by Fani-Kayode
Permit me to begin this weeks
contribution with a brief aside. My dear friend Major Hamza Al Mustapha was
reported to have said the following a few days ago:
“Those who strive to keep Nigeria
one find themselves as enemies of a certain category of Nigerians. I don’t see
those who hate to see Nigeria as one as a group but a clique that exploits
the country, a clique that mismanages the future, a clique that invests in
disintegration, a clique that invests in misinformation and creating division
among Nigerians, a clique that promotes hatred, a clique that distorts our
history, so that when Nigerians are divided and can no longer think together, they can make gains and continue to steal from Nigeria’s commonwealth. But the moment you realize what they are doing and resolve to fight them, they will stop at nothing to destroy you. Any call to divide Nigeria is unacceptable”.
One wonders whether these were
the thoughts of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha when he was the Chief Security Officer
to General Sani Abacha and when Mrs. Kudirat Abiola, the courageous and outspoken
wife of Chief MKO Abiola the winner of the June 12th 1993 presidential
election, was brutally murdered in cold blood by agents of the government that
he served so diligently and with such ruthless precision.
One wonders whether she was
murdered alongside many other gallant sons and daughters of the south west by
the Abacha regime in the name of maintaining the national cohesion and unity
that he claims to love so much. I will grant my brother Hamza the opportunity
to answer this question before going any further but for now I will just say
the following.
I rather think that it is the
clique of those that kill with impunity, that suppress dissent, that demonise
their perceived enemies, that believe that the rest of us are slaves and that
believe that they were born to rule that present the greatest threat to peace
and national unity in this country.
If they want peace and unity they
must humble themselves and beg God and the Nigerian people for forgiveness for
103 years of cruelty, ruthless domination, arrogance, genocide and impunity.
They must get off their high
horse, purge themselves of their notorious insolence and insufferable contempt
and they must stop the historical distortions, the insults, the killings and
the threats.
Whether Mustapha likes it or not
the days when anyone will invoke the spirit of national unity and one NIgeria
just to perpetuate injustice, bondage, slavery, subjugation, mass murder,
genocide, ethnic and religious cleansing and core northern domination are long
over.
All the insults and threats in
the world cannot change that. I await his response.
Permit me to continue this
contribution by stating loudly and clearly that those that have told Nnamdi
Kanu and his IPOB to steer clear of Lagos and Yorubaland and that have said that
he must not go there for any rallies are talking bunkum.
Apart from the fact that millions
of Igbos that reside in Lagos and many other parts of the south-west would
welcome him with open arms and thunderous jubilation, millions of Yoruba youth
would also rejoice at his coming simply because they have been inspired and
stirred by his sheer courage and dedication.
To the Yoruba nationalists and
believers in the right of self-determination Kanu is a hero and they not only
admire him but they also revere him.
This is especially so given the
fact that he has long since withdrawn and renounced many of the misconceptions
and views that he once espoused and expressed about the Yoruba and their
leaders before his incarceration.
Had this not been the case this
writer would not and could not possibly have had as much respect and affection
for him as I do.
As a matter of fact since his
release he has not only stood by the Yoruba nation publicly but has also spoken
up for a number of Yoruba leaders who are suffering persecution from the
Federal Government and who have been issued with life-threatening and physical
threats from the Arewa Youth.
Yours truly is one of those that
both IPOB and Nnamdi Kanu has stood by and spoken up for consistently and I
consider it to not only be an honor but also a gesture that I shall never
forget and that I shall always endeavour to reciprocate.
Without any fear of
contradiction, I can boldly say that this courageous young man has nothing but
respect and affection for the Yoruba nation today.
He has renounced all his past
comments about our people both privately and publicly and he will do so again
in a big way when he comes to Lagos.
We spent a lot of time together
in Kuje prison and we learnt a lot from each other whilst there. We are
fighting the same cause against the same enemy.
Those that believe that he and
IPOB have no friends amongst the Yoruba are misguided and misinformed. They
have lost touch with reality and they are living in the past.
The truth is that IPOB has
friends amongst both the elders and the youths in the south-west and, most
importantly, millions of Yoruba sons and daughters share their vision of and
belief in the right to exercise their God-given right of self-determination.
They crave for and believe in the
establishment of Oduduwa Republic in much the same way and for the same reasons
that Nnamdi and members of his IPOB crave for and believe in Biafra.
