Reps reject motion on arrest of northerners in Abia

Some members of the House of Representatives yesterday rejected a motion that sought to investigate and put a stop to the series of arrests of northerners by soldiers in Abia State.

The motion which came under matter of urgent national importance and sponsored by Rep Aminu Suleiman (APC, Kano) suffered a setback when put to vote for consideration.
Rep Hussein Namadi (PDP, Jigawa) seconded it.

But when Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha put the question to vote consideration, only few voices were heard supporting it, while majority of the lawmakers who are from the south east shouted ‘nay!’
But our reporter observed that Ihedioha had subjected an earlier motion on a collapsed bridge in the south east to voting twice.
It was further observed that after Suleiman’s motion was killed on first voting, another motion on checking activities of smugglers, which was listed on the order paper, was subjected to voting twice.
Daily Trust reports that 486 northern traders were arrested in Abia State last month, with some of them released after weeks in detention following outcries by some northern governors. Another arrest took place on Monday in same Abia State when heavily-armed soldiers raided some mosques and markets operated by northerners and arrested an Imam, his assistant and three others, alleging that they were suspected Boko Haram members. Rep Suleiman told Daily Trust after plenary yesterday said he was not happy with the way the motion was killed by his colleagues, saying it is a dangerous precedence they set for the country.

“You cannot use the excuse of the insurgency to place a particular ethnic group, people or region on security spotlight. It is nonsensical and unacceptable,” he said.
He said: “This is a process that is capable of setting ethnic group against one another and where this is predominant is in the south-east. That is what I had wanted to read and as you know, the people that travelled a lot in this country are the south-easterners. If some people try to apply reprisal; it will be too bad for the country.”

The lawmaker, who noted that the series of arrests showed that every northerner is a potential Boko Haram suspect, cautioned that “if this is the theory, it then means that every south-easterner is a potential kidnapper and a ritual killer. Whoever holds this view will also not be fair to south-easterners.”

While appealing to President Goodluck Jonathan to intervene on the matter, the lawmaker said the president’s silence “speaks volumes,” adding that “even the American government gives visas to Afghan people, where Taliban represents an average Afghanistan; they still allow them to move freely in America without any hindrance, why treat Nigerians in their own country to this inhuman treatment?”

Biafra, June 12, Boko Haram And The Future of Nigeria -Part 2

As it turns out, we may have to look beyond the current National Conference. Clearly, the conference has lost focus, relegating its fundamental task which is to define (indeed, redefine is the word) the terms of our corporate existence – terms that would then be passed to Nigerians to finally decide on. Once there is collective understanding and agreement on what our co-existence entails (the structure of the country, including what the federating units should be, the form of government as well as fiscal relations between the units) other things – health, education, corruption, rule of law, political parties and electoral matters, etc – can then follow.

For a people in search of a meaningful national identity, I worry when we miss any opportunity – no matter how insignificant – to solidify the bonds of nationhood. Undoubtedly, those who have appropriated political power and those who have had the privilege of overseeing the affairs of the country have been our greatest undoing.
Some of us held out hope – the visible shortcomings notwithstanding – that the National Conference would offer an opportunity to focus on the fundamental defects of Nigeria. That optimism was based on the belief that if we took away the other options – descent into anarchy and, perhaps, another civil war or a revolutionary upheaval – a “peaceful” national dialogue was the way to go.
As it turns out, we may have to look beyond the current National Conference. Clearly, the conference has lost focus, relegating its fundamental task which is to define (indeed, redefine is the word) the terms of our corporate existence – terms that would then be passed to Nigerians to finally decide on. Once there is collective understanding and agreement on what our co-existence entails (the structure of the country, including what the federating units should be, the form of government as well as fiscal relations between the units) other things – health, education, corruption, rule of law, political parties and electoral matters, etc – can then follow.

Why is it that we are unwilling to address the fundamental question of our existence as a country, considering our history and the seeming lack of agreement on what the future should look like? It seems, for us in Nigeria, that we want to make omelette without breaking eggs. If we can’t agree on how to co-exist peacefully, then we must find an amicable way to “dissolve” this union. Truth is that if we don’t, and allow these crises to fester, Nigeria will sooner or later implode and the consequences will be grave for all parties.

There have been many flashpoints in the turbulent history of Nigeria. I think, however, that three issues – without attempting to downplay others, like the Tiv Riots of 1960 and 1964, the first military coup of January 15, 1966, the 12-Day Revolution of Isaac Adaka Boro which led to the declaration of the Niger Delta Republic on February 23, 1966, the Maj. Gideon Orkar-led coup of April 22, 1990, the murder of the Ogoni 9 by the Nigerian state on November 10, 1995 – stand out: the civil war, the June 12 crisis and the current onslaught by Boko Haram. And each time we think we have laid the threat to rest, it rears its ugly head. Yet, we hide our heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, hoping against hope that somehow our fault lines and the tension they generate will vanish overnight.
There were reasons for Biafra, even if there are disagreements about what precipitated the internecine civil war that followed and how the crisis and its aftermath were managed. There were reasons for the annulment of the presidential election of June 12, 1993, no matter how unconscionable we think the annulment was. There are reasons for the actions of Boko Haram, even if we find its activities loathsome.

