the country, except at the highest level, but even then, it is strictly for business - not personal integration. They have continued these self-identifying practices, despite the obvious fact that some of their ways are an antithesis to modern life - or inimical to the creation of a truly Nigerian state. 

Presently, the southwest is becoming justifiably restless because of the deliberately oppressive activities of Fulani cattlemen in their midst. For example, if the tables were turned, and people from the south are the ones going into the rugas [traditional Fulani settlement] and farmlands of the Hausa-Fulani, destroying their means of livelihood, raping their women to death and setting fire to their homes over the past decades, Nigeria would probably have ceased to exist. Some southwestern politicians are of the opinion that the implementation of the confab report of 2014, which presumably grants regional autonomy to the regions of Nigeria, is the best solution to some of the internal crisis facing the country. There is no doubt that Nigeria needs to be restructured but we keep postponing this all-important exercise, by pretending all is well - because the most powerful political entities in the country benefit immensely from the status quo. 

It is time to douse the burning fuse of Fulani impunity in the country and begin a comprehensive rehabilitation of game reserves and encouragement of ranching. In the few months, the present government has been in power, some northern state governments have boasted about how many cows, goats and sheep they recovered from rustlers.  But they are silent about the deaths and destruction visited on farmers by Fulani cattlemen. Curiously, you don't hear much about Fulani/Farmers clashes in the 'core north' - it happens mostly amongst those considered non Hausa-Fulani or Christians.

The choice of what we want for Nigeria in this matter is simple: a nation where individual rights and citizenship privileges are guaranteed or the Fulani conception of reaping where he did not sow.  Sadly, if the recent Arewa Consultative Forum's response to the southwest's complaints is anything to go by, we have a long way to go before true nationhood - if ever.

The Ife Succession Crisis: Yoruba Ronu

Ooni Olubuse II and Governor Aregbeshola

It is with dismay that every serious student of history and pride in origin should view the present tussle going on with the installation of a new Ooni of Ife. Why is it difficult for kaaro ojire to close ranks and resolve their problems without egregious rancour? Obviously, it is more important to prove what we are worth than behaving how we ought. The truth, however, is that we only act tough and uncompromising amongst each other, but become doves or act intelligent, when relating with other Nigerians. With our propensity for bickering, feathering individual nests, and ruinous rivalry; history has judged us harshly through loss of territory, political power and reduction to supporting roles in the sad drama called Nigeria.

Based on a 1980 Oyo state government memorandum, there are four ruling houses in Ile Ife, namely; Lafogido, Giese, Ogboru and Oshikola. The government declaration on the Ooni chieftaincy title of 1977 instituted the rotational regency of the ruling houses in the following order: (1) Osinkola (2) Ogboru (3) Giesi and (4) Lafogido.  According to extant agreements, the Giese are next in line to produce the Ooni of Ife after the demise of Olubuse II from the Ogboru ruling house. The problem is that other ruling houses [including the Ogborus] are insisting on presenting a candidate for the Ooni stool with various claims of clandestine agreements, spurious conjectures and outright falsehood trailing the exercise.

A case is currently in court to determine who becomes the next head of the Yoruba 'spiritual' throne first occupied by Oduduwa. The Lafogido ruling house took the rather testy step of naming the incumbent governor of Osun state, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the Obalufe of Ile-Ife, Oba Solomon Folorunsho Omisakin and Lowa of Ife, Chief Joseph Ijaodola as defendants in a case to prevent the Giesi ruling house from producing the next Ooni of Ife. Though it is difficult to separate traditional institutions from politics these days, it appears that in the current Ife case, the kingmakers and the state government had reached an agreement. If this is the case, it is only proper that other ruling houses forget their grievances and help anyone appointed to succeed.  

With the crisis potential of our ego trips, it is perplexing that we, as a people, have not noticed that the big picture is not pretty. Compared with northern [Hausa-Fulani] traditions, Yoruba traditional succession is fraught with potential disagreements that could turn quite deadly. For example, the powerful Sultanate of Sokoto does not witness the open crisis of succession inherent in the kingships and politics of Yorubaland.  During the recent succession struggle to succeed the late Emir of Kano, and despite the obvious preference of the Federal Government, there were no court cases against SLS [incumbent Emir] despite localized skirmishes. The new Emir's rivals accepted the will of the kingmakers who were obviously working closely with the state governor. 

The Yoruba appear to be the epitome of the 'do-or-die' concept when it comes to politics and kingship successions. Other parts of the country exploit our lack of unity or deliberate non-cooperation among ourselves to the fullest. In the 1960s, while the north [who indirectly instigated the crisis] was at peace, operation 'wetie' was going on in Yorubaland resulting in untold destruction of lives and property.  A similar crisis occurred during the second republic, to a lesser extent, in Ondo state during the Omoboriowo saga. The lingering Ife-Modakeke crisis was only brought to an end during the reign of the last Ooni after many years of intermittent bloodshed. A cold war, between the Alaafin of Oyo and the late Ooni of Ife, that was predicated on who was superior, continued until the latter's demise.

 With a cultured intelligentsia and urbanity that is second to none, the Ife crisis of succession is a sad reminder that much learning and idealism does not translate to a well-adjusted society when individualism precludes cooperation. The disease affects our artists, businessmen, leaders of thought and politicians. 

We must get our acts together and allow succession to the ancient Ife stool take its normal course without undue manoeuvring that belittles our integrity. The Ife throne's influence goes way beyond the shores of the country and must be cherished. We must not allow pettiness destroy a tradition that no single individual can recreate - Yoruba, e ronu.

jrotimbgood@gmail.com