Whereas sovereignty is said, even by the French philosopher-Jean Bodin, that it is “the supreme and final, legal authority, above and beyond which no further legal power exists”. And whereas Rousseau in his Social Contract Theory expounded the basis of popular sovereignty, Thomas Hobbes advocates that sovereign power must not be limited by natural law. Another thinker, Grotius emphasized external sovereignty i.e. the independence of a state from external control. Grotius emphasized both the strength and the will of a state in upholding its national dignity before any external body. Thomas Hobbes, in the fear that sovereign power cannot be in everybody’s hands rather it should be in the hand of an individual either a king or any other person, advocated that such power must be absolute, indivisible, incommunicable and illimitable if man’s life was to be saved from being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
John Locke in his Second Treatise in Civil Government advocated that: “the law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men”. Locke said that in the state of nature, everyone has the executive power of the law of nature though he doubted not that it will be objected that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends and on the other side, ill-nature, passion, and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others, and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God had certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men.
John Locke further in his theory on the Beginning of Political Societies said that men being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and independent; no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent, which is done by agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it.
Rousseau however, recognized that the will of the individual may conflict with the general will of the community which constitutes the sovereign. As a result of this, the Social Contract included an agreement that whosoever refuses to conform to the general will shall be forced to do so by whole body politics i.e. shall be forced to be free. Law was taken by Rousseau as the expression of the general will; law therefore can be made only in the assembly of all the people. He concluded that sovereignty can never be alienated, represented or divided. The sovereign, who is a collective being, can only be represented by himself. (Was the Nigerian constitution that caused Nigeria into being a representative of all the component parts i.e. the ethnic communities of all the people of Nigeria?).
From the general perspective one has looked at sovereignty, where can one say sovereignty is located in Nigeria? In this perspective, as it is well known in political philosophy that among few options such as the people, as the most significant, land and its resources, and capital, the people will take centre stage among the factors that make a state. If one is asked to mention where sovereignty is located among such options as the people, the electorate, the community and the legislature, then the first and the most acceptable option is the People, followed by the electorate which is followed by the community; which option is followed by the legislature. In all of these options, it is not that the people play some direct role in some instance such as in the People, the electorate and the community, and an indirect role in the legislature.
In a monarchy however, sovereignty is vested on the royalty-king or the queen.
In Nigeria’s case, for instance, sovereignty belongs to the people based on their ethnic belongingness. This situation becomes more understandable because of the way and manner the British colonialist strolled into the country in periods and sections from 1902, in the very last instance, and also how principally the Amalgamation of the North and South took place in 1914. The constitutional development process from Lord-Luggard’s Council of 1914 to the end of the First World War in 1918 at which point a lot of enlightened Nigerians returned home after the war, thereby igniting the Clifford’s Constitutional development period of 1922. This period gave way to Sir Bernard Boudilion’s Constitutional Development period of 1935 thus ushering in Sir Arthur Richard’s Constitutional Development period as it was quite an active and brazen period primarily due to the return of Nigerian soldiers who were engaged in the Second World War at the end of which they returned from the war in 1945. This period opened up a new chapter which introduced the Macpherson’s Constitution of 1951. The Macpherson’s period ignited the feeling of independence of the nation from the British colonialist which gradually caught on with the ordinary citizens. This ushered in the first London Constitutional Conference of 1953. Thereafter, the Lyttleton Constitution of 1954, which, among other things, principally set the pace for the modalities of the independence, even though the North, at some point, said that it was not ready for independence which led to the delay of the process for some time. Anyway, the process was not stopped completely, rather it was slowed down. After a while, two conferences which were meant to prepare the ground for the eventual granting of independence to Nigeria were held in London and Lagos in 1957 and 1958, respectively. The 1957 and 1958 constitutional conferences were otherwise known as the Henry Wilink’s Commission of 1957 and 1958 respectively where the Niger Delta Minorities led by Harold Biriye Esq. presented a strong protestation of the minorities expressing the aspirations and the Self-Determination of the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta in terms of its own political recognition independent of Nigeria. In the spirit of the non-recognition of the minority rights of the ethnic communities in Nigeria against the undue pressure put on the colonialist by the representatives of the majority ethnic communities led by Zik, Awo and Ahmadu Bello, such qualified protestations and agitations were not only dismissed but were also seriously resisted and treated as issues that will be further overwhelmed and consumed by providence over time. The neglect of these issues is perhaps why we have an even stronger agitation from the Niger Delta area asking for the control of its natural resources. By the time Nigeria was granted independence by 1960, the big players in the political scene, as have been mentioned above, were so engrossed in the euphoria of the independence of the country that the minority ethnic communities were treated more like out-casts than people who truly belonged to Nigeria in a system where they later produced more than all the major ethnic communities put together in sustaining the nation.