Part of the narrative of the Nigerian tragedy is economic. The near collapse of the Nigerian state and its structures, particularly security and law enforcement – a phenomenon rooted in many years of bad leadership and corruption – has not only bred poverty, alienation and disillusionment of the masses across the country, it has turned the country into a carcass and a veritable meal for vultures of every hue. And each day, there are new vultures ready to feast on this carcass.
But, if we focus on the preceding, we miss the big picture. For me, the underlying reason for the flashpoints in Nigeria is that we have not come to a collective agreement about what Nigeria is or what it should be. And until we do, we will not be able to make progress as a country. Nigerians did not create Nigeria. So, if we want to make it work, if we want to counter the different centrifugal forces that seek to rip it at the seams, we must go back to fundamentals. We were handed an unjust and skewed state. Our first task ought to be how to fix the distortion.
Nobody could have put this dilemma better than the former attorney-general of the federation, late Chief Bola Ige, who noted in his 1998 speech titled Towards the Beckoning Glory of the 21st Century, that “There are two basic questions that must be answered by all of us Nigerians. One, do we want to remain as one country? Two, if the answer is yes, under what conditions?”
There is no need for equivocation. Like Chief Ige, I believe strongly that “we” have to answer these questions. Except that for me, in the 21st century, after 100 years of amalgamation and 54 years of independence, the “we” do not necessarily have to be the “we” that existed before 1914, but the “we” that have called Nigeria the Motherland in the last 100 years. I have argued repeatedly that we can build civic nationalities where ethnic nationalities currently exist. All it takes is sacrifice and the willingness to make it work.

There are those who assume, wrongly, that the first part of the question is taken for granted; that after 100 years of marriage and 54 years of raising a family there is no need to question the sanctity of a marriage whether it is working for the partners or not. Unfortunately, while we can make the analogy, we must face the reality that the amalgamation of Nigeria is different in many ways from a marriage between two lovers.

In the case of Nigeria, it was a forced marriage as is the practice amongst some families in the country; the lovers had no say or the opportunity to understand each other, much less appreciate and love each other. While it works in some cases, in our own case it hasn’t worked; and like many forced marriages, the parents (the colonialists) got their desire while the couples (Nigerians) are left with the hope that their problems and disagreements will sort themselves out.
Perhaps, if the citizens of the different ethnic nationalities in 1914 were involved in the creation of Nigeria, they would have decided the terms of their co-existence and would have long gotten used to their obligations in the union. The fallouts of this seeming lack of accountability are Biafra, June 12 and Boko Haram, amongst others; each event leading to further disaffection and division in the country.

Like Chief Ige, “I do not belong to the group of Nigerians deluding themselves that we can keep Nigeria forever as it is.” If we can’t and do not want to live together as a people, we should be open and honest enough to sit at a table for an open discussion on the way forward.

I don’t wish for a national conference that is convoked – usually by a foreign power or “the international community” – when parties to a conflict have exhausted every bloody option, but that is the road Nigeria is travelling currently; a road of mutually assured destruction.
Concluded.

CULLED FROM SAHARA REPORTERS

2015: Group uncovers plot by north to foment crisis

By Joe Nwankwo / Assistant Editor, Abuja

The Southern Mandate, a coalition of socio-political groups, has cautioned against a fresh plot by some northern leaders and elites to oust President Goodluck Jonathan from office at all cost in 2015, just as it alleged that the northern leaders have declared that it would plunge the nation into a crises of unimaginable proportion.

Reacting to the resolutions at a meeting of some northern groups including the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Northern Union {NU}, Arewa Reawakening Forum {ARF}, Project {ARDP}, and Middle Belt Forum {MBF}, held on Friday in Kaduna, the group described the North’s resolve that Jonathan’s re-election will not be in its interest as myopic and selfish.

The northern groups had reportedly insisted at the meeting that the region must produce the president in 2015, while blaming the disunity and crises in the area on the second term ambition of Jonathan.
“Our position is very clear on this renewed demand. There was an agreement on rotating the Presidency and now, we want to warn that if the parties to the pact fail to adhere to it, the North will use its numerical strength to ensure that power returns to it in 2015. That is the position arrived at the meeting”, one of the participants was quoted as saying.

But in a statement issued on Sunday in Abuja and signed by its National Coordinator, Tito Zuokumor, the Southern Mandate said the renewed move by the North was aimed at setting the nation on fire and stampeding the President out of office by next year.

While noting that the division and crises in the North, including the Boko Haram insurgency, predated the Jonathan presidency, the group said rather than seeking for a culprit, northern leaders should bury their heads in shame for their failure to provide purposeful leadership while they held on to political power for over three decades, during which the common folk in the North were deliberately impoverished.

“At a time when the entire nation, and indeed, the world is in pain and agony over the abduction of over 200 school girls from the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, by the Boko Haram insurgents, it is baffling and a display of the highest level of insensitivity for northern leaders to be holding meetings and plotting how to seize power in 2015, instead of being at the forefront of efforts by the Federal Government, international community and well-meaning Nigerians to rescue the girls from captivity”, the group said.

DAILY INDEPENDENT