Enahoro: A Colossus & his Lilliputians
By Sam Onimisi
It has been a privilege for me to read various commentaries by different people on the person and life of Late Chief Anthony Enahoro. I have had the opportunity to pay tribute to the great man at his 87th birthday anniversary in July last year. On that occasion, I had said what was germane and enough for a birthday. Even now at his demise, I don’t see what else I could add to better what I had written, except that I need to recall some of what I said in view of certain opinion expressed by some people after his demise. It is also compelling to offer some explanation on certain issues to which I was privy and others which I had the good fortune of hearing from the icon of Nigerian nationalism.
“For those waiting for his demise to acknowledge and eulogize him, he is already a phenomenon whose followers are brimming with his progressive ideas that are sure to outlive him” This is part of what I said in tribute at his 87th birthday. Among those who paid tribute to him, Sam Omatseye of the Nation newspaper and another writer had raised three issues, which he regarded as standard yardstick by which they found it difficult to hold the late nationalist in high esteem. The issues are Chief Enahoro’s membership of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), his negotiation with the People’s Democratic Party in 2003 and the way he handled the finances of the Pro-National Conference Organization, PRONACO. Let it be known that I subscribe to the truism that no mortal man is perfect and neither Chief Enahoro, Sam Omatseye nor I is an exception. However, I also believe that some men are better than others in their efforts towards perfection.
In 2001, I summoned the courage to ask the late Chief Enahoro in an interview why he had to join the NPN in 1979. He said it was his friend, Chief Joseph Tarka who came to him and revealed that a cross-section of the chieftains of the NPN had offered him the presidential candidacy of the Party and sought for his support. Pa Enahoro said that given his knowledge of and friendship with J.S Tarka during their days in the opposition and in the Federal House of Representatives, coupled with their experience and travails in the hands of the conservative leaders of the NPC which became NPN, he could neither doubt nor deny J.S Tarka of his support. In addition, he reasoned that if ever a minority ethnic group will ever accede to the leadership of Nigeria in a democracy, the offer to Tarka was an excellent opportunity, which, he as an advocate of equal rights for minorities could not decline. To me, no reason could be more plausible, even if it led to a miscalculation or a mistake.
On the vexed question of Chief Enahoro’s parley with the PDP in 2003, I was privy to that negotiation as a member and Director of Research and Plans of the Movement for National Reformation, MNR. It all began when President Olusegun Obasanjo invited Chief Enahoro to work with him, and the Chief felt that he was a leader of a group and was obliged to inform his members before taking a decision. He summoned the N.E.C of MNR and tabled the issue before us. Majority of us advised against it on the ground that Obasanjo could not be trusted. Our fear was that our leader could be lured, used and dumped by OBJ as he was wont to do. We also feared that the PDP as a party of the establishment will not be comfortable with a progressive of the caliber of Chief Enahoro in their midst. As a consummate democrat, our leader opted to subject the offer to a wider spectrum of MNR and thereby summoned its National Working Committee. His view was that in a democracy, the minority and the majority must be given equal opportunity in decision-making process, and that which ever way the issue goes, no one will be the loser. At the NWC, it was resolved that the MNR should raise a team to negotiate with the PDP on condition that the core values and programme of MNR are non-negotiable and must be accepted as a pre-condition to work with the PDP. What are these values of the MNR?
The MNR believed that an Independent National Conference was imperative to negotiate more equitable terms of co-habitation as a nation-state in order to stem the tide of becoming a failed state. It was also the position of MNR that the Presidential System is too costly and prone to corrupt tendencies and therefore unsuitable for a multi-national country such as Nigeria. In its place, we advocated the parliamentary system, a more open and collegiate system that accommodates or is conducive to the country’s plurality. The MNR also believed that the states as they exist are too weak structurally to be true federating units, especially in the minority regions. In their place, the MNR proposed an eight regional structure and so, advocated the restructuring of the country-all of which will evolve into true federalism in political and economic terms. The PDP led by its then National Chairman Engr. Barnabas Gemade, included Chief Tony Anenih, Gov. Lucky Igbinedion and the Edo-State Chairman was non-committal. They said they will take back our conditions to the President and that was the last time we heard from them! End of story!! Do not ask me if we were politically naïve to think that the PDP would accept those conditions. However, what if they had agreed? Perhaps, we could have avoided or aborted the ethno-religious crisis of central Nigeria, the Niger Delta crisis, the Boko Haram terrorism of the North East and the Jam’aa Nasril Islam’s bombing of Jos and Abuja. Perhaps! Who knows, may be.