But the Willinks Commission, instead of granting the minority ethnic groups such as the Niger Delta, the Middle Belt Territory, etc. states (or regions) of their own, recommended a long list of Fundamental Human Rights to protect both the minority and even the majority citizens of Nigeria against the arbitrary abuse of power of the government which should be included in the constitution(s). While statehood was denied the ethnic minorities, the commission felt that the provision of these fundamental rights will help allay the fears of these ethnic minorities and thirty years was seemingly given to observe their implementation (and, of course, their effect). That is the crux of the political matter that brought about the agitation for fair play and, at best, resource control in the political recognition of the minority ethnic communities against the background of the exploitation and exploration of their resources, further worsened by mass corruption in Nigeria. By 1963, only three years after independence, Benin, which is one of the ethnic minorities which later became part of the Niger Delta, was acceded regional state called Mid-west Region. But the people who actually took their case to the Wilink’s Commission in 1957-58, which is the true Niger Delta people led by Harold Biriye Esq, were ignored and consequently denied any political recognition. By 1966, only six years after independence, the first military coup led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu took place. That military coup led to yet another one only six months after the first one. The second was led by Major Murtala Rafat Mohammed, Major Hassan Usman Katsina and Captain Theophilous Yakubu Danjuma, etc and carefully handed over to Lt. Col Jack Yakubu Gowon with a lot of ethnic coloration favouring the Hausa/Fulani majority. Gowon’s government, which was seen by the Islamic North as a forerunner to the real Jihadist administration that was being awaited, erred in 1975 by way of over-staying in power, thus making now Brigadier Murtala Ramat Mohammed, Brigadier Hassan Usman Katsina, Brigadior Olusegun Obasanjo, Lt. Col Ibrahim Badamosi Bagangida, Lt. Col. Muhammadu Buhari, Col. Theophilous Danjuma, Lt. Col. Sani Abacha, etc to come on board of coup plotting the second time. Six months after the overthrow of Yakubu Gowon terminating the forerunner ship position conceded to him by Murtala and his people, Murtala himself was vehemently challenged and resisted by a fellow Northerner, this time from Yakubu Gowon’s area of the Lantang Region. It was this Gowon’s fellow middle belter in the person of Lt. Col. Suka Buka Dimka in a bloody attempt to take-over the government, killed Murtala Mohammed. Nevertheless, the reigns of power fell on the shoulders of Olusegun Obasanjo who had by then become a Lieutenant General. It was Obasanjo’s regime that led the country to its first successful handover of power, though from military to civilian administration, in 1979. By 1983, Brigadier Mohammadu Buhari felt it was his turn to rule the nation along with Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, Brigadier Ibrahim Babangida with Brigadier Sani Abacha, etc. In the North’s way of sharing the buck of leadership of the nation from person to person, it came to Major General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Major General Sani Abacha, to mention but a few, to take their turn of leadership in 1985 after Buhari took-over the civilian government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari who was handed over the reigns of power by Obasanjo.
It was noticed that Babangida and his boys were not ready to handover power to a civilian administration as they promised, until 1990 when a bunch of minority compatriots in the army led by Major Gideon Orkar, Lt. Col. Tony Nyiam, Major S. Mukoro, Captain Nemibowei Empere, Captain Perebo Dakolo, Great Ogboru, Captain Nonju, Captain Tolofari, Lt. Ichindu, etc. dazed General Ibrahim Babangida and co and told them the gospel truth that the rest of the nation are not slaves to the Hausa/Fulani North. The executors of this coup said that their main reason for planning and carrying out the coup was to overturn any situation of favoritism; abridge any circumstance of religious, regional and tribal discrimination; reverse the dilemma of oil bunkering by self-appointed capitalists against the people from whose soil the oil was (and still is) exploited. And generally, to overturn the situation where the minorities in the South are being treated like orphans (slaves) whereas those in the North, except their minority counterparts in the Middle Belt, are being treated like first class citizens. That will always remain unacceptable to every active, reasonable and patriotic mind in the Niger Delta in particular and all the minority areas in general. Even though that coup was not successful, the gospel truth, as it were, had been told to the Hausa/Fulani that the nation called Nigeria was not sold to them by anybody and could not be bought by them at anytime and at any price.
