Northern Turks The Emerging Threat to Greater Nigeria
AL-ELREGINALD EKEANYANWU
Friday, March 12, 2010
Greater Nigeria is the Nigeria of our dream; where the average person will be gainfully employed; where electricity and water supply will not be interrupted; where education at every level will be well funded and will compete favorably with others worldwide; where elections will not be rigged, etc. Greater Nigeria is that Nigeria that all Nigerian citizens, irrespective of their ethnic origin, can be proud of.
It is my entrenched opinion that the major threat to Nigeria today, which inadvertently threatens the Nigeria in question, is not militancy in the Niger Delta, not the Movement for the Actualization of Biafra (MASSOB) and other pro-Biafra movements, or the Odua Peoples’ Congress (OPC). This threat is from Northern Nigeria. It is real and very potent and could only be ignored to the peril of Nigeria and especially the peoples of the Northern Nigeria. This threat is represented by the emerging northern politicians’ attitude of blatant disregard for constitutionalism, humanity and their total disrespect for public opinion.
These poisonous characteristics are, more often than not, manifested in the pursuit of visions, missions or passions which may in fact be right and patriotic or which are made to seem both. I contend, however, that the major distinction between a hero or heroine and a tyrant is not their visions, missions or passion. It actually lies in their methods: the approach to achieving their set goals. Where dreams are concerned, heroes, heroines and tyrants, more often than not, have almost every thing in common. They are, however, defined by their methods and not their results. The end never justifies the means!
Adolf Hitler was defined as a tyrant not by his dream, but by his method. The man’s dream was to make Germany the greatest and most powerful nation in the world. There was nothing wrong with that dream. The Romans, the Greeks, the Turks, the French, the Spaniards, the British, the Russians, the Americans, etc. have all dreamt this same dream. The problem with Hitler’s case can not be divorced from his avowed determination to roast every single Jew in his gas chambers. The Americans, on the other hand, set out dominating the world economically. They used their military might to stop the Hitlers, Saddam Husseins, Milosevics, etc. Whenever they mobilized their great military machinery to war, no matter what their private interest was, somebody was being liberated. Little wonder that the U.S. could pass for a defender of freedom.
To buttress my point about this emerging pattern, which constitutes a greater threat to Nigeria than Biafra ever was, I will illustrate with some young northern politicians who have recently held public offices; highlighting this consistently emerging pattern of thoughts and actions.
MALLAM
NASIR EL-RUFAI: He was the
former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. This man, who is very
highly educated had the effrontery to call Nigerian lawmakers “fools.”
Justice Bashir Sambo, former chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal,
testified that “in my presence and to my hearing…the minister
(referring to El-Rufai)
said, ‘to hell with that court and its order.” The man then instructed
his men, employees of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to flout the
court order. To further communicate his total disregard for the law to
the nation, he threatened to demolish the court premises of the Federal
High court at Maitama when the latter decided to try him for Contempt of
Court. The man actually sent bulldozers there! The Panel set up by the
Senate to investigate past administrations of the FCTA reported that
“the errors claimed by the former Minister
(referring to El-Rufai) were
not isolated but systematic and in all cases reviewed, no effected
person was availed the right to fair hearing”. The committee noted that
“over 30,000 houses were wrongfully demolished.”
Between May 17 and May 29, after the Federal Executive Council had been dissolved, Mallam El-Rufai allocated 3,645 plots of land notwithstanding that at this period he had become functus officio. He demolished people’s property and reallocated the lands to his friends and family. His case was so terrible that Senator Wilson Ake (PDP, Rivers) insisted that “El-Rufai should be taken to a psychiatric home because it is only someone that has mental imbalance that can wreck such havoc on fellow citizens.” In order to appreciate El-Rufai’s short comings, one might need to understand his actual mission. This can be inferred from some of his utterances. The man, on assuming office commented that “Abuja had become the 6th Igbo state.” Knowing General Olusegun Obasanjo, one could not rule out the fact that this might have been El-Rufai’s actual mission as Minister of FCT. Daily Trust’s editorial of August 17, 2006 lent credence to this suspicion by asserting that, “El-Rufai’s reform hurricane has been mainly against the Visigoths or ‘barbarian invaders’ who surged into Abuja hungry for space to primarily serve basic functions.”
MALLAM
NUHU RIBADU: He was the
former chairman of the EFCC whose conduct and actions in office were
described by Justice Ishaq Bello of the Abuja High court, in delivering
judgment in a suit brought by Mr. H. O. Akintola, as “reckless and
outright abuse of power”. This must have been precisely what
Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo had in mind when he contended that “Nuhu
Ribadu has a very dangerous and counter productive shortcoming”, in his
January 3, 2008 publication in THISDAY titled
‘The Rhetoric That Took Ribadu
Down.’ The man Ribadu, on assuming office, declared a “private war
on corruption” in the course of which he trampled on all the laws of the
land, violated the rights of countless citizens, mostly his employer’s
enemies and violated virtually all court orders which aimed to rein him
in. In virtually all cases he handled, as the Chairman of the EFCC, he
was the Investigator, the Prosecutor and the Judge. His victims were
completely helpless. The impunity with which he violated the laws of the
land and the civil rights of citizen was such that Justice Bello found
it necessary to emphasize that “the EFCC is a creation of the law and
must be seen to operate within and under the laws. It is not a matter of
choice.” No one, however, could have better described Nuhu Ribadu than
Peter Pan Enahoro, author and renowned columnist, who alluding to the
former Chairman of EFCC said that “I cannot help thinking of Adolf
Hitler’s vile propaganda minister, Dr. Josef Goebbels”.