From that moment, it became clear that the conservatives would never agree to any system that will dissolve power along the lines of organic federating units. Which was why MNR joined other civil society and ethnic nationality groups to form the Pro-National Conference Organization, PRONACO? Now, PRONACO consisted of over 150 organized, autonomous groups where binding force was the quest for an agreeable system and structure of government that is best suited to out diversity. Those groups had their own ideas many of which were as divergent as the country’s diversity. It was the lot of PRONACO under the leadership of Chief Enahoro to harmonize the different viewpoints and get every group to agree on a common agenda. Was this an easy task? By no means!.
The government of Obasanjo wanted to scuttle the Peoples National Conference convoked by PRONACO in 2005, by faking a so-called National Political Reform Conference. He invited PRONACO leaders such as Chief Enahoro and Prof. Wole Soyinka and they declined. The rumble in PRONACO was therefore partially instigated from without, and Enahoro became a target for smear campaign, being the arrowhead of PRONACO.
As a voluntary organization driven by private-sector initiative, funding was also by voluntary donation by member-bodies and individuals, which were never adequate. Most donors did so under conditions of strict anonymity for fear of government’s backlash. The available funds had to be applied to the most important areas of need, especially the plenary sessions where vital decisions are taken. It was a situation, which does not lend itself to strict accounting procedure or the type of openness demanded by a few.
Without being or intending to be immodest, PRONACO was led by very strong characters who were difficult to buy over, to be persuaded, not easy to placate and steadfast on principles. A congregation of such human elements must experience its own combustion and so, it was not a surprise that Chief Enahoro and Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti had to clash over the question of accounting details. The feud was contained by the moderating role of Prof Soyinka assisted by Baba Omojola and others who played supportive roles in PRONACO. That we were able to conclude our self-given assignment by producing a Draft Constitution as mandated by the Peoples National Conference, was akin to a miracle. The full story of PRONACO will be told on a later date, when the individuals who made the feat possible will be unveiled and complimented. For a leader who had the courage and the vision to move a motion for Nigeria’s Independence in 1953, went to jail several times for the same reason went into exile twice in 1962 and 1997, formed MNR and PRONACO just to ensure the unity of Nigeria and steer her away from the path of disintegration, he was simply a colossus – a great statesman. It is only human that he had his faults, like everyone else. I am now convinced that Lilliputians are needed around a Colossus if only to show the difference between the two Chief Anthony E. Enahoro left great legacies, which are sure to outlive him. Adieu, the Adolor Uromi of Nigeria!
(Sam A. Onimisi was the Secretary General of Pro-National Conference Organization, PRONACO).
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Is Armageddon here already?
Is Armageddon here already?
By Sam Onimisi
In a religious conflict, it is hard to have some people who are neutrals. Not that you may not have a few but that no one will believe them. And the reason for this is not far-fetched. Religion is such an emotive issue that lends itself to blind followership. You don’t have to produce any evidence to convince people of the desirability of your religious faith. In any case, whatever evidence you labour to produce are mere fabrications to those who would never accept them, no matter how plausible the evidence is.
There are those who inherit there faith from their parents, having been born into it. Some choose their religious faith by conscious efforts with their eyes wide open. Others are forced or compelled into it by circumstances within and or beyond their control. Among the many religious faiths, Christianity and Islam are the most popular, especially among Nigerians. Both faiths originated from the Middle-East. Each claims to be the correct way to please God or to make heaven. If God is Allah, it means he is also the author of the Bible and the Quran; meaning that he is the same Supreme Being for whom the Church and the Mosque are built.
If God or Allah is the maker of Christians and Muslims, it means both are offspring of the same Father-God. In the Church as well as the Mosque, it is generally agreed that God has no wife; which is to say that no one can claim that his mother is the most senior or the favourite wife of God. In which case, there is no reason for rivalry or envy between the children of the same father whose mother is also the same. I don’t intend to pursue the argument further, because it will simply lead nowhere to those who have pitched their tents with either of the two faiths.
The Christmas eve bombing of Jos and attacks on Christians and churches in Maiduguri on the anniversary of the attempted bombing of an American aircraft by Abdul Farouk Mutallab of 2009 and the new year eve bombing of Abuja are eloquent reminders that there is a world of difference between Christians and Muslims. If our shared territory and habitation, inter-action and beneficial exchanges are not enough to see each other as humans, then no preachment or sermonization will ever do.
To the Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda awati Wal Jihan, the Islamic group who claimed credit for the bombings, they did so to remind us that “the disbelievers or non-Muslim in the world are fighting Islam and the entire Muslim community. So we must stand and strive to protect Islam and its ways of life, and would continue until God triumphed over the unbelievers in Nigeria.” So, the 21st century Jihad or holy war is declared?
