USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Nigeria : Is There a Country?

Amended.

My two kobo's worth

The very title of the theme subject is a suggestive play on Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" and "There Was a Country". The rest of the outrage, pessimism and despair expressed by Brother Adepoju  provide a sufficient raison d'être for the dissolution  of the Federation into its prior constituent parts or fragments that now make up the whole.

But, in my opinion,  this country that we call Nigeria, the Lugardist amalgamation of its folks of many nations and many religious persuasions, from  the  very contemporary  remains of what was once the Sokoto Caliphate in the North West to  the South East Region , is a great country  - as recognised by others  (non-Nigerians, the Africa Union etc.)  and as the Rt. Hon. Oga Obadiah Mailafia has explained, "Nationhood is a process" – in accordance with the evolutionary principles spelled out in  Barrett's Seven Stages to nationhood.  Another cause for optimism (on the evolutionary trajectory ) are  these words  of  en-courage-ment from Oga Mailafia : "The various groups that made up modern Nigeria were already in close interaction (the effusive and ebullient Emmanuel Ayandele would say 'intercourse')  with each other for the better part of a millennium"

One of the everyday realities is that everybody  (who can afford it in Nigeria) has a good appetite for  Fulani beef ( usually halal) and it's not as if there's going to be a boycott of the sort of consumption  dictated by the dictatorship of various peoples ' stomachs. To extend the logic of metaphor, it's not as if Oluwatoyin Adepoju  or any of our Nigerian Brothers and sisters in Nigeria are sufficiently on the offensive , to the extent that they would like to or be willing to ( still metaphorically speaking) to  bite the hand that feed them.  Ah , there's the rub and verily it is a dilemma that can be best solved by the ruthless,  impartial, even-handed administration of the rule of Law in Nigeria – whereby murder is murder and in a country where all eyes and teeth  etc.  are equal, shouldn't justice require – in compensation,   an eye for an eye,  a tooth for  a tooth,  a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn,  a wound for a wound,  a stripe for a stripe ?

The problem of Fulani marauders has been urgent for many years now and now that we have a Fulani President  the ball is in his court and hopefully, he is going to put a stop to the carnage as best and as quickly as he can.

I should also like to point out to Oga Mailafia  re – his opinion that "There is an ancient Arab military doctrine known as "fitna". You keep pounding communities and continuously hound them until they surrender and leave the land to you."  This is  a cynical misunderstanding of what  "fitna"  is. This is the meaning of Fitna  as I have always understood it :  wahala, dissension  caused by schism and division – divide and rule. What you have described as "ancient Arab military doctrine " is nothing less than terrorism…

 

On Tuesday, 1 March 2016 21:45:54 UTC+1, Oluwatoyin Adepoju wrote:

I increasingly think this object Nigerians call a country is a waste of time.

It is akin to pouring water into a leaking basket.

We could build all the fine houses we like, engage in as much politiking as we like, we don't have a nation.

What we have is a jungle.

A no-mans-land where wild animals roam and among whom some humans insist they want to dwell.

The problem is not the strange 2016 budget in which millions were allocated to pay rent on the official residency of the national ruler.

The problem is not the allocation of millions for books for the office of the Vice-President, or the massive amounts allocated for food in the ruler's residence, along with other silly allocations in mind staggering amounts.

The problem is not the current chasing of political opponents in the name of fighting corruption while ignoring members of the national ruler's team who have spent millions in building a personal website or in hosting a birthday, among other inanities.

The problem is not with the years long consistent  murders, rapes and pogroms by Fulani herdsmen/militia, reaching a climax in the ongoing Agatu massacre in which which whole communities  have been rendered full of corpses and razed to the ground as the Fulani  move in with their cows to occupy the land while the government presided over by a Fulani man surrounded by his cronies  maintains silence or pretends what is happening is a quarrel between neighbours.

All these are expressions of the fact that the social space and geographical entity where all this is taking place is not fit for human habitation, no matter how much people pretend about it.

It is simply  a space where brigands are in control and those who have an understanding  with  these brigands can do anything they like.

Form new political  parties, debate endlessly about one issue or another, ultimately anything different from close collective examination of the social space called Nigeria, allowing those who want to leave the forced union to do so  and those who wish to remain to do so,  while establishing the terms for either choice,  is a waste of time.

Anything else can only benefit those who are happy with life in the jungle.

thanks

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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