December 5, 2009
I have been following with the ongoing breaking news, discussions on the status of president in absence, I mean the president of Nigeria Umaru Musa Yar'adua. A man who spent 9 days at an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in a kidney/heart hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in the past two weeks. I am wondering if many of us are actually thinking about what is about taking place in Nigeria. The Northern part of the country, a place many of us call home, have more or less chosen to let Yar'adua continue as president while the affairs of the State is left in the hands of thieves and looters who are careless on whatever happens to the average people.
Dora Akunyili, the woman that was once credited to have stopped the importation of fake drugs into the country, upon being promoted and re-branded as the dis/information-communications minister, is now telling us that all is well with the health of our president? Everyone of the PDP appears to be playing out a script that serves the interest of the party leadership.
The madam rebranded minister have no qualms lying through her teeth while standing with that other depraved government front, to lecture us on what the world already know about our president: That he is took sick to continue in office and that he spent more than a week in ICU under life support and even after being released from ICU, relapsed again and was re admitted back to ICU.
If we consider this country above every sections or individual interest, then now is the time to rise above religious or tribal sentiments and let the criminal cabal holding us all down that enough is enough.
It has become a game of 'see no evil, speak no evil; your loyalty is determined by how much lies and deceptions that you are able to put out in the public media. The media houses are also owned by the ruling class and so are instrument in their hands to mislead us further. I am thankful for such an outfit as Sahara Reporters as well as all other outfits online that are digging up all the dirty practices of our leaders at home and abroad.
In our very own ancestral land, thieves and very dangerous people are running slavery on us while we use religion to mix things up. The must be a clear separation between all religions and the State with the only True God whom the Muslims choose to call Allah. Why is it difficult for some among us to simply understand that there is a clear distinction between religion and citizenship? We are either Nigerians or we are not. Religion is a totally different thing. In my lay mans understanding which I believe agrees with a great number of the human reasoning, religious beliefs must be a personal thing and any attempt to impose any other religion on any part of the nation or any individual, means a call to division of the population based on our locations on the Map.
Why will the leaders of North, be excluding a Southerner, a man who happens to be also from the very source of the money that the ruling class are siphoning abroad hiding them in western based banks, from the presidency of Nigeria? What is Nigeria without the South? What is the contribution of North to the over all development and enhancement of the 'project Nigeria'? Why are we always wasting time going around in circles rather than engaging in serious discussions that will determine the way forward? Why are we so afraid of separation yet we are the one that engage in acts that lead to break-up? We wiped our more than 3.1 million of our fellow brothers and sisters during the Biafra-Nigeria war yet we are not satisfied? The Niger Deltans have been short-changed in the maintenance of Nigeria. Dr. Jonathan Goodluck, the vice president, though a known corrupted mind like his Northern-Southern counterparts, is not worthy of being the president of Nigeria because the constitution of PDP the most vile political party, that graced the face of Africa says something else?
Which is applicable here: the constitution of the country or PDP's by law? Which one comes first, the orange tree or the orange fruit? I know that if justice and equity were to be our measuring yardstick, all of you our oppressors, will be shot or die through other means that will torture your body while being separated from your bodies. You've been the vilest of humans and may your memory be wiped off the face of the earth.
In upholding the separation of powers among the regions, tribe, and religious leaning becomes the defining yardstick. We apportion presidency to regions based on North-South divisions. Where has this sort of practice been made to succeed? Where is merit in taking office? Where is the laws of the land? Was the Peoples' Destruction Party We seem to have acquired the means of making violence by using the disadvantaged among us, to go out and kill a few thousand of the Southerners residing among us just to send a message to those unbelievers? You then turn around and shoot us like you did to Mohammed and other leaders of Boko Haram. You set us up and teach us how to do your bidding only for you to turn around and massacre us? You conceal evidence by killing us and not allowing us to stand trial since this will expose you?
They are not our enemies but you train us up to believe that they are the problem and we are the solution. You become a cabal that is also tied to the military leadership. You either carry out a military take-over of the government in the name of rescuing the country from collapse or you simply 'fix' results after 'selecting' your choice from your criminal gang. Your interests has become our national interest and any attempt upon you, have become sedition against the state. Anything that challenges your hold on power, threatens the very existence of Nigeria? You basically have become the country while we, the rest of the population remain the conquered.
How long before you realized that it is getting too far and too much?
What is happening? How long are we going to continue like this? The development of this country has been grossly messed up and our people are left to wallow in stone age era thinking and practices. We are still used as human bombs just to destroy the lives and properties of the lower class citizens of North or used against the Southerners among us. The oligarchy are playing out the tactics the house of Saud is applying in holding down the people of Saudi Arabia after conquering them more than a hundred years ago. I do not want the reader to misunderstand my take here.
I am not anti Muslim because I am one and I stand to defend the benefis of being a Muslim but not with all the deception by those that suppose to be our political/spiritual leaders. I know that many among us understand the history of those ruling Saudi Arabia. It is one family and they use all their relatives to do the job while they themselves are left with the wealth of the State to share among themselves. That Saudi Arabia is an oil kingdom, means this folks being in charge. They are both the religious and political leaders. Now bring that back to Nigeria and compare it to what is taken place here. This cuts across the entire country regardless of your affiliations and tribal divides.