But the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) as well as the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) both headed by the Sultan of Sokoto has condemned the attacks as an heinous crime. And so, we are left to choose who to believe between the bombers and the JNI/NSCIA. The choice is hard to make, to my mind. This is because the JNI/NSCIA has never ceased to condemn such dastardly and barbaric attacks in the recent past, except that the more they condemned it, the more the attacks are carried out in more horrendous torrents! The Ulama Elders Council, in a sanguine response claimed that atrocities were not restricted to Christian-dominated areas as shooting and maiming also occurred at a Muslim-dominated area of Jos. This is a maladroit manner of equalizing and therefore, justifying the bombing of Jos.
Let us assume for a moment that the bombers of Jos are god-forsaken dim-wits, who are misguided in their small minds that they could fight for Allah, shouldn’t their elders remind them that God and Allah are one? Or are we to take it that the fathers of those bombers must be nit-wits whose offspring must necessarily be dim-wits? Because they have now made it clear that God is different from Allah as they are fighting on the side of Allah against God. What the religious nincompoops of Jos are telling us is that between God and Allah, one must be evil while the other must be good and, when good and evil are fighting, it is fight-to-finish and thus, the employment of a more lethal weapon – the bomb!
The history of war teaches that the aggressor is he who attacks first; not only that, a clean war is often declared ahead of time to enable the other side prepare for war. But in Jos, the barbarians choose to raid or plant bombs when others are asleep. This surreptitious method of war, especially when it has a religious colouration is more of a satanic war than a holy war. And I don’t believe that Allah has any relationship with Satan. But the bastards of Jos are giving Allah a bad name by bombing their neighbours and hosts without warning, claiming to be fighting for Allah. They are simply cowards.
I am informed that no one drops from the sky to live here on earth. As the individual is born into a specific family, so each tribe or ethnic nation is born into a territory which they lay claim to as their land. No one can be at home and abroad at the same time, just as no one is an indigene and a settler all at once.
In contrasts however, religious faith is by choice and not by force. If a choice is not good, it can be exchanged for another in a free world. We must wait until we get to heaven where God or Allah rules to make religious choice compulsory; not here on planet earth.
Nomads and itinerant Nigerians are free to roam the land as citizens. They go about with their religion, their culture and way of life. What they cannot carry along is their land or territory. But does this grant them the license to appropriate other peoples land? Or impose their own choice of religion on others? Put in another way, if one is not a courteous guest, can he be a good host? No one is a universal prince. You are a prince only in your own territory, among your own people. If we pretend that the cause of the war in Jos is not ethno-religious and that it is not political, we will be deceiving ourselves. But bomb-making and bomb-throwing is not an exclusive preserve of one ethnic group or religious faith. When both sides are converted into bomb planting by choice or force, there shall be mutually assured destruction. If or when this happens, whom will God or Allah preside over? Someone had better advice their wards that are intent on senseless war to cease or commit suicide by poison rather than bomb planting. If they continue, why; then here is Armageddon!
By Sam Onimisi
In a religious conflict, it is hard to have some people who are neutrals. Not that you may not have a few but that no one will believe them. And the reason for this is not far-fetched. Religion is such an emotive issue that lends itself to blind followership. You don’t have to produce any evidence to convince people of the desirability of your religious faith. In any case, whatever evidence you labour to produce are mere fabrications to those who would never accept them, no matter how plausible the evidence is.
There are those who inherit there faith from their parents, having been born into it. Some choose their religious faith by conscious efforts with their eyes wide open. Others are forced or compelled into it by circumstances within and or beyond their control. Among the many religious faiths, Christianity and Islam are the most popular, especially among Nigerians. Both faiths originated from the Middle-East. Each claims to be the correct way to please God or to make heaven. If God is Allah, it means he is also the author of the Bible and the Quran; meaning that he is the same Supreme Being for whom the Church and the Mosque are built.
If God or Allah is the maker of Christians and Muslims, it means both are offspring of the same Father-God. In the Church as well as the Mosque, it is generally agreed that God has no wife; which is to say that no one can claim that his mother is the most senior or the favourite wife of God. In which case, there is no reason for rivalry or envy between the children of the same father whose mother is also the same. I don’t intend to pursue the argument further, because it will simply lead nowhere to those who have pitched their tents with either of the two faiths.
The Christmas eve bombing of Jos and attacks on Christians and churches in Maiduguri on the anniversary of the attempted bombing of an American aircraft by Abdul Farouk Mutallab of 2009 and the new year eve bombing of Abuja are eloquent reminders that there is a world of difference between Christians and Muslims. If our shared territory and habitation, inter-action and beneficial exchanges are not enough to see each other as humans, then no preachment or sermonization will ever do.