The bridge of commonality of
purpose between the south west and the south east has been rebuilt and
re-established and none shall ever break or burn it again. Whether anyone likes
it or not, in this struggle, we are one.
I would also add this. Those in
igboland and indeed throughout the south that have openly opposed, insulted and
sought to chastise those gallant men and women that support the idea of
restructuring our country or that consistently resist and denigrate the concept
of establishing the sovereign state of Biafra are mischevous and disingenuous.
They are nothing but gutless
traitors, blacklegs and turncoats that have no sense or knowledge of history
and that have been contracted by the powers that be to shatter the dreams and
aspirations of millions of young Igbos from within.
Worst still they are simply
voicing the views and sentiments of the internal colonialists and our
collective slavemasters.
These turncoats and traitors have
fed fat on Nigeria and have consistently cornered the market of all that is due
to the Igbo from the Federal Government for themselves over the last thirty
years.
Such beneficiaries of a skewered,
inequitable and unwholesome system who have no empathy for the suffering and
humiliation of their own people and who cannot feel their pain forget that,
with God, all things are possible.
If one million Igbo youths were
slaughtered in the north or in the streets of the east by northern mobs or our
security forces respectively these people would not voice a single word of
protest but would instead try to defend and rationalise it.
This brings me to the meat of
this essay. The Arewa Youths that demanded that the Igbo must leave the north
by October 1st and that have now given the Federal Government an ultimatum to
arrest Nnamdi Kanu in the next 10 days are stoking a fire that may end up
consuming Nigeria.
They must be gagged, put in
chains and spanked hard!
Nnamdi Kanu is a hero and his
call for independence for the Igbo is legitimate and lawful. Any attempt to
arrest him will have consequences.
For those that still do not
believe that the Biafra phenomenon and message is here to stay and that are
still guided by the erroneous notion that “all is well” in Nigeria I share the
following.
Dr. John Dan Fulani, a cerebal
and well-respected activist, human rights crusader, intellectual and academic
from Southern Kaduna with a large following, has said that if Biafra is
established the people of Southern Kaduna will leave Nigeria and go with them.
This unprecedented assertion and
declaration has caused panic, consternation and alarm in many core northern
conservative circles.
Again Professor Jerry Gana, a
respected former Minister from Niger state and a reasonable, well-known and
well-liked leader that has been deeply involved in politics and entrenched in
the corridors of power for the last 32 years has said that if Nigeria were ever
to break up the people of the Middle Belt would leave the north and go with the
people of the south.
Again the Solomon Asemota SAN and
T.Y. Danjuma-led Christian Elders Forum has warned the Federal Government and
the Nigerian people about what they have described as a subtle and dangerous
application of “stealth jihad” by the Federal Government in our country and
what they see as an attempt to islamise Nigeria.
Again a well-organised and
credible Yoruba group called the Yoruba Liberation Command (YOLICOM) has said
that it was “too late for restructuring” and that they want Oduduwa Republic to
be established. They also threw their weight behind the establishment of
Biafra.
This is the sad and sorry impasse
that the ailing President Muhammadu Buhari and his cult of ecstatic
cheerleaders and super worshippers have taken Nigeria in just two years.
Whilst the dangerous ethnic,
religious and regional divisions in our country are getting wider by the day
His Royal Highness is busy holding court in London and desperately trying to
prove to the world that he is not dead, that he is much better and that he can
rule our nation from a distant foreign land indefinately. What a country! What
a people!
The truth is that the President
and the Presidency is not meant to be a tourist attraction, a museum of old
fossils or a mausoleum of decaying bodies to be viewed by curious dignitaries
in a distant foreign land.
Despite the pretty group pictures
with a handful of selected governors I believe that it is an act of cruelty to
expect this poor and obviously very sick man to lead a nation of 180 million.
In spite of my views about his
glaring incompetence and his many atrocities, weaknesses, eccentricities and
shortcomings I believe that even he deserves far better than that.
My counsel, which is borne out of
compassion and nothing else, still remains that he resigns and that he goes
home and rests before he suffers yet another replapse and returns to nether
nether land!
The truth is that the only thing
that competes with our never-ending film show of “do you have a President or do
you not have a President” in Nigeria today is the much-awaited and newly
released ‘season 7’ of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” which I watch religiously and
which I enjoy enormously.
That is what the serious business
of governance has been reduced to in Nigeria. Is it any wonder that CNN’s
Fareed Zakaria mocked us about our absentee President before hundreds of
millions of viewers from all over the world just the other day?