The ruling oligarchy/feudal lords/politicians from local government to presidency/religious leaders/military leaders all share the oil revenue while not caring how the rest of the population fare. We keep silent in the midst of all these things yet they want us to believe that they love this country after almost fifty years of what suppose to be freedom on the day of independence on October 1st 1960. Nigeria started out on a wrong foot and ever since have continued to falter. Division along religious lines tore the country apart. The British colonial masters knew that it will come to this but choose to ignore it.
Eventually there will be a time like this one, when Nigerians will wonder why it all came to this. The North have been duped all along, the original natives of the land got taken by the invaders who in this case were agents of the Ottoman empire. A strange religion that is not our's, became a weapon in the hands of a few, to kill our fellow human beings? Are we suppose to be fighting for God or Allah will fight his battles if any, by Himself? Why are we making ourselves God's self appointed advocates? We got so used to destroy our ways of life, cultures and traditions while converting our kids into slaves. That which suppose to unite us, turned out to be a weapon in the hands of political leaders.
We blame the Western world, Chinese-Asians or the Arabs/Indians and Pakistanis for our woes when we are actually our worst enemies. We allow rouges in high places so long as our interest is covered and in most cases, it doesn't get covered since we are short changed and left to wallow in our poverty and deprivations while the masters continue feeding us with crumbs from their table. Whenever the power appears to slipping off their grip here in the North, they remind us of our religious obligations to go and protect the name of Allah, the blessed one, especially in dealing deathly blows upon the Southern citizens and even extending it to Jos, a State that has been home to many of us. How can we build a veritable country like this? Does it not bother anyone of us anymore? Am I missing anything here? Why do we allow a few among our people to hold us to ransom? Let me conclude that there a millions of sufferers across the land and if what it takes to save all of us from this human-induced-degradation of life going on in Nigeria. If what it will take to have peace among our tribes and languages would be to go our separate ways, then so let it be but we can also have understanding on how we can cooperate in international relations having borders.
North is more than able to survive on its own just like the Southern part of Nigeria. May be separation will spur a great development that we all have longed for all these years. Someone may call me names for making this suggestion here but let me remind such that the discussions that are very common on the market places, mosques, churches and streets, are centered around the break-up of Nigeria and what its aftermath would be. We may choose to delude ourselves and claim that things will eventually sort themselves out. This will be the worst part to take since it will still leave us in the greatest disadvantage in dealing with the rest of the country.
Finally let me remind our Southern brothers that we are open to friendship and better relations among the tribes and religious practices. Our traditional religions remains first and all other religions were strange and this includes Christianity and Islam. It does not worth dying over forcing others to believe in what we believe. It is divide and rule and we must rise above that. The rest of the world is moving ahead while keep going round in circles without making any progress. Human rights activists are arrested and jailed here in the North regularly. Poverty has become an inheritance among we Northerners. Our leaders are happy to be giving us hand-outs just to keep us in check. This trend have also shifted to the South as well. You now have locals who have borrowed our begging trade to their own advantage.
You now have people who ordinarily are not beggars, putting on very dark goggles and seating at the bus stations in Southern towns and villages begging for alms. This actually have been acted upon by Nigeria's nollywood. This is our time and what we do with it will go along way in reshaping our future. The entire structure is completely decayed. Nigeria is now becoming a by word in the entire world. There are many countries that are not as endowed as we are but are doing way too good compared to our monumental corruption and failures at all levels of leadership. The entire ruling class must be made to leave or else, we remain their slaves for God knows how many centuries more. May the knowledge of the past, serve as a guide for us in moving forward and facing the future.
We the commoners of the North have been greatly abused to the benefit of a few among us. Look hoe our brother Mohammed was shot by the army who were interviewing him a short time earlier? Extra judicial killing remains common in the hands of the elements of State in Nigeria. A common protest leads to killings. Weapons and evidences are planted just to achieve a desired outcome. Our's have turned out to be a complete failed state. Let not the American intel hear about this 'cause they will remind us that they predicted it about three or so years ago.
We all saw it coming so it is not as if it was by accident. The Ota famer, the great Olusegun Obasanjo, the adversary from Ogun state, who was imposed upon the country by no other person than Ibrahim Babangida after ditching Alex Ekweume, another depraved corrupt politician from Anambra State. Obasanjo used Umaru to cover his tracks knowing fully well that his health will not be able to endure the rigours of the office of President of a very complex country like Nigeria. Obasanjo and all the rouges that call the Southern part of country as well as those in the North must be made to face trial for economic/political sabotage against the people of the land. Crimes committed against the people of this country from all regions from 1914-date
It is as a result of the failures of leadership to address the inequality in coutry that we still have sections of the country calling for separation. Because they feel that we are drawing them backward, they seek emancipation. We must not fight one another to keep what we can't seem to know how to manage properly. There is a great future that is awaiting our part of the world but we must first tell the corrupt leaders that it is time for all of them to step aside while we face the future as either single but highly troubled single entity or fragmented but peaceful one.
The choice remains our and must be addressed.
Dogo Monguno
[email protected]
Dubai School of Government
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