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By Godwin Etakibuebu
How would you want to be remembered?
My dearly respected President Buhari, this open letter to you, as l enumerated last week, was prompted by three reasons.
The first being threat of total destruction which religion can bring upon Nigeria if it is not checked immediately. I reported what an elderly woman in Lagos found out about his security guard; who turned out to be an undergraduate from one of the Northern States’ University and leader of a Religious Cell Group on a Surveillance mission to Lagos. What the purpose of such mission and the danger it entails to the so-called non-secular Nigerian-State can better be imagined.
The second reason was found in your Independence Day broadcast to the nation, on October 1, 2017, where you said, inter alia “we‘ll no longer allow calls for secession by irresponsible groups”, when you were talking about those agitating for restructuring of the Nigerian Federation. Many felt that you directed that statement of threat [yes it is a statement loaded with threat of force] to the Indigenous People of Biafra [IPOB], some elongated it beyond IPOB alone to include the Niger Delta Militants, others believe it to include the South/West Yoruba’s call for the Republic of Oduduwa while others, in my thinking line, sincerely believe that you included those “Old-Youth-Rascals” from the North, operating from Arewa House in Kaduna amongst the “irresponsible groups”, that shall, henceforth, not to be tolerated by the Nigerian Military which is very experienced in Operation Python Dance.
The third reason Sir, was to draw your attention to the latest agitation of the Catalonia people of Spain, which accumulated into an overwhelmingly agreeable referendum for Independence, and to point out that there could be many factors in life, capable of prompting agitation for restructuring of relationship between some individuals, groups, tribes, ethnicities, nations or even a country as the case may be. One most important factor for such demand, albeit restructuring, would be absence of justice, equity and equality in the State’s administration of governmental machineries within the individual components of such Country-State.
This is why l concluded last week by saying that when there is suppression, repression and oppression against genuine agitation for practice of freedom, justice and equity in a particular environment and when a people are caged like wild animals, anachronism becomes an option of negotiation. And when both [justice and equity] are arrogantly suppressed by the machinery of the State, then rebellion becomes not only a responsibility but a clarion call to duty for the repressed citizenry. Adolf Hitler said this much in 1925.
The point being wisely advocated here, Mr President is to ensure removal of obnoxious, nauseating, repressive, oppressive, depressive and discriminatory rules and regulations from the day-to-day running of government in Nigeria before deciding which of the agitations is irresponsible. If you permit me Sir, l shall point out few of those things that need to be removed from the operation of the Nigerian-body politics if Nigeria is to be preserved.
One, I agree with you totally that, given the absurd dimension Nnamdi Kanu and his dangerous Indigenous People of Biafra [IPOB] introduced into their agitation as well as the conspiracy of silence from notable senior citizens of the South/East zone, anything short of proscribing that body [IPOB] would not do justice to national patriotism. Ipso facto, proscription of IPOB is a right step appropriately taken at the right time.
However, the Hausa/Fulani Herdsmen deserved to have been proscribed long before now. Unlike what your-duly appointed representative in the person of Garba Shehu said that the Fulani herdsmen do not qualify for branding as terrorist organisation, the reality on ground is that the Hausa/Fulani Herdsmen has all the features and characteristic of a most deadly terrorist organization on the surface of the earth. I make bold to posit that Hausa/Fulani Herdsmen, unlike Garba Shehu’s claims that it does not threaten any territory, are terrorists with Nigerian landscape as their annexed territory and AK 47, plus cows, as their flag.
Mr President, you will recall that while you were being sworn into office on May, 29 2015, you briefly, with military precision, outlined how you would deal with anything threatening the unity of the Country. May l remind you that while you deployed the Nigerian Military High Command from Abuja to Maiduguri to deal with the threat of Boko Haram on that day [May 29, 2015] you assured Nigerians of your preparedness to deal with the Niger Delta militancy also. The only threat to Nigerian Unity you refused to mention, which was a deliberate action from you of course, was Hausa/Fulani Herdsmen but you instead announced how you would take Cattle Rustlers frontally in battle. My dictionary tells me those cattle rustlers are mere cow thieves. Fighting them more ferociously than Boko Haram would always remain a misplaced priority.
That was in 2015, when you had not appointed Attorney General but now that you have a very agile legal minds in place, Nigerians expected the deployment of this legal team in writing a proscription law on the Hausa/Fulani Headsmen as actually overdue. These people are nothing but terrorists that must be proscribed.
Another thing that needs your urgent attention is visiting the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs for total remedy of the national catastrophe therein created, as the Minister; Lt-Gen Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau, has succeeded in Islamizing the whole ministry with such impunity. Mr President, you are aware that every Parastatals [Departments] in that ministry is headed by Hausa/Fulani Moslem and this is the ministry that has all para-military organisations in Nigeria under its control – Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Immigration Services, Nigerian Customs Services, Nigerian Prison Services, Nigerian Fire Services, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps etc etc.
I only hope that you will never classify those other Nigerians that are not Hausa/Fulani, or Moslems, who are yet to come to terms about happening at that Ministry and might be asking for interpretation of events from your government on the abnormalities therein, as irresponsible group? Think of it very seriously Sir, the only way to prove one’s citizenship of the Nigerian nationhood at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, at least for now, is by being a Hausa/Fulani Moslem. Is it supposed to be so?
My dear President, there are more revelations to be made but l can assure of not over-bordering you with lengthy letters, having appreciated the stress l have put you through so far with these two. I promise therefore ending everything with only one more letter, which shall include my candid advice on some other urgent matters bordering on the Nigerian State.
Be assured of my most respectful regards.
Godwin Etakibuebu, a veteran journalist, wrote from Lagos.