It is sad that Nigerians, especially those who claim they have been to school and are the educated elite keep repeating the same mistake of seeeing things from the tribal and ethnic prism.
That may be the reason why we keep failing as a nation. Else how does the matte of an inept and heartless leadership end up being discussed by otherwise sane individuals in such terms as we see here? That Obasanjo is Yoruba and that he stole Nigeria blind and moved us back to the stone age in the field of failed power generation ought not to make a Northerner, a Hausa or Fulani, a Muslim or even a non-Muslim Northerner to paint all Yorubas the same evil colours as Obasanjo. That Obasanjo sadistically manipulated the INEC and all the instruments of State to impose a sickly and unwilling Yaradua on Nigeria will not make us, Northerners Muslims hausas and non-hausa and non-muslim northerners to apportion blame on the tribe of yorubas or southerners. No!
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That Ibrahim Babangida as military dictator ran a government only superceded in corruption and malgovernance and abuse of power by the Obasanjo PDP disaster of the past 10 years (inclusive of Yar'aduas two) doesn't mean all hausa fulani or northerners are to blame.
Writers and commentators on the respected saharareporters should be honest enough and reasoned enough to blame those deserving of blame, even if they are of their own blood. That will lead to the new beginning we all hope for Nigeria, even if it includes going our separate ways, with those of us in the Muslim North forced into the contraption slapped together by Lugard in his evil 1914 conjoining of the unhappy bedmates that make up the sad Nigerian Union.
We, in the North especially, the Muslim Hausa Fulani, in case you don't know are only suffering this union in silence and waiting for God's will to be done when we either learn to live together with peace and mutual respect or go our different ways in peace. This union that we are being unjustly abused over -- and because of -- has hurt us much more than any gain. It has lost us our independence and steady, sustainable growth. It has lost us our innocence. It has taught many of us unnecessary hatred. It has diluted our highly cherished moral values and virtues.
We have in the excessive unitarism of the union opened our gates to people who live with us and off us while undermining us. The many ill-advised central government initiatives from the NYSC, to numerous economic and government policies have flooded us with people who consider themselves foreigners in our midst, no matter how accomodating we try to be, with little or no reciprocity for those of our people who find themselves on the side of their home communities. How many northerners get jobs, plots of land, business opportunities, political opportunities in the south? Check out any state or city, or even village in the north, among the Hausa Fulanis and you will see expansive accomodation of non-indegenes, including the recent appointment in Kano state, the heartland of the Hausa Fulani, of yorubas, igbos and other tribes as members of the cabinet, as advisers by the state government that the sentiments expressed by some commentators here lump as the problem of Nigeria. Mark you Kano even practices Sharia Muslim Law for Muslims which it doesn't impose on non-Muslims.
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For God's sake while we are together in this unpalatable union lets try to make it work as best we can, by being truthful and honest and sincere in our critique odf issues. I am here referring to the leading elite, the intellectuals that are the breeding ground for leadership, who comment on such blogs as this.
I know for a fact that even katsina had never voted for yar'adua from 1999, when he first became governor. It was the PDP rigging machine that made him governor. It is the same machine that made him president. It is the same machine that made his protege, Obasanjo's anointed governor after him, even when they had to use the most brutally repressive tactics ever to have their way in 2007.
It was a southerner, in fact a Professor, who is a disgrace to education, a disgrace to his clan, Maurice Iwu who connived with shameless Obasanjo and such shameless people around Obasanjo from the North and south, Muslims and others, such as Nasiru El-Rufai, such as Nuhu Ribadu, such Ibori, such as the then police boss Ehindero, with such shameless governors as Peter Odili, Adamu of Nasarawa and many more, with a lot of behind the scenes help from the ANPP and the many mushroom parties such as AC that played into the PDP's hands to install yar'adua, an Yar'adua who was propped up by the machinations of the leaders of the tribal groups that were corralled by the crooked Obasanjo PDP apparatus to support him as amply revealed by El-Rufa'i in his exposee on the making of the failed Yar'adua presidency.
And the toothless bulldog of a judiciary led by weaklings posing as tough guys, from the North and eslewhere such as the CJN Idris Legbo Kutigi and his sidekicks who ended up legitimising the travesty of an election, the shameless sham, the dummy sold Nigerians in 2007 which we are now all suffering for. It is not a tribal tghing to be good. It is not a tribal thing to be bad either. It is a human thing. It is universal. In all nations of the world in history, from antiquity till date, tribalism and racism has never helped growth. It will not do so in Nigeria either. it will only cause us grief and more grief. God frowns at racism. The tribalist rumbles over the Yar'adua mess will lead us nowhere but to grief, now and in the future. After all did we not have Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeougwu and his raving lunacy as the result of the tribalist nonsense of the day that truncated our First Republic?
After Nzeogwu had unleashed that monster assassinating his boss and mentor Ahmadu Bello Sardaunan Sokoto did not the monster swallow him and eat up his tribe, setting our most enterprising and likeable Igbo community back by a centruy orr more? What of the madness of Gideon Gwarza Orkar, another Majopr in the Nigerian Army who decreed parts of the Muslim North out of Nigeria? Did he live to tell the tale? Did he help matters then, at a time when even most Northerners were themselves full of hatred for IBB and his maradonic bullshit in governance? All he did was to force us back into IBB's embrace against our personal wish and desire!
FOr positive change we should use the instruments of the modern world. We should look to the blacks of the US and learn from them and Obama. We should learn to tolerate one another, and as I said if we have to split we should do so with peace, honour and respect. In the interim we should work together to identify the crooks of the Union, the Obasanjos, the Yaraduas, the PDPs Anenihs and Bode Georges and the David Marks and Aondoakas and Iboris and ElRuafis and Ribadus and all of those who have a hand in the mess we are saddled with this past ten years and flush them out of the system from our localities. The elite in sahara Repofrters and out their in the real world should be always Just and Truthful, for being Just and Truthful is Godly. THAT IS THE WAY OUT. NOT TRIBAL HOGWASH, PLEEAAASE!
BY MUHAMMAD DANKANO
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