In all of these seizures of government in the most illegal manner, there were state creation exercises beginning from the time of General Yakubu Gowon, during which period it was conceived more as a measure to “Keep Nigeria One”, at the same time providing the checks to ward off the political intrigues of Ojukwu’s Eastern Region. In that exercise, twelve states were created, six in the North and six in the South. Thereafter, only eight years later, Murtala, who overthrew Gowon’s regime, created seven new states making the North to have four states as against the three states for the South, thus making the North to have a state more than the South. That was the beginning of political unevenness clearly in favour of the North. As if that was not enough, Babangida, who overthrew the regime of Buhari in 1985, embarked on yet another creation of states exercise during his regime from 1985 to 1993. In the first exercise, he created only two states: one for the North and the other for the South. In the second exercise, he became politically willful and acrimonious by exacerbating the already existing imbalance between the North and the South thereby making the North to have two states more than the South. Unfortunately, the Niger Delta issue was not taken into consideration as an issue to address except Delta State that was created more as a political gift to his wife. It was the army general known for his immorality and rascality recommended for dismissal in the person of General Sani Abacha that tried to ignite some authenticity and genuineness in his creation of new states in 1996 that first adopted the policy of six geo-political zones in Nigeria and based on that, created six states one for each zone, thus making the North to have three new states and the South also three new states.
Even as the Nobel Lauret - Prof. Wole Soyinka in his article titled: “Between Amnesty and Amnesia” said “The better is straightforward... As MEND statements have periodically emphasized, the (Niger) Delta crisis is the mere purulent tip of the Nigeria boil, now provided into violent eruption in a particular region. Over and over again it has been stressed that nothing but a holistic approach to internal re-structuring will serve the nation. Not only is this historically inevitable, such an approach provides a context within which the aggrieved oil-producing areas can feel a genuine relatedness to the natural question. The stubborn retention of status quo, and it manifest rejection by component parts is at the heart of the Delta crisis.”
The Nobel Lauret went further to state: “It is not for nothing that MEND, in a number of its dispatches, has stressed not just the flawed antecedents of the Nigerian project in general, but the incorrigible cabalism of governance that makes a mockery of the democratic process, and thus robs the citizens of dignity and voice. MEND has interjected its communiques with reminders that the Delta contestation is a product of the desperate sustenance of the very immorality of the Nigerian state- and the continuing corrupt desperation of power. That MEND took pains to state this in such stark terms is superfluous; even without the denunciation, the insolence of the democratic exercise of 2007 cannot be discounted as a crucial factor in the stiffening of militant intransigence in the Delta.” And further he said, “Governance is built on trust. Trust is earned through transparent legitimacy”.
This failed Nigerian project that has not only overstretched our patience but has also questioned our morality to accept it no matter how it is governed by a ruler who is permanently on sabbatical without any approval by the governed because he has been most economical about the truth of his health. He has all along said that the state of his health is not the concern of the people he is ruling. That seems to be the most principal lie. That seems to have forced the people to grant him an amnesty to do nothing until his tenure expires. But based on the character and the political dominance and arrogance of his people, the people of the North, it is most suggestible that he has decided to stay in power also doing nothing, until he dies in office. This is more so because the ruler, as the constitution suggests, is the head of the fabricators of the electoral malfeasance for which he is very sure that no matter what, he will always be in power. So, while declaring and extending the amnesty the people freely gave to him to the so-called militants without addressing the reason why there is militancy or any contest for the control of the resources beneath their soil, he put together a package of palliatives that will lull them back into this political opprobrium called Nigeria so that he could easily smoke them out since he refused to address the real crux of the matter. This is because the Nigerian project encased and fabricated by the Ziks, Awos, Ahmadu Bellos, etc. in the name of Vision 1960 has been stolen away by the corrupt and arrogant domination of the Northern cabal. It is the same Northern cabal led by Kano, seconded by Katsina, inspired by Sokoto and supported by Bauchi, Borno and Niger, etc that have told the Nigerian nation that its people don’t have the right to know the true and exact health of their President. And that whether the President is available or not, he must always be the President no matter his health condition, his location and for whatever time (as the present head of state Muhammadu Buhari, galavanted all over the globe even asking for a three-month leave not too long after his 100 days in office). And that is what the Niger Delta will no longer accept.
Just look at the process by which the Nigerian state was held captive by the military cabal from the military coup de tat of 1966 up to the last military coup of 1993 engineered by Sani Abacha, it is the same Northern collaborators, apart from the first one orchestrated by Major Chukwma Kaduna Nzeogwu. Major Danjuma, Lt. Ibrahim Babangida, Lt. Sani Abacha (at least Major Benjamin Adekunle mentioned his name in his war memos), etc planned and executed the 2nd military coup of July 29, 1966 and merely put Lt. Col. Jack Yakubu Gowon as Head of State. It is this same group that killed the Head of State and Supreme Military Commander of the Armed Forces- Major General Johnson Aguyi-Ironsi and visited an unwarranted and a most gruesome pogrom on the people of the then Eastern Region living in the North. By 1975, the same cabal, except a few new entrants i.e Col. Joseph Garba, came into the limelight of coup plotting in Nigeria. The 1975 coup was plotted and executed by Brigadier Mutala Ramat Mohammed, Col. Yakubu Danjuma, Lt. Col Shehu Yar’Adua, Lt. Col. Ibrahim Babangida, Col. Joseph Garba, Col. Abdullahi Mohammed, Brigadier Olusegun Obasanjo, etc. making Brigadier Mutala Ramat Mohammed as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. There was however, a failed attempt in 1976 led by Col. Suka Buka Dimka which violently removed the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief, General Murtala Ramat Mohammed through assassination.