To the Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda awati Wal Jihan, the Islamic group who claimed credit for the bombings, they did so to remind us that “the disbelievers or non-Muslim in the world are fighting Islam and the entire Muslim community. So we must stand and strive to protect Islam and its ways of life, and would continue until God triumphed over the unbelievers in Nigeria.” So, the 21st century Jihad or holy war is declared?
But the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) as well as the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) both headed by the Sultan of Sokoto has condemned the attacks as an heinous crime. And so, we are left to choose who to believe between the bombers and the JNI/NSCIA. The choice is hard to make, to my mind. This is because the JNI/NSCIA has never ceased to condemn such dastardly and barbaric attacks in the recent past, except that the more they condemned it, the more the attacks are carried out in more horrendous torrents! The Ulama Elders Council, in a sanguine response claimed that atrocities were not restricted to Christian-dominated areas as shooting and maiming also occurred at a Muslim-dominated area of Jos. This is a maladroit manner of equalizing and therefore, justifying the bombing of Jos.
Let us assume for a moment that the bombers of Jos are god-forsaken dim-wits, who are misguided in their small minds that they could fight for Allah, shouldn’t their elders remind them that God and Allah are one? Or are we to take it that the fathers of those bombers must be nit-wits whose offspring must necessarily be dim-wits? Because they have now made it clear that God is different from Allah as they are fighting on the side of Allah against God. What the religious nincompoops of Jos are telling us is that between God and Allah, one must be evil while the other must be good and, when good and evil are fighting, it is fight-to-finish and thus, the employment of a more lethal weapon – the bomb!
The history of war teaches that the aggressor is he who attacks first; not only that, a clean war is often declared ahead of time to enable the other side prepare for war. But in Jos, the barbarians choose to raid or plant bombs when others are asleep. This surreptitious method of war, especially when it has a religious colouration is more of a satanic war than a holy war. And I don’t believe that Allah has any relationship with Satan. But the bastards of Jos are giving Allah a bad name by bombing their neighbours and hosts without warning, claiming to be fighting for Allah. They are simply cowards.
I am informed that no one drops from the sky to live here on earth. As the individual is born into a specific family, so each tribe or ethnic nation is born into a territory which they lay claim to as their land. No one can be at home and abroad at the same time, just as no one is an indigene and a settler all at once.
In contrasts however, religious faith is by choice and not by force. If a choice is not good, it can be exchanged for another in a free world. We must wait until we get to heaven where God or Allah rules to make religious choice compulsory; not here on planet earth.
Nomads and itinerant Nigerians are free to roam the land as citizens. They go about with their religion, their culture and way of life. What they cannot carry along is their land or territory. But does this grant them the license to appropriate other peoples land? Or impose their own choice of religion on others? Put in another way, if one is not a courteous guest, can he be a good host? No one is a universal prince. You are a prince only in your own territory, among your own people. If we pretend that the cause of the war in Jos is not ethno-religious and that it is not political, we will be deceiving ourselves. But bomb-making and bomb-throwing is not an exclusive preserve of one ethnic group or religious faith. When both sides are converted into bomb planting by choice or force, there shall be mutually assured destruction. If or when this happens, whom will God or Allah preside over? Someone had better advice their wards that are intent on senseless war to cease or commit suicide by poison rather than bomb planting. If they continue, why; then here is Armageddon!
The Dangers of Dual Citizenship
The Dangers of Dual Citizenship
By Sam Onimisi
By reason of failure of governance, it is becoming difficult to understand the meaning and values of citizenship. But who is a citizen and what is citizenship? Why not leave the definition till later, and let us explore backward with some illustrations? On 6th and 21st July 2005 – both days being Thursday, the British capital London had a sour taste of terror attacks by suicide bombers, which left death, injuries and destruction on their trails. Security agents had thought that some Osama Bin Laden’s disciples must have gained entry into the UK with forged passports to perpetrate the mayhem. But it was not so. It was discovered that the suicide bombers were citizens of Britain but of Arab descent, born, bred and resident in the U.K
Now the British policy on citizenship is that wherever your parents came from on planet earth, so long as they are residents of Britain, and if during that period you were born there, then you are an automatic British citizen with the same legal rights like the English, Irish, Scot or Welsh man. It is this policy which made thousands of Africans, Arabs and Asians citizens of the United Kingdom. There has been many other terror acts by Arabian descendants of British citizenship. Lets examine some other instances.
On November 5, 2009, an American army officer and psychiatrist shot dead 13 soldier/colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas U.S.A Major Nidal Malik Hassan was an American by residence and orientation of Arab descent and was said to have had contacts or connection with Yemen’s radical Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki.
Again, British police on 29 December 2010 charged nine men with conspiracy to cause explosions in what they described as an extensive terror plot against U.K targets. Who are these men? The West Midland Police identified them as Gurukanth Desai, Omar Sharif Latif, Abdul Malik Miah, Mohammed Moksudur Rahman, Nazam Hussain, Usman Kham and Abul Bosher Mohammed Shahjahan – all residents and citizens of Britain but of Arabian, Indian, Pakistan and Iranian descents. Citizens plotting against their country?
Again, on 29 December 2010, five suspected Islamist militants were arrested for planning a gun attack at Copenhagen, an attempt described by the Danish Justice minister Lars Barfoed as “the most serious attempt at terror so far in Denmark.” The suspects? They are Swedish citizens of Tunisian, Lebanese and Iraqi descents – all Muslims.
Here is another instance. Anya Kushchenko, daughter of a Russian diplomat was born in the UK and had an automatic British citizenship. She got married in 2002 to a Briton, Alex Chapman and so became Anna Chapman. She had dual Russian-U.K nationality. She became a spy for Russian, her nation of descent and in the process was arrested in New York U.S where “… she did not seek to conceal her Russian identity….” She was among 10 Russians arrested in the U.S who admitted to being agents for a foreign country, and were exchanged for four U.S spies in a swap carried out in Vienna on 9 July 2010.
At home here in Nigeria, some Hausa-Fulani Islamic terrorists threw bombs in Jos Plateau State on Christmas Eve, killing scores of people with the excuse of fighting unbelievers on behalf of Allah and Muslims. On the same day, they attacked Christian worshippers in Maiduguri, Borno State, killing about eight people and burnt down some churches. This instances and illustrations call to question the meaning and value attached to citizenship. If a people will forever owe allegiance to their ethnic nation of ancestry and descent, what is the need for making them citizens of your country or town just because they are residents? Has these suicide bombers in the four countries sited above not enough proofs that citizen-by-residence or orientation is a fictitious creation which does not endure?
What the terrorists have proved is that most human beings cannot or do not forget their ancestry easily nor do they play with it. How could you disprove this if Britons, Danish, American, Russian and Nigerians of Arab descent or faith could destroy “their own countries or towns” in retaliation for what they perceived these countries had done against Arabian and Islamic interests? In what practical ways does the crisis in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan or Somalia affects the British-born, or American-born Arab suicide bombers, if not their ethnic feelings for their fellow Arab brethren? If the Hausa-Fulani Islamic terrorists of Jos, regards the town as their home by virtue of their Nigerian citizenship, would they plant bombs to kill their ‘brothers’ and destroy their ‘town’? Or when and how many bombs have been thrown in Kano, Sokoto or Gusau by the Berom, Tiv or Jukun in order to kill Hausa-Fulani and take over their land or rule over them?
In Nigeria, immigrants and nomads have assumed the status of MOBILE CITIZENSHIP and acquired indigenous rights to boot; whereas other Nigerian ethnic groups cannot enjoy the same right outside their ancestral lands. Is it not when such assumed rights clashes with the interest and the rights of their host communities that ethno-religious conflicts erupt? Where do the rights and interests of migratory-cum-nomadic ethnic group’s ends, and where does the rights and interests of sedentary ethnic groups begins? Need we not harmonize the rights of both so that Nigerian citizenship will stop spinning riots, mayhem and bomb blasts? The majority and minority tribes each have their ancestral lands or territory which is their natural inheritance. When did one territory grow to swallow the other up? Does land grows or expands, if not by war or conquest? Is the Jos crisis a war by Hausa-Fulani to conquer the land of the Berom, Afizere and Bassa of Plateau State? Until these questions are answered, there can be no light out of the tunnel.
One of the main causes of the Jos crisis is the proximity and porous borders Nigeria shares with Niger and Cameroon. For instance, the Cameroon has as many Fulani as there are in Nigeria, while the Hausa is the dominant ethnic group in neighbouring Niger Republic, a tribe which also is a major ethnic group in Nigeria. It is not disputable that most Fulani’s are nomads just as most Hausas are itinerant traders and farmers. Our porous borders facilitate entrances for millions of immigrants from those countries into Nigeria, without relevant papers and have been granted automatic citizenship status by their host tribesmen whose numerical strength is thus enhanced. Fallout of this situation is that the bloated population of Kano, Katsina, Sokoto etc has over-stretched social infrastructure and facilities in those states which made drifting to neighbouring states inevitable. Whenever these immigrants sought to enjoy dual citizenship, they infringe on the natural and legal rights of their hosts, thus a clash of culture and faith arises.
