--Oga Ken:
By "nobody" below, I hope you know you are including yourself and myself! You cannot fold your arms and think Ojuelegba will be flooded with protesters. Each time you see a protest, someone puts it together. Of course, there are spontaneous moments.
Nigeria has not created grassroots movements, but ethnic associations. When you run along ethnic lines, don't expect an Aba person to care about the Plateau murder; and don't expect a Kaduna person to care about IPOB. We run along religious lines. If they kill Muslims, Christians are quiet; if they kill Christians, Muslims are quiet.
The lines we draw affect our reactions.
Each time folks say that people are silent and not mobilizing, they should always include themselves!
This is always the problems in politics:
- We expect the other person to do something. No, the other person won't do something.
- We expect the other person to feel for us, take our side. No, the other person won't take your side.
Unfortunately, it does not work the way you are framing it until you create movements and activate them. You work for change; you mobilize the other person to take your side; you win people over. No matter how good your cause is once you alienate people, they won't come to your side.
As I tell professors who get into trouble, politics is local. If you get into trouble on your campus, don't coung on an international committee of professors to bail you out.
TF
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
104 Inner Campus Drive
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)
http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
From: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, June 28, 2018 at 6:07 AM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>, Victor Okafor <vokafor@emich.edu>, dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - What has gone wrong in the land
Sir:
The biggest worry to me really is the dead silence of our people, especially people on this forum. I remember during the IPOB drama and Operation Python Dance, many commentators here who claim to be the ONLY ones interested in a UNITED Nigeria, were falling over themselves to justify the unjustifiable - declaring a largely peaceful self-determination group as terrorists. Some even went so far as to make the disingenous claim that IPOB's rhetoric was "violent", more violent than the killing of thousands of Nigerians by the infamous "cattle herders".
Today, it is dead silence all around. No "Save Nigeria Group" activities. Nobody is occupying Ojota. Nothing. What a country? What a people? Perhaps this is why they say a country ends up with the kind of leadership it deserves. Sad. Very Sad!
On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 4:21 AM, Victor Okafor
<vokafor@emich.edu> wrote:
Dear All:
Can someone help me understand why Buhari's presidency has not declared killer herdsmen terrorists (or has it?), despite the killer herdsmen's apparently unstoppable track record of killing and maiming hundreds (is it only hundreds?) of Nigerians across the land. I find it an inescapable historical irony that about a year ago or so, this same presidency was quick to label IPOB (which did not have any known record of killing people) a terrorist organization, but, to date, is demonstrably unable or unwilling to declare killer herdsmen public enemy number 1.
Why must Nigeria, in this 21st century, tolerate or permit an archaic practice of cows being herded across public space? Who are the owners of the cows being herded across the land? Why has Buhari's Gestapo not arrested any of those owners of those cows but found it politically expedient to humiliatingly whisk away Honorable Senator Abaribe (a vocal critic of the administration) to detention for demonstrably laughable allegations? Has Buhari lost his mind? Who can stop this apparent reign of tyranny in the Federal Republic of Nigeria?
--
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