The truth is that we deserve even
worse. May God judge those that have brought us this unquantifiable and
unbearable calamity and national shame.
Meanwhile I urge the wise and the
discerning to pause and consider the following.
Those that dismiss the widening
divisions and agitations in our country with disdain and contempt and that
underestimate the resolve of those that are behind them are not only naive but
they also do so at their own peril.
It is only a matter of time
before something gives. I say this because national cohesion and unity can only
be established, entrenched and sustained by the accommodation and toleration of
dissenting views, the constant expression of love and the regular and consistent
application of leadership by consensus.
It cannot be sustained by
brutality, murder, injustice, lies, suppression, persecution, tyranny,
manipulation, deceit, propaganda and coercion.
You cannot hold a people down by
the usage of threats, the shedding of blood and the force of arms forever.
Even slaves rise up in bloody
rebellion and resist tyranny when the time is right, when the wind of
liberation blows and when the freedom bell tolls.
The south west, the south south
and the south east yearn for that liberty and freedom and the Middle Belt
craves for it.
The only thing that they are
waiting for is the emergence of a set of bold, clear-thinking, inspirational
and focused leaders that have the courage, the tenacity of purpose, the
unrelenting fortitude and the purity of spirit to lead the struggle and to take
them out of the bondage of Egypt and into the Promise land.
The bottom line is as follows: I
would rather live and die as a free man in an independent Oduduwa Republic than
continue to live and die as a slave in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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The old is having good thinking and zeal to govern than that claim to be young but has a criminal mind, always looting and emptying the treasury, when he was asked to return the dollars he said is whitch hunt star playing the music of ethnicity and regional gossip.
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ReplyDeleteGood afternoon sir, Mr Fani-Kayode. I'm not a politician nor do I allign with any political party but with God and because I'm a child of God through God's grace by Jesus Christ, it doesn't mean that I know it all, it doesn't mean that I'm perfect, nor does it mean that I'm a fool. I can at least think to some certain degree. I know that the President, Mr Buhari may not be perfect, which I know he has a lot of flaws as a human being but I know one thing that he wants to help Nigeria get rid of corruption. People may say that he has other hidden agenda for Nigeria which I don't know but God does if he has but I'm only saying what I'm aware of. He wants corruption to travel out of Nigeria and never come back again. He may be wrong in his approach but I know he means well trying to do that. As I said in one of my comments a few hours ago, I told him the President Mr Buhari that "the war against corruption must be fought at all levels and political parties in Nigeria." Now, let's say that is a mistake which he needs to fix so as to achieve a corrupt free Nigeria but that doesn't mean he is the originator of Nigeria problems or corruption. There was a President before him and there was one before that one and so on. As I'm made to understand by someone who told me that u Mr Fani-Kayode used to be a Federal Minister. A politician? Is that true? If that's true, then why are u trying to be a saint over night? Why are u saying that the present government is failing when u have failed a long time urself? What did u do to stop the mass corruption during ur governance, I mean PDP? Did u speak against the evil of that time when u were part of the nigerian economy LOOTERS? I'm sorry to talk this way, u know I said that I'm a Christian and I should not take sides. If there are records of ur efforts to stop corruption then, pls kindly let me know about it and I will repent immediately. All of u politicians benefitted from the evils that had taken place in this country and we only talk when the tide turns around. Let me say, ALL of us either politician or not, benefitted from it and we all helped to destroy and brought this country to where it is today and until we are ready to sincerely repent, we aren't going nowhere sir. Hearts MUST be changed otherwise, forget any crusade and when crusades are achieved, we may become like or even worse than South Sudan, I know u remember that sir.
Yes, Nigeria needs restructuring and u said well according to the flesh when u said Biafra, Oduduwa, South South, and others must go but I don't know what God is saying, except u claim to have heard from God but as for me, I haven't. I know that I heard God told me in 1993 that Nigeria is His and that there was not going to be any war in Nigeria during the troubled time of Chief MKO Abiola's cancelled election victory. What is He God saying today? Does God want just restructuring which is the least of what I think we need in Nigeria because the way things were run in the past was evil and shameful or does He wants nations out of nation? I don't know but we cannot just throw stones at each other and expect a lasting peaceful outcome. If we get it when God is not saying it, then it becomes rebellion against God and it may be worse than South Sudan. He God is not an Author of confusion. We are brothers and must be able to sit down and talk, seeking His face for leading.
Yes, there were evils that some parts of Nigeria had perpetuated against other parts in Nigeria which we genuinely need to apologise for and repent of but we must walk in the spirit of forgiveness and love in obedience to God so as to succeed in our missions. There are hardly very few parts of Nigeria that haven't offended other parts in this country. We have to call for healing of our wounds, talk about it, sincerely apologise, forgive and move on. All of us are as guilty as the accused. Continues...
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ReplyDeleteAll of us are as guilty as the accused. I do u and u revenge, u do me and I revenge, and they do us and we revenge is the nature of the beast but we are no beasts, we are Nigerians and we are human beings. Nigeria can't forever be kept together under any force or threat but by love, patience, understanding, righteousness, and sincerity. I remain the son of my Father (God) by His grace and in anyway I may have stepped on any tow, I ask for understanding in forgiving me. Tanx & be blessed inJesusname. Today Tuesday 08012017 @ 4:43pm.
Sir, with all due respect as a Minister or Child of God due you honestly believe that two can walk together except they agree? Look at the core north carefully and assess their position as it relates to other regions and prove that they want what is best for others. You can not talk with a people who always take a selfish and superior position over others. God is a God of Justice and I know we may not be serving the same God otherwise why is it so easy for them to take up arms and either kill or maim people of other or opposite religion. Amos 3:3 states we can only walk together if we agree. I do not know how we can truly agree?
DeleteI took enough time to review what Mr Fani-Kayode and others have to say about the unfortunate events that have crippled the well being of Nigeria as a nation. I am very neutral and remain committed to the oneness of Nigeria as a nation. Any right thinking and progressive Nigerian will share this opinion of peace and progress for Nigeria. As a matter of fact, Nigeria remains an enviable entity to the entire world as a result of its unique and rich cultural entities. The western world would like Nigeria to disintegrate and divided. Events that led to the amalgamation of the country by the British in 1914 was spiritual and should be taken as such. Look at the entire black race throughout the world and sincerely review what is left of black race should there be world war again! Nigeria is probably the only concentration of black race than can defend the black race. The western world is aware of this opportunity which God has endowed Nigeria. I very strongly believe this unusual power which nature has bestowed on Nigeria. Unfortunately, we have among us people who believe that they must continue to rule the country exclusively as their own alone. They are born to rule! Until such attitude has been completely eradicated, Nigeria may not see progress and unity to move forward. The issue of domination, unfortunately has been cleverly implanted by our colonial masters in order to create disunity among the ethnic groups in the country. The way forward is to allow ourselves equal opportunity, self respect and dignity to all Nigerians. Broadly speaking, Nigeria is blessed with adequate manpower to more the country forward. All things being equal, Nigeria, by now, should be enjoying economic prosperity equal to such countries as India, Indonesia, Malaysia and most Asian Countries. We can still achieve such laudable progress, if only we are fully united. Let us restructure the political set up of the country through dialogue and genuine and open negotiation. We do not need the western world to teach us how to leave together as brothers and sisters. We are blessed with the best of brains that can move the country forward. Let us shun tribalism, occultism, kidnapping and all the evil forces that have been ruining the progress of the country. Knowledge from our youths have been under utilized but must be reassessed and fully utilized. It is about time we give our youths to contribute their quotas to the development of the country. Let Nigeria learn from France and Canada and encourage our youths to contest and win elections. The world has changed technologically, and Nigeria is no exception to this unique change. Let us shun hate, tribalism, nepotism and uphold progress for a change. The influence of the Secret Societies and our love and patronage of their activities should be checked and eradicated. Nigerians must no longer remain the headquarter of these evil people. Let me speak spiritually, these evil people are the main cause of corruption, hate, nepotism and high level manipulation of our economy. There influence in the society must be totally removed. Unfortunately, our youths are being cleverly recruited by these evil Lords. They are so powerful in our society to the extent that they can move and destroy any legitimate organization. They are in the governments, the military, police and largely in politics. They can build and destroy. It is time to embrace that which will help the country to develop economically, socially and politically. First and foremost, tribalism must be eradicated. Let us look for the best in terms of manpower for the country. United States of America is what it is today because of it recognition of the best not triviality. Let us look for the best for the country not tribal sentiment. Conclusively, I fervently believe in oneness and indivisible Nigeria and in order to achieve this, we must all embrace love, self respect and equality for all in the country.
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