The second reason or cause of the crisis in Jos is economic. Livestock industry is a universal avocation. But the Fulani is more known as cattle rarer than others even though they practice theirs on nomadic basis. The topography of Plateau State is conducive to livestock farming. This is probably why the Vetenary Research Institute is sited in Vom, which has trained many Nigerians, especially the indigenous people of Plateau State the art and science of livestock farming. Today, many Plateau State indigenes are owners of large livestock farms with better and modern management skills and so, are in serious competition with nomadic Fulani cattle men. This has bred rivalry and often results in accusation of cattle rustling against one another. Not only this, nomadic cattle-men seem to take delight in marching their cows into cultivated farm lands of crop farmers, wrecking destruction of hard-earned foodstuffs with impunity-resulting in clashes of various proportions.
The third cause of the Plateau crisis is religious. Perhaps religion might rank as the immediate cause as the immigrants and nomadic or itinerant traders are almost all Muslims while the host community are almost all Christians. In a milieu of economic rivalry, clash of faith, values and culture, especially when immigrants asserts rights which are non-concomitant with and impinge on the legal or natural rights and freedom of the indigenous people, conflicts become inevitable. The contrast is that Hausa-Fulani are mostly Islamic monotheist, the native Plateau people are mostly Christians plus some polytheists. One is claiming universal right of faith, even seeking to impose their values and the others are resisting such impositions, thus the seemingly endless ethno-religious crisis.
The fourth cause of the conflict is political. Large immigrant settlers concentrated themselves on Jos North Local Council Area. With their large number, they believe the area should be conceded to them to field candidates. But the natives also believe in their own numerical strength and insist that all seats must be contested so that whoever emerges the winner wins. Each time election approaches, one side devices or instigates trouble to make election disputable or impossible. The State authorities often resort to appointing an administrator, and that sparks protests by the settler-community. One unique feature of this crisis is that it has always been the Hausa-Fulani settlers who protests. Other Nigerians hardly contest the election or participate in the protests.
It is an irony that while Nigeria ceded Bakassi to the Cameroon, the Fulani’s of Cameroon enjoys dual citizenship of both countries. As no citizen could give loyalty to two countries on equal basis, permanent allegiance goes to their ethnic nation and here is where Nigeria is cheated, minus the Hausa-Fulani. If citizenship by residence has proved to be fictitious and dangerous to stability, same cannot be said of citizenship by descent. If your parents are Urbogbo for example, you cannot by any stretch of imagination or audacity, become Hausa-Fulani, just because you were born and resident in Kano or Dutse! Never!!
Citizenship by descent or procreation is immutable, regardless of where you are born or domicile. The act of procreation or descent knows no boundary in the sense that you are who you are if you must be identified by the offspring of your parents. Your loyalty or allegiance and kin-feelings, must of necessity, go to your ancestry and not to the people or territory in which you are domicile. The Arabian-Britons and others as sited above have proved this point beyond doubt, just as the Hausa-Fulani bombers of Jos. Dual or mobile citizenship only helps to swindle others of their heritage. There is no place for dual indigeneity as the bombers have demonstrated. The real issues therefore are ethnic nationalism, religious freedom and political rights. Who else to blame? The fraudulent rickety geo-political structures and the decadent systems of government put in place by successive military dictatorship are to blame.
Any unit of government which has no coercive force under its control is a helpless federating unit. Any federating unit without a constitution of its own-making is fundamentally deficient as a tier of government. And none of the 36 States has either a police force or a constitution and so, they remain vassalage of the all powerful centre, and whoever controls the centre makes a slave of the so-called states. The crisis in Jos started during Joshua Dariye’s tenure Governor Jonah David Jang inherited it. Removing him by a state of emergency cannot be the solution. The Plateau people seem not willing to hand over their land or government to others who has their own land and government back home. Until we meet at a national conference to resolve our differences, no ethnic religious group will surrender their rights to another in peace.
By Sam Onimisi
By reason of failure of governance, it is becoming difficult to understand the meaning and values of citizenship. But who is a citizen and what is citizenship? Why not leave the definition till later, and let us explore backward with some illustrations? On 6th and 21st July 2005 – both days being Thursday, the British capital London had a sour taste of terror attacks by suicide bombers, which left death, injuries and destruction on their trails. Security agents had thought that some Osama Bin Laden’s disciples must have gained entry into the UK with forged passports to perpetrate the mayhem. But it was not so. It was discovered that the suicide bombers were citizens of Britain but of Arab descent, born, bred and resident in the U.K
Now the British policy on citizenship is that wherever your parents came from on planet earth, so long as they are residents of Britain, and if during that period you were born there, then you are an automatic British citizen with the same legal rights like the English, Irish, Scot or Welsh man. It is this policy which made thousands of Africans, Arabs and Asians citizens of the United Kingdom. There has been many other terror acts by Arabian descendants of British citizenship. Lets examine some other instances.
