Meanwhile, the ruling class and their ofgivial and unofgivial dogs (consisting of membership in all ethnic groups) is selling Nigeria, practically raping and stealing Nigeria blind and regrouping for 2023!
On the trending video claiming that ISWAP is massing for military invasion of the South West!
Well, unless and until there is factual empitical evidence, my take is that people are really searching for enemies in primordial clothing to cover the real threats to existential wellbeing of ordinary people.
When they are done with pursuing one illusion, they manufacture new ones. For a long time, it had been "the Hausa-Fulani bogey in the so-called "South"; followed by Boko Haram invasion, now, it's ISWAP in the "rain forest"!
Then there's a whole lot of rattle about Amotekun and Buhari's "Community Police"!
All of these now compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A perfect situation of confusion, ethnic fear and uncertainty, is created for the masses of the oppressed which limit their capacity for class reasoning, class solidarity and class based defense across ethnic and religio-confessional boundaries.
Meanwhile, the ruling class and their ofgivial and unofgivial dogs (consisting of membership in all ethnic groups) is selling Nigeria, practically raping and stealing Nigeria blind and regrouping for 2023!
And who are the leaders now? Some religious, ethnic bigots and warlords, ascwell as their intellectual props, and business partners!
We must be cautious and be aware of historical precedents on a world scale.
Just one example:
The people of Lebanon, who had been captives of similar historical manipulations since the early 1940s woke up only in 2020 to realize that the entirety of the Lebanese ruling class and their imperialist backers, not Suni, Shia or Christians or any of the other smaller sects, had been their enemies!
The 1945 independence Constitution of Lebanon mediated by the departing colonial authority (France) rigged power-sharing among Christians and two Muslim sects. Lebanon still ended up with a Civil War in 1975 with foreign interests meddling on various sectarian elite sides that had by then fractured further!
It was this multiplicity of sects (over thirty of them) that shared power in post-Civil-War Lebanon and continued to entrench corruption, economic collapse, violence and poverty in Lebanon today.
As in Lebanon, the Muslim, the Christian, the Northerner, the Igbo, the Birom or Fulani, the Yoruba is not the enemy or the problem in Nigeria. The enemy is the Nigerian ruling class who share backgrounds across ethnic and religious divides and their foreign masters!
Our duty is to pose existential issues that would force everyone to show their real face and where they stand on those issues, such as:
1. Retrieving looted wealth not earned from productive activities abd investing in projects for public good, such as free education, social housing, employment or unemployment benefits.
2. Payment of minimum living wage of at least the legislated N30 000 pet month.
3. Reversal of all past privatisations and putting them under democratic management and control.
4. Free medical care for all and prohibition of medical tourism.
5. An end to contractocracy and execution of public projects through MDAs.
6. An end to disproportionate reward system for political office holders and enforcement of national minimum wage as remuneration for elected public office holders, etc.
These are some of the issues that would force these ethnic bigots to take positions along class lines rather than hiding under the cover of ethnic and religious false champions.