DCP
IBRAHIM DANJUMA: Danjuma was the Deputy
Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations in the FCT. On June 8,
2005 he went to a club, where he met 5 young Igbo Apo Mechanics/spare
parts dealers and a girl friend to one of them. At a point, Danjuma
approached the girl for a dance, but was rebuffed by the guys. He took
offence and left the club, went and changed into his full police
regalia. Together with four other officers, he set up roadblocks on the
two roads leading to the club and laid an ambush for the Apo Six. After
grooving, the unsuspecting young men and the lady got into a 406 Peugeot
car they came with and headed home. On sighting them, Danjuma and his
men opened fire and instantly killed 3 of them. Two escaped who were
late found and killed by the killer squad. The girl was taken alive to
an unknown destination and later brought to Garki Police station where a
nail was driven into her nose. She was then allowed to slowly bleed to
dead. According to Mr. Chukwudi Chukwu, a police photographer, “the girl
took long time to die. I saw a long nail in her nose. When I wanted to
take her picture, blood was gushing from that place.” The Police tagged
the murdered 6 persons armed robbers. An unfortunate witness to these
murders, a police officer by name Anthony Idah, who hailed from Ebonyi
State just like most of the Six, was poisoned the day before he was to
appear in Court as a witness.
GENERAL
MURTALA MUHAMMED:
Considering some of the activities of this former Head of State in the
cause of the Biafran Civil war, one might be tempted to re-title this
piece ‘Northern Turks: the latent threat to greater Nigeria’. This
pattern of ruthlessness in thoughts and actions had reared its head
decades ago, but only went unnoticed. When Murtala, then a colonel
captured Asaba from Biafran forces, he had the people (civilians)
gathered on the pretext of a reception. He then sent the women and
children home and summarily executed 2000 men; old, and adult men and
boys. Uche Ezechukwu, a renowned columnist contended in his article
titled ‘THEIR HERO; OUR VILLAIN’ which appeared on the back page of the
Daily Sun of March 2, 2009 that “Murtala’s
place in history should be placed to where it accurately belongs-beside
other despicable butchers of their time: Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot of
Cambodia’s killing fields, Idi Amin of Uganda, Radovan Karadzic, the
ethnic cleanser of the innocent Muslims of Bosnia, etc.”
Space
will not permit me to continue with these illustrations, but it is
imperative to point out here that both Mallam Sanusi Lamido and the new
Czar of the EFCC, Farida Waziri are already manifesting
the same symptoms albeit with reduced intensity. One of the memorable
statements credited to Waziri on her assumption of office was to the
effect that the law was an impediment to her carrying out her duties of
upholding the law! On his own Sanusi is openly propagating his opinion
that suspected offenders, who he obviously has convicted in his own
private law court, “be tied to the stakes and shot.” Thank God he does
not have the power to “hire and fire” like General Musa Bamaiyi did in
NDLEA. This same attitude has so far characterizes the handling of the
Yar’Adua saga, which saw Nigeria without a leader for more than two
months. The Northern Union made a strong point in a statement signed by
its Chairman, Patrick Adaba, a portion of which stated that “it should
be understood by those who love this country that one of such
peculiarities upon which the unity and stability of our country is
hinged is power rotation between the North and the South” (ThisDay,
December 4, 2009)
This article is not meant to spite any individual or group. It is a call to caution to Nigerian leaders and especially northern leaders. Former Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Aliyu Attah contended that the crisis Nuhu Ribadu faced was because the “he (Ribadu) did not take caution from the onset”. There is indeed great need to take pre-emptive action; because most of these Northern Turks were raised in what Prince Emeka Obasi termed “the killing streets of Kano and other Northern cities” in the June 1, 2004 publication of the HALLMARK national newspaper. When, for instance, I read the story of SS1 pupils, whose average age should be 14, in Gombe state who clubbed their teacher, Oluwatoyin Lusesan, to death because she touched the Qur’an when she grabbed some books from a cheating student in an Islamic Religious Studies examination hall, I shudder to think what such kids could do to the future of Nigeria. The need for caution cannot be over emphasized because Iraqis suffer today, not because Americans do not have enough stores back home for their weapons or that they do not have enough barracks for their troops. No, it’s simply because Iraq had leaders who were reckless in thoughts and actions. Muamar Ghadaffi of Libya towed that part for while until former President Ronald Regan of the United States paid him a visit in the 80s. He immediately repented and has wisely remained so since then. As I watch Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran follow dangerously on Saddam Hussein’s footsteps, I pray to God to intervene. Clearly most of these world leaders are not students of history or they would know that all those who turned their guns on reigning super powers in the past paid dearly for their folly; be it against Rome, Greece, the Turks, etc.
Northern leaders must strive to reeducate their youth, starting from the homes, with emphasis on respect for constitutionalism in leadership and the sacredness of human rights and human life. This will go along way to restore faith and hope in the Nigeria project, even for those who today see no reason for Nigeria’s continued existence like General Yakabu Gowon did before the Civil War; until he encountered the British High Commissioner who caused him to see reason. This threat is real!
AL-ELREGINALD EKEANYANWU