THE LIMITS OF CITIZENSHIP

By Onesimus Enesi

The British Capital London had a taste of terror attacks by suicide bombers on July 6 and again on July 21, 2005 both days being Thursday, which left death, injuries and destruction on their trails.

The initial thought of security agents was the theory that some Osama Bin Laden’s disciples must have gained entry into the United Kingdom with false passports to perpetrate the mayhem. But this turned out to be wrong.

It was eventually discovered that the suicide bombers were citizens of the United Kingdom but of Arab descent, born and bred in Britain and not some immigrants who just banged on London for their nefarious activities.

The British policy on citizenship is that wherever your parent came from on planet earth, so long as they are resident in Britain and if during that period you were born there, then you are an automatic British citizen and will be treated like every English, Scot or Welsh man. It is this policy that made thousands of Arabs, Asians and Africans citizens of the United Kingdom.

In the light of the recent suicide bomb attacks by terrorists of Arab decent of British extraction, isn’t there the need to review the citizen by-residence concept as a necessity? What is the value or need for making a citizen of one whose ancestors are of a different nation and to whom alone the applicant owes eternal allegiance?

The London suicide bombers have proved that citizenship-by-residence or orientation is a fictitious creation that does not endure. It has proved that most human beings cannot or do not forget their ancestry easily nor do they play with it. How else do you disprove this if Britons of Arab descent could destroy “their own country” in retaliation for what they perceived the United Kingdom had done to Iraq?

In what practical way does the crisis in Iraq affects the British-born Arab suicide bombers, if not their feelings for their fellow Arab brethren? Is this not a confirmation that blood is ticker than water (fictitious citizenship)?

So far, there is no instance of an Arab-American; I mean American, born, bred and resident in an Arabian country who because of their outrage against the United States Foreign Policy, took to terrorism against the American State. Or are there no American who, by residence, orientation or neutralization, have become Arab citizen? Why have they not turned into suicide bombers in the U.S. or against U.S. targets in Arabia?

Again, on November 5, 2009 an American Army Officer/Psychiatrist shot dead 13 soldier/colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas U.S.A. Major Nidal Malik Hassan was an American by orientation and residence, of Arab descent and was said to have had contacts or connection with Yemen’s radical Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki.

Here at home in Nigeria, the debate on the qualification of a Nigerian citizen is intermittently held when some sectional interests, are being pushed as national interest, or when such interests are resisted. Immigrants and nomads have assumed MOBILE CITIZENSHIP and acquired indigenous rights on the basis of their ethnic nationality and religious persuasion. When such assumed rights clashed with the interest of the real indigenes, what results is the incessant ethno-religious riots for which certain parts of the country have become so infamous.

Nigeria has, probably, as many Fulani as there are in Cameroon; just as our country has the largest numbers of Hausa, who are the dominant tribe in the neighboring republic of Niger. It is not disputable that most Fulani’s are nomads just as most Hausas are itinerant traders and farmers. The effect of our country’s proximity with Cameroon and Niger is that millions of immigrants from those countries have entered and keep entering Nigeria without relevant papers and have been granted automatic citizenship status by their host tribesmen whose numerical strength is thus enhanced.

It is arguable if Nigeria’s borders with the two countries are not deliberately made porous to allow for free entry for its obvious demographic advantage to the Hausa Fulani’s states. One disagreeable effect of this practice is that the immigrant and his host have persistently sought to make the native Nigerian into mobile citizens, just after themselves. Resistances on the part of the indigene is, most always, viciously visited with fatwa. Another embarrassing effect of their practice is exactly opposite that of mobile citizenship which is non-citizenship as in the case of the Bakassi people.

While Nigeria has ceded Bakassi to the Cameroon, the Fulani’s of Cameroon enjoy mobile or dual citizenship of both countries. History teaches that no citizen could give loyalty to two countries at the same time or on equal basis. As a result, their permanent loyalty or allegiance is to their ethnic nation. And here is where Nigeria is short-changed. And those who are actually cheated are other ethnic nationalities of Nigeria, except the Hausa Fulani.

What these mean is that citizenship-by orientation or by residence has become a device to swindle other nationalities of their natural and legal rights, even as it now poses enormous dangers to the peace and stability of modern nations. If fictitious citizens now threaten an old nation-state like Britain, how much more the dangers faced by Nigeria posed by people of dubious citizenship and loyalty?

If citizenship by birth or residence has been proved to be fictitious and a danger to stability, same cannot be said of CITIZENSHIP BY DESCENT. If your parents are Urhogbo, for example you cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, become Hausa Fulani, just because you were born and resident in Kano or Dutse! Never!

Citizenship by descent or by procreation is immutable, regardless of wherever you were born or resident. 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 who you are. Your loyalty or allegiance and kin-feelings, must of necessity, go to your ancestry and not to the people or the territory in which you are domicile. The Arabian-Britons have demonstrated this in the recent London suicide bombing just as the Hausa Fulani have proved in the incessant Kano riots.

Given the example of Kano Hausa Fulani rioters and the London Arabian-British suicide bombers, the question or factor of religion must be considered dissipationately, if justice must be seen to have been done to the vexatious practice of dual or mobile-citizenship. Most, if not all nomadic or itinerant ethnic groups are monotheist, who believes in one religion and are almost always intolerant of other religious views and practices. Therefore, the free admission of mobile or dual citizens propels antagonism of indigenous people in the same way as the host community is visted with contempt by the devilry of their guests.

In a multi-national and multi-religious nation-state such as Nigeria, especially where some major ethnic groups have cornered political and economic power, there is a limit to the exercise of mobile citizenship and dual indigeneity. The struggle by the oppressed natives to free themselves from their oppressors sets a limit to freeload nationalities feasting on other peoples’ territory and resources.

Two core issues defined the attitude and actions of suicide bombers and local hoodlums; ethnic nationality and religion. Yet these issues were glossed over by the so-called political reform conference, which ended in fiasco.

The orgy of violence visited on the people of Plateau State and indeed other minority ethnic groups by the Hausa Fulani Muslim terrorists since 1999 may be situated on the rickety geo-political structures and the decadent system of government put in place by successive military dictatorship. Any unit of government which has no coercive force under its control is not qualified to be a federating unit. Any federating unit which has no 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.

Citizenship of such a polity or nation-state is one that cannot elicit patriotism nor deserve it since it holds no promise of security, justice or prosperity for the citizen. In fact citizenship in Nigeria is meaningless as there is no advantage in it for the indigenous people. Any immigrant is a citizen and has the added advantage of enjoying dual citizenship, provided he/she is Hausa Fulani from Niger, Tchad, Cameroon or Senegal. So what is in it for the native Nigerian?.

To deny that states in Nigeria are mere appendages of the artificial center is to remain a fool. To believe or assume that Nigeria can make progress with this structure and system is to be myopic. To expect that an angel would come and run the structure/system efficiently with equity and justice is to wait till Jesus come. It takes rare wisdom to admit failure. It needs rare courage to accept challenges. And the only sensible way forward is the PRONACO highway-via its Peoples National Conference proposed Constitution.