The Ultimatum given to the Igbo residing in the northern part of the country, by 16 northern youth groups may have increased the scale of hate in Nigeria. Observers say that this appears to be the first of its kind since the return of the country to civil rule in 1999.
It has also been observed by many that Nigeria is fast heading to disintegration as the level of ethnic strife and rivalries may have worsened in the last two years. Observers wonder why the Federal Government has only released a warning to the protagonists of the ultimatum that is capable of endangering the peace and unity of the country without as much as arresting the arrow heads of the hate campaign.
“Up till now, I am amazed that the leaders of the Arewa Youth groups have not been invited for questioning, either by the Police or the DSS. Maybe, the security agencies are treating it as a light issue, a matter that should have received prompt and urgent response, not just release of feeble words as I saw Lai Mohammed, Information and Culture minster do on Wednesday. I was also pissed off by the lack-lustre approach given to the issue by the Inspector-General of Police,” said an Abuja-based public affairs analyst who chose to be anonymous.
Last Tuesday, sixteen northern youth groups had at a joint meeting in Kaduna State, issued a threat on the people of South East. The groups among other things, resolved to confiscate all properties owned by the Igbo in the North.
It also gave Igbos residing in any part of the Northern states to move back to east, calling on all northerners residing in South East geo-political zone to vacate the area before the October 1 deadline.
“We are also telling our brothers (northerners) out there in the South-East to get prepared to come back home,” the group said.
As expected, a barrage of responses has continued to trail the development, with some observers saying that given the mind-set of some illiterate youths in the North, who may not even be privy to the real intention of the authors of the ultimatum may begin to unleash mayhem on the perceived enemies.
A traditional ruler who asked not to be named said: “What the youths of the north have just done amounted to the story of a man who killed a millipede by stepping on it with his huge feet, and rather than feel sorry for taking the life of the millipede, he is feeling sorry for his feet that pressed the creature to death.
“It also amounts to what I may call the grandstanding of the bush fowl. You know the bush fowl has the habit of making so much noise and shouting very loudly whenever the farm owner whose crop it is destroying steps into the farm. The shout that should be done by the farmer is now being done by the destructive bird. I think I have made my point, there’s no need expatiating. It is a clear message. Thank you!”
A permanent secretary with a federal ministry of education told BDSUNDAY that his major concern with the ultimatum is that the way the country is currently being run, government appears complicit in some of the ills and issue of insecurity across Nigeria.
“Ordinarily, it is government that should have the capacity to quell this type of rascality, but what I have seen in the last two years does not convince me that the Federal Government has the political will to check hate activities in the country. What I see now is the proverbial expression of giving a dog a bad name to hang it. You are a journalist and I think you should understand what I am saying and the point I want to pass across,” said the perm sec on the condition of anonymity.
A Lagos based cleric, Awoyemi Kadiri, while condemning what he termed as excessive display of rascality by the Northern Youths said what the groups have done was just to arm illiterate youths in the North to proceed on a killing spree.
“We are in this country and we know how their minds work. The inciting words used by the group are capable of setting off a civil disobedience among the illiterate youths in the north. We have seen situations where the youths slaughtered perceived enemies –Christians- and nothing happened to them.
“In some cases, arrests were not even made. We are truly getting to a dangerous point in this country if youths can sit to issue such statements and no one has been invited for questioning. There must be something beating the gong for them, the rhythm of which they are dancing to. It is very shocking,” Kadiri said.
An Igbo youth leader told BDSUNDAY from his base in Onitsha, Anambra State, that he was not surprised at what is happening.
“Freedom is never purchased on a platter of gold; you must pay for it. Most times, like in struggles for self-determination, it involves bloodshed and loss of lives. We have experienced that before with the loss of millions of South Easterners during the pogrom in the North and the civil war. It is not unlikely that many people will still lose their lives because of this struggle for emancipation.
“The struggle for freedom from Egypt bondage in the days of Moses caused Israelites serious heartaches, but because God was with them, as he is with us now, they left when Pharaoh least expected it,” the youth leader who introduced himself as Obijioffor said.
According to him, “No one is saying that our going back to the East as a Biafran State would be rosy giving our peculiar challenges of small landmass and obvious underdevelopment of the South East, but experiences have shown that there will be suffering, even deaths, when you get to the Promised Land until things get stabilised. What we are doing now is that we are fighting for the future of our children; their good and for their peace. We may not be the ultimate partakers.
“We have suffered in this country and have slaved it out; we do not want our children to continue in that suffering and even if it means paying with our lives to purchase that peaceful tomorrow for them, so be it.”
Alfred Okon, a Quantity Surveyor, said it appears that the Arewa Youths are targeting Igbo investments in the North. “Something tells me that Igbo businesses and properties are the target here. They want to scare away the Igbo to pounce on their investments and properties.
“I really fear for the Igbo because these are a rare species of people who make elaborate investments outside their homeland without qualms. I urge the Federal Government to find the will to deal with this sad development as urgently as it can,” he said.
The sit-at-home order by the IPOB and MASSOB on May 30 2017, to remember the Biafrans who were slaughtered in the struggle for self-determination and self-emancipation, which was also a huge success in all the South eastern states may have riled the Arewa Youths. The sit-at-home was not forcefully imposed on anybody. It was a simple utterance and the compliance is a reflection of the feelings of the Igbo that the reasons why the Civil War was fought have yet to be addressed, if anything, the situation is worsening.
“There’s nothing strange in the compliance of the order after all Igbo are a people that value life, so the loss of huge numbers of their kins before and during the war is unforgettable. The call for sit-at-home is not only done in the South East, it is also applicable in the Yorubaland, South West, who observe Oro Festival. The North also has such observable dates.
“Arewa people are just looking for trouble. I think this is the climax of the whole thing. I hope they have the capacity to contain the conflagration,” Nosike Caleb, a medical practitioner said.
In their reaction to the threat, the governors of the 19 northern states through the Borno State Governor and Chairman of the Northern States Governors’ Forum, Kashim Shettima, said the governors were in touch with heads of security agencies and had taken measures that would guarantee the rights of all Nigerians to live in the 19 states of the North.
“On behalf of the governors of the 19 northern states, we totally condemn such irresponsible pronouncements by those groups. We disown, and we are totally distancing ourselves from those faceless groups who don’t have the mandate of the people of Northern Nigeria to make such loud pronouncements,” Shettima said.
Nasir El-Rufai, Kaduna State governor, had also ordered the arrest of leaders of the Arewa groups that issued the ultimatum.
Other well-meaning Nigerians have since flayed the threat, describing it as insensitive and capable of worsening the insecurity situation across the country.
Despite the ground-swelling condemnation, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has thrown its weight on the Arewa Youth Group’s stance, insisting that it was high time the inconvenient marriage, as it were, was dissolved.
Analysts say that what the Federal Governments does between now and the next few days to forestall breakdown of law and order would go a long way to reassuring citizens who are perplexed by the gravity of the Arewa youths’ grandstanding.
Zebulon Agomuo
