Sometimes as I muse about the goings on around us, I wonder why God could be so indifferent about the nightmare we are currently going through in the hands of Bokohari and why he wouldn’t simply activate the Abacha treatment, at least to stave off the chances of more lives being lost to the expansionist jihad that terrorist is apparently leading against all the aboriginal nationalities occupying the British colonial fields around the Niger.
But I have come to realise that if we truly want to be fair to the Almighty, we would admit that he has been more than merciful to us as a people. He has intervened in our affairs one too many times that it is beginning to border along the lines of meddlesomeness! I strongly believe what he us doing to us right now is just taking a step backwards to see if we could learn a lesson or two about the great help he has been rendering us over the decades.
At independence, the Nigerian political class, particularly the Northern elements were (out of their inferiority complex) driving us all off the cliff with their executive rascality and banal abuse of official powers. Our nascent “nation” was thrown into chaos because of gross manipulation of census and election processes by the ruling elites, just because the various regions were working very hard to outdo each other in their quest for domination.
When in 1966, a group of young radical military officers took up the challenge on behalf of the average Nigerian citizen to correct this anomaly by leading a revolution, it was the ‘oversabi’ elements of Southern extraction within the military who truncated that move, particularly Ojukwu and Nzeogwu. Even while the North (through Divine inspiration) were hell bent on secession from this contraption at that time, it was the same ‘oversabi’ elements who ensured it never happened, just because they were lovers of “One Nigeria” more than they loved their God-given ethnic nations. In the process (albeit inadvertently), they did not only lose their own lives, they also occasioned the slaughter of millions of their own kinsmen in a bloody civil war that lasted between 1967 and 1970.
What followed was a victor-vanquished relationship between the Hausa-Fulani hegemony and the rest of us until God, on the 13th of February 1976, had mercy on us and brought judgement upon the then Head of State, Gen. Murtala Muhammed for his war crimes against Asaba people during the Civil War, and gave us a golden chance to extricate ourselves from this unfortunate colonial marriage by placing Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo at the helms of affairs, commanding the affairs of State.
Rather than take advantage of this unexpected chance to fix the vestiges of colonialism that saw us live as second class citizens in our own country, Obasanjo in 1979 organised an election that saw him hand power back to the gambaris who wasted not time in picking up their local colonialism from where they left it off in 1976.
The slavery that followed this cowardly act was to run for another 20 years as the Fulanis and their stooges ran the show from Shehu Shagari’s time in office till when Providence brought power back to the south in 1999 and entrusted same with the same Olusegun Obasanjo–a man who at his inauguration as president in 1999 exhaled and told the world how “God brought him out from the verge of death” (in his own words) to become the Numero uno of the Luguardian estate once again. This I believe God did because it was expected that the man must have learnt a thing or two about his foolishness in the past, and quickly set systems in motion to correct the parasitic mode of nutrition that the 1999 constitution was designed to enforce. Governor Alamieseigha fondly referred to by his people of Ijaw land as “Alams” was an alarm clock God was using to remind OBJ at the time of his purpose in office when he led the struggle for Resource Control and true federalism from the creeks of the Niger Delta.
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Alas! That was not going to be. He repeated the same foolishness and handed power back to the Foolanis at the expiration of his 8 year tenure and at the collapse of his inordinate 3rd term ambition. He frittered away the chance as he completely forgot that he was only in that place of authority again out of sheer divine providence.
Yar’Adua became president and just as he was warming up to set the Foolani agenda in motion again, he succumbed to the cold hands of death! This took the Janjaweed unawares. They never saw it coming. They kicked and kicked, but it was useless.
Yet again, against all odds and resistance (thanks to the David Mark led virile Senate at the time), power bounced back to the South under the leadership of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan–another Southerner from the most marginalised regions of the South who should naturally be consumed with the drive to permanently correct the errors of the fake federalism that the Foolanis and their British partners foisted on us in the name of 1999 constitution.
Yet again, the Otuoke born teacher had almost zero clue about the purpose of Fate for throwing him up at such a time. He failed to realise that he was to hold that position in trust for the entire Southern and non-Fulani nationalities and use all the powers at his disposal to lead a surgical separation of the cancerous elements away from us.
Rather he declared a banquet for his immediate family and cronies and gave them unfettered access to state treasury. They saw it as their “turn to chop” and they dis so with reckless abandon. They treated themselves to a looting orgy and paid deaf ears to the rest of us who kept were warning them of the limitation of their time in office.
Even the so-called Men of God who were supposed to be more spiritually inclined to God’s purpose who had his ears were also consumed by the need to use their access to him in achieving their hedonistic desires of acquiring private jets and building the largest auditorium in the world!
Only at the twilight of his administration did he realise the need for a constitutional change that would fix the crooked federation, and he put up a feeble Confab in 2014 that he knew could not be implemented unless he had another shot at power–a pipe dream that was never to be!
Little did the Otuoke fisherman know that his time was up and eventually the Lord allowed the forces of darkness who had gathered from Futa Jalon in collaboration with the evil spirits from Iragbiji to thrust him out of office at the valley of the 2015 general elections.
Then came along a fiend from the Republic of Niger! A serial election loser, a soulless dictator, an islamic fundamentalist, a passionate jihadist and most importantly, the great grandson of Uthman Dan Fodio himself! The man had since the day he took the oath of office been very steadfast with his “divine” mandate of not only knocking senses into the heads of the ignorant people of Nigeria, but also to accomplish the dream of his ancestors which is to ensure that the Quran was dipped in the Atlantic as a sign of conquest of all the lands between the Sahara desert and the ocean.
Even with his frail health, he has pursued his mission with zest and absolute disregard of the sentiments of the rest of us. He is daily working to achieve what he believes to the divine mandate that brought him to power and he pursues it without minding whose toes he steps on, including the almighty international community. Human rights have been suspended for “national interest” and not even a single civil society organisation is left standing. He has hacked them down and trampled them under his feet as he marches to fulfil his lifelong dream of conquering the whole nation for his fellow Fulanis.
He doesn’t care much about personal wealth, but he has opened up the space for his foot soldiers to loot everything in sight, including borrowed funds from all imaginable sources on the face of the earth. He is using all the military and para-military instruments to aid the work of his kinsmen in the hinterland and they are all making daily progress, no matter what.
Just take a look at the trajectory, starting from 1966 till 2015; the Igbos failed, the Yorubas blew it, and the Niger Deltans screwed it all up! Who can at this point expect God to intervene or heed our crocodile tears again?
Even Israel, a nation believed to be God’s chosen people have never enjoyed the quality of intervention that we have enjoyed from him. We must now have to pay a steep price (just as we have just started paying now) for our willful ignorance. How long it will take before our senses return to us, I cannot tell. But I believe at the end of this horrific phase, those of us who would be alive to tell the tale would have become a very conscious people who are alive to the move and direction of God at all times. Salah.
By Comrade Aigboje Duke
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK