Project Nigeria: the Plight of Minorities

In the collective wisdom of the United Nations Organization, the 9th of August every year is set aside as International Day for Indigeneous Peoples and our country as a member of the world body is expected to mark the day with a befitting policy statement. I have no reason to expect much from the government of Nigeria on this serious matter for reasons which are quite obvious; and the day passed without a whimper from the government I choose to honour the indigenous peoples of the world through this letter by highlighting the plight of their Nigerian counterparts. My dear indigenous peoples worldwide, I address you today with a little of the litanies of woes that betide your brother-indigenous peoples of Nigeria, black Africa’s most populous country. Most indigenous people in this part of the world are often minority ethnic nationalities. Although there are political and religious minorities, the pains and travails of being a minority is felt more by ethnic minorities. In Nigeria, it is more or less a crime to be an indigenous tribe, and a more heinous offence to attempt to assert your right to life and autonomy. Unless God intervenes, certain forces are doing their best to coerce the National Assembly to expunge from Nigerian’s Constitution, the word “indigene”. This is because that word stands on their way in their age-old efforts to confisticate the lands of indigenous ethnic groups. In other words, the mere recognition, not to talk of according minorities their rights is so offensive to them as to make them want to eliminate minorities, not just from the Constitution, but also from the face of the earth! As I write this letter, my dear friends, many indigenous ethnic nationalities are being systematically decimated by some transnational ethnic groups, supervised by a supposedly federal or national army who are pretending to keep peace. The security forces here in Nigeria are a colonial creation, with a medieval training and orientation and functions best being programmed like a motorized robot. They were taught to regard citizens as brutes who must be disabled even before they commit any semblance of an offence - since it was assumed that they are an offence in themselves. The annihilation is being carried out turn-by-turn beginning with the Gbagyi who are made strangers in their own fatherlands of Minna, Kaduna and Abuja. Each time the equally colonial-oriented government wanted a land, they look around and if you look or sound like a Gbagyi, you must take to your heels before the chase, for you are sure to be pursued into the wilderness. Even at that, your farm land is not safe, for the transnational tribes are licensed to consume your cultivated bush land, with their transnational herds of cattle. You are expected to consider it an honour that the handiwork of your sweat is deemed fit enough for consumption by some royal cows from Senegal, Cameroon, Niger or Chad. When it was the turn of Atyap, Ham and Bajju to be eliminated, they resisted and demanded to know why they must surrender their land and self-rule only for the reasons of being a minority. They were harried and harassed until forced to defend themselves, even if only by sand-throwing! Now, it is the turn of the Birom of Plateau State who have been under pressure for about a decade now to vacate their towns and lands for some princely tribes whose cows are deemed more important than the human indigenes of the places. For failing to heed the warning to vamoose, they have now being invaded by hordes of an imperial militia force, delicately guided by an official army whose instruction is to watch the peace, not the aggressor or the attacker, but the burial of victims who must not even rest in peace! The Tiv of Benue has been served with warning missiles, and some dozens of villages and grain reserve were burnt to hasten their flight from their ancestral land. If you are asking whether the Tiv has the nerve to resist the invaders, I have no answer, not when the Benue governor who is Tiv is doing his best to negotiate a surrender. The Ebira in Kogi State is the latest victim of invaders who apparently has local collaborators. They have started bombing churches, shooting worshippers and killing innocent people and many has fled their homes, hoping that they won’t return to find their houses taken over by Nigeriens masquerading as Nigerians. The best the security agencies could do is to invade the deserted towns, harass the old women and children, and if any male adult was foolish enough to remain behind, his bullet – ridden corpse will serve as a memento of his innocence. Until next year, when the Indigenous Peoples will be remembered again, kindly pray that a remnant of your brother will be left alive in Nigeria, if only to remind the world, that once upon a time, God created some people who are indigenes of their lands and thereby committed an unforgivable offence. When shall we all become transnational and migratory citizens – if that will give everyone a respite?