On November 5, 2009, an American army officer and psychiatrist shot dead 13 soldier/colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas U.S.A Major Nidal Malik Hassan was an American by residence and orientation of Arab descent and was said to have had contacts or connection with Yemen’s radical Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki.
Again, British police on 29 December 2010 charged nine men with conspiracy to cause explosions in what they described as an extensive terror plot against U.K targets. Who are these men? The West Midland Police identified them as Gurukanth Desai, Omar Sharif Latif, Abdul Malik Miah, Mohammed Moksudur Rahman, Nazam Hussain, Usman Kham and Abul Bosher Mohammed Shahjahan – all residents and citizens of Britain but of Arabian, Indian, Pakistan and Iranian descents. Citizens plotting against their country?
Again, on 29 December 2010, five suspected Islamist militants were arrested for planning a gun attack at Copenhagen, an attempt described by the Danish Justice minister Lars Barfoed as “the most serious attempt at terror so far in Denmark.” The suspects? They are Swedish citizens of Tunisian, Lebanese and Iraqi descents – all Muslims.
Here is another instance. Anya Kushchenko, daughter of a Russian diplomat was born in the UK and had an automatic British citizenship. She got married in 2002 to a Briton, Alex Chapman and so became Anna Chapman. She had dual Russian-U.K nationality. She became a spy for Russian, her nation of descent and in the process was arrested in New York U.S where “… she did not seek to conceal her Russian identity….” She was among 10 Russians arrested in the U.S who admitted to being agents for a foreign country, and were exchanged for four U.S spies in a swap carried out in Vienna on 9 July 2010.
At home here in Nigeria, some Hausa-Fulani Islamic terrorists threw bombs in Jos Plateau State on Christmas Eve, killing scores of people with the excuse of fighting unbelievers on behalf of Allah and Muslims. On the same day, they attacked Christian worshippers in Maiduguri, Borno State, killing about eight people and burnt down some churches. This instances and illustrations call to question the meaning and value attached to citizenship. If a people will forever owe allegiance to their ethnic nation of ancestry and descent, what is the need for making them citizens of your country or town just because they are residents? Has these suicide bombers in the four countries sited above not enough proofs that citizen-by-residence or orientation is a fictitious creation which does not endure?
What the terrorists have proved is that most human beings cannot or do not forget their ancestry easily nor do they play with it. How could you disprove this if Britons, Danish, American, Russian and Nigerians of Arab descent or faith could destroy “their own countries or towns” in retaliation for what they perceived these countries had done against Arabian and Islamic interests? In what practical ways does the crisis in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan or Somalia affects the British-born, or American-born Arab suicide bombers, if not their ethnic feelings for their fellow Arab brethren? If the Hausa-Fulani Islamic terrorists of Jos, regards the town as their home by virtue of their Nigerian citizenship, would they plant bombs to kill their ‘brothers’ and destroy their ‘town’? Or when and how many bombs have been thrown in Kano, Sokoto or Gusau by the Berom, Tiv or Jukun in order to kill Hausa-Fulani and take over their land or rule over them?
In Nigeria, immigrants and nomads have assumed the status of MOBILE CITIZENSHIP and acquired indigenous rights to boot; whereas other Nigerian ethnic groups cannot enjoy the same right outside their ancestral lands. Is it not when such assumed rights clashes with the interest and the rights of their host communities that ethno-religious conflicts erupt? Where do the rights and interests of migratory-cum-nomadic ethnic group’s ends, and where does the rights and interests of sedentary ethnic groups begins? Need we not harmonize the rights of both so that Nigerian citizenship will stop spinning riots, mayhem and bomb blasts? The majority and minority tribes each have their ancestral lands or territory which is their natural inheritance. When did one territory grow to swallow the other up? Does land grows or expands, if not by war or conquest? Is the Jos crisis a war by Hausa-Fulani to conquer the land of the Berom, Afizere and Bassa of Plateau State? Until these questions are answered, there can be no light out of the tunnel.
