The coast is becoming clearer. We can feel that by the day. The reluctant chicken is coming home to roost. It is shedding its arrogance fast. With alarming alacrity!
Things are speedily falling apart. The centre is extremely finding it unbearable. It can no longer hold. The terrible situation is under alarm. And guess what. There’s no need for control. It’s belated.
The elite, the elders, the emirs are losing grip on “their” North. And they are not pretending it. Neither are they feigning it. It is glaring. It is given.
As a matter of raw fact and naked truth. The Fulani were never at any time in majority in Nigeria. Not even in the North. They remain a tiny minority wherever they force themselves to reside.
Give it to their uncanny resilience. They’re the ruling class in many states of the North. Wherever you spot an emir, he’s Fulani. They are, unarguably, the “world’s largest nomadic group.” So claimed Wikipedia.
Twenty million of them “are dispersed across West Africa.” Nigeria harbours 15,300,000 of them. Giving them 6.6 per cent of the over 200 million Nigerians. Some other countries also have a bite. They include Mali, Guinea, Cameroon, Senegal and Niger.
By the 2006 headcount, Sokoto is the biggest Fulani state in Nigeria. It plays host to 3.6 million of them. These nomads are found practically in every state. Always on the move, mostly in the bush. Tending their cattle. Or so they act.
The story won’t end there. Things have gone far beyond Fulani in the North. As presently constituted. The North is in the midst of unwilling, vulnerable partners.
They are visibly agitated. You could see the grave grief all over them. That spilled from their cold experiences. And it ran through the past sordid decades. You wouldn’t want them to forget so easily. Would you?
The reason the North is in great panic. The #EndBadGovernance protest was an exposé. It brought out the good, the bad and ugly in the North.
And that was the crux of the matter. If that protest had not happened to them the violent manner it happened. The North would have remained monolithic only in their weird imagination.
Not only that. We too wouldn’t have known the North the way we got to know it after the protest. Even clerics, traditional rulers, political leaders and elders were not left out. They were rudely shocked their North turned out that way. Their pleas to the protesting youths fell on deaf ears.
“The youths did as they pleased, causing stampede and fear, painting the North as rudderless; and as one that is drifting aimlessly.” Wrote an anonymous report. That outcry got the “owners” of the North thinking and worried.
Vice President Kashim Shettima was in the forefront. He suggested a “high-level” meeting with stakeholders: “We will seek support from all regions, alongside our political leaders who have genuine concerns about the North.”
The League of Northern Democrats (LND) heeded the call almost immediately. Its chairman, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, said: “The region has realised that it has problems on its hands, which it must confront with a common resolve.” Shekarau is a former governor of Kano State.
Senator Ibrahim Ida, Wazirin Katsina, saw a huge disconnect in all this. He definitely saw well. The disjoin is between the older and the younger generations in the North:
Those who are now in positions of religious or moral authority are often close in age to those they are trying to guide.” He volunteered in an interview with Weekend Trust.
He admitted this was strange in the past. Then, “there was a clear age difference between the led and those in authority.” The old time has become history. Learn to live with the present. That’s the clear message passed.
Prof. Munzali Jibrin is former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC). He should know better. He lent his unrelenting voice:
“These people have no future prospects, no education and no skills to sustain their lives. The consequences have been the North has been posting grim and scary statistics.”
The stark and damning reality: The North is highest in all negative indices. And damning samplers: “The region holds the unenviable records for the highest number of out-of-school children, highest infant mortality rate, lack of basic infrastructure, unemployment rate, low Human Development Index (HDI), as well as general insecurity.”
What else can be more incriminating? It’s also not pleasant or pleasing. This North cannot be the same again. It has lost it. It threw away many previous golden opportunities generously placed on its laps. Those magnanimities, lavishness won’t again.
And this is where we’re going. The minorities in the North are now restive more than ever before. Will you blame them? Do so to your own peril. They aren’t kidding. They mean every bit of the business. They are taking up “arms” against the so-called core North.
The Middle Belt Forum (MBF) is the rallying point, the arrowhead. It’s providing the needed leadership at this critical moment. There’s no pretence about it. And they don’t intend to even shoot a shot.
Dr. Bitrus Pogu leads the forum. His thoughts are quite different. He saw injustice all over the North: “The main problem is the legacy of the colonial masters ensuring that some people dominate others through indirect rule. This has brought us to where we are today.” Correct!
Perhaps, for this reason, Pogu spit fire. He disowned “Arewa Republic” and its proponents. His was outright rejection. He vowed the Middle Belt (North Central) would remain unwilling partner in an “Arewa Republic.” With or without Fulani as a part!
No. No dealing with such an oddity, even with a long spoon. He bared his honest mind to Saturday Sun: “Thank God that the Fulani, who people are running away from, now also want to go. If they are talking of Arewa, who are the Arewa people? Arewa has been and it is still being dominated by the Fulani people.”
He was blunt: “As we are saying no to what they are saying, when the chips are down, I can tell you that even our indigenous Hausa would come to say, no. You can go, you met us here. We are indigenous to this land.
“You are the ones who came here about 200 years ago. If you feel you want to go your way, we are sorry that we cannot dance to your tune. It is unfortunate that the people who have been dominating the political space are now the ones saying that they want to go.
“If you look at those agitating, it is because the Fulani have not given anybody a breathing space. That is why they are doing what they are doing. Otherwise, nobody wants to leave his house for somebody else.” Good talk. You nailed it precisely!
“We believe, and strongly, too, that all these agitations would stop when the group that has been a headache to everybody is no more a threat to anybody.”
He’s not done: “The nature of the bad governance protest in the North is an indication that things are not the way they are supposed to be.”
Let’s sign off Pogu here on a brilliant note: “The way forward is to restructure this country and to ensure we have a people’s democratic constitution so that people will have a sense of belonging. All the agitations from whichever quarter would die down and we’ll have a better Nigeria, which we are advocating for.
The North is certainly no longer monolithic, colossal, vast or gigantic. It has been demystified several times over. It has lost its cherished monopoly. And that is settled.
Gone are those days of “One North.” No myth can be weaved around it again. Its fallacies have been thrown open. No place to hide.
The monolithic North is consigned into history. They did make it to once look like a one North. They erected mistaken belief around it. But that era belonged solely to Sir Ahmadu Bello’s years. The Sardauna of Sokoto. He held sway as North’s first and only premier.
That’s no more. And the reason is not far to find. The North has disintegrated, but not collapsed yet. It’s now an array of complexities at a crossroads, entangled in cobwebs.
Its challenges are multifaceted, deep and enormous. Many factors are playing up dangerously. And most of the players are reckless in their body language, actions and inactions. The North is against the North! It’s set against itself.
What will the North make out of itself? Time will tell. That time is fast approaching. Imminent. Almost here!
Share your story or advertise with us: Whatsapp: +2347068606071 Email: info@newspotng.com