One of the main causes of the Jos crisis is the proximity and porous borders Nigeria shares with Niger and Cameroon. For instance, the Cameroon has as many Fulani as there are in Nigeria, while the Hausa is the dominant ethnic group in neighbouring Niger Republic, a tribe which also is a major ethnic group in Nigeria. It is not disputable that most Fulani’s are nomads just as most Hausas are itinerant traders and farmers. Our porous borders facilitate entrances for millions of immigrants from those countries into Nigeria, without relevant papers and have been granted automatic citizenship status by their host tribesmen whose numerical strength is thus enhanced. Fallout of this situation is that the bloated population of Kano, Katsina, Sokoto etc has over-stretched social infrastructure and facilities in those states which made drifting to neighbouring states inevitable. Whenever these immigrants sought to enjoy dual citizenship, they infringe on the natural and legal rights of their hosts, thus a clash of culture and faith arises.
The second reason or cause of the crisis in Jos is economic. Livestock industry is a universal avocation. But the Fulani is more known as cattle rarer than others even though they practice theirs on nomadic basis. The topography of Plateau State is conducive to livestock farming. This is probably why the Vetenary Research Institute is sited in Vom, which has trained many Nigerians, especially the indigenous people of Plateau State the art and science of livestock farming. Today, many Plateau State indigenes are owners of large livestock farms with better and modern management skills and so, are in serious competition with nomadic Fulani cattle men. This has bred rivalry and often results in accusation of cattle rustling against one another. Not only this, nomadic cattle-men seem to take delight in marching their cows into cultivated farm lands of crop farmers, wrecking destruction of hard-earned foodstuffs with impunity-resulting in clashes of various proportions.
The third cause of the Plateau crisis is religious. Perhaps religion might rank as the immediate cause as the immigrants and nomadic or itinerant traders are almost all Muslims while the host community are almost all Christians. In a milieu of economic rivalry, clash of faith, values and culture, especially when immigrants asserts rights which are non-concomitant with and impinge on the legal or natural rights and freedom of the indigenous people, conflicts become inevitable. The contrast is that Hausa-Fulani are mostly Islamic monotheist, the native Plateau people are mostly Christians plus some polytheists. One is claiming universal right of faith, even seeking to impose their values and the others are resisting such impositions, thus the seemingly endless ethno-religious crisis.
The fourth cause of the conflict is political. Large immigrant settlers concentrated themselves on Jos North Local Council Area. With their large number, they believe the area should be conceded to them to field candidates. But the natives also believe in their own numerical strength and insist that all seats must be contested so that whoever emerges the winner wins. Each time election approaches, one side devices or instigates trouble to make election disputable or impossible. The State authorities often resort to appointing an administrator, and that sparks protests by the settler-community. One unique feature of this crisis is that it has always been the Hausa-Fulani settlers who protests. Other Nigerians hardly contest the election or participate in the protests.
It is an irony that while Nigeria ceded Bakassi to the Cameroon, the Fulani’s of Cameroon enjoys dual citizenship of both countries. As no citizen could give loyalty to two countries on equal basis, permanent allegiance goes to their ethnic nation and here is where Nigeria is cheated, minus the Hausa-Fulani. If citizenship by residence has proved to be fictitious and dangerous to stability, same cannot be said of citizenship by descent. If your parents are Urbogbo for example, you cannot by any stretch of imagination or audacity, become Hausa-Fulani, just because you were born and resident in Kano or Dutse! Never!!
Citizenship by descent or procreation is immutable, regardless of where you are born or domicile. The act of procreation or descent knows no boundary in the sense that you are who you are if you must be identified by the offspring of your parents. Your loyalty or allegiance and kin-feelings, must of necessity, go to your ancestry and not to the people or territory in which you are domicile. The Arabian-Britons and others as sited above have proved this point beyond doubt, just as the Hausa-Fulani bombers of Jos. Dual or mobile citizenship only helps to swindle others of their heritage. There is no place for dual indigeneity as the bombers have demonstrated. The real issues therefore are ethnic nationalism, religious freedom and political rights. Who else to blame? The fraudulent rickety geo-political structures and the decadent systems of government put in place by successive military dictatorship are to blame.
Any unit of government which has no coercive force under its control is a helpless federating unit. Any federating unit without a constitution of its own-making is fundamentally deficient as a tier of government. And none of the 36 States has either a police force or a constitution and so, they remain vassalage of the all powerful centre, and whoever controls the centre makes a slave of the so-called states. The crisis in Jos started during Joshua Dariye’s tenure Governor Jonah David Jang inherited it. Removing him by a state of emergency cannot be the solution. The Plateau people seem not willing to hand over their land or government to others who has their own land and government back home. Until we meet at a national conference to resolve our differences, no ethnic religious group will surrender their rights to another in peace.
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