But while a whole host of coup plotters were retired from the army by 1978 prior to the hand-over of government to the civilian regime of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, such as General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Hassan Usman Katsina, Lt General Theophilous Yakabu Danjama, Lt. General Shehu Yar’ Adua, Major General Joseph Garba, etc. those who remained led by Brigadier Muhammadu Buhari, Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, Brigadier Ibrahim Badamosi Banagida, Brigadier Sani Abacha, Major Abubakar Umar, Brigadier Ibrahim Bako, Major Abdulmumuni Aminu, Major Lawan Gwadabe, etc. decided to forcefully overthrow the government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1983. This was the first time in the arts and science of coup-making in Nigeria where junior officers flexed very freely with relatively senior officers in plotting to over-throw the government. Eventually, Major General Muhammad Buhari emerged as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
By August 27, 1985, the master coup-planner – Major General Ibrahim Babangida headed yet another coup-plotting session in collaboration with Major General Sani Abacha, Col. John Solipa Shagaya, Brigadier Joshua Dangoyaro, Major Abubakar Umar, Major Abdualmumuni Aminu, and Major General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida emerged as the Chairman of the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. But after a series of Babangida’s double-standards and undue maneuvers in the administration of the nation up to 22nd of April 1990, Major Gideon Orkar, Major S. Mukoro, Lt. Col Tony Nyiam, Captain Nemibowei Empere, Captain Tolofari, Captain Nonju, Captain Perebo Dakolo, Lt. Uchendu, etc staged the bloodiest coup in the history of Nigeria and even went further brandishing General Ibrahim Babangida’s government as a dictatorial, corrupt, drug-baronish, inhuman, sadistic, deceitful, homo-sexually centered, oligarch cist and unpatriotic administration, although it was foiled and all the presumed and a lot more imagined coup-plotters were killed. The irony of that coup also is that it was the first time atrocities done against the minorities in Nigeria, particularly those in the South by the majority in the North were mentioned in a coup broadcast. The coup plotters said that their main reason for the plot is to overturn the Northern domination of Nigeria and Babangida’s corrupt leadership and went further to announce the excise of the Northern part of Nigeria from the rest of the country such as Borno, Kano, Sokoto, Katsina and Bauchi. And that they must renounce their domination and stranglehold on the nation before they will be readmitted into the Nigerian State. But this coup was foiled and Babangida regained his, so to speak, coveted throne as the Maximum Ruler, proclaiming himself the only military president of Nigeria. By 1993, Delta State being one of the six new states, was created by Ibrahim Babandiga as his measure to address the socio-economic neglect of the South South Area of Nigeria. But this, however, could not address it because leaders like Ibrahim Babandiga had been lying to the South South long before that exercise. And being a chronic coup-plotter, he was more concerned about how to maximally rule the nation than solving its problems. He was one soldier who was involved in all the military coups, even from the rank of lieutenant. General Sani Abacha, too followed the footsteps of his master and friend, General Ibrahim Babangida, and ruled the Nigeria nation maximally until Nigerians woke up one morning and were told that their Maximum Ruler-Sani Abacha, could not wake up from his sleep. This gave room to a silent coup-planner in the saddle in the person of General Abdulsalam Abubakar who took over the reigns of power from where San Abacha left it. Of course, after a couple of surreptitious, clandestine and even subterranean actions such as settling some scores with regard to the June 12, 1993 election and all that came with it, including the termination of the life of Chief M.K.O Abiola, he decided to handover the reigns of power through what they regard as “electoral victory”, to General Olusegun Obasanjo. Since then, Nigerians have not been free from one turn of militocracy or the other.
Going back to the crux of the matter, that up to 1900 and even to 1913, there was no known area called Nigeria even though there were protectorates such as Lagos Territory, Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, Southern Protectorate, and even Calabar Territory. It was later in 1914 that Lord Lugard’s girl friend, by circumstance, in a piece of article published in London, named this area Nigeria. But even at that point, we were living together only in name. This is more so because the treaty Kingdoms who were existing before the coming of the white man into the political life of the people of this area: the treaty kingdoms such as Bonny Kingdom of King William Dappa Pepple, the Opobo Kingdom of King (Jumboaye – Jumboaye Pepple) Jaja of Opobo, the Okrika Kingdom of King Ibanichuka, the Nembe Kingdom of King Nelson Koko, the Itsekiri Kingdom of King Nana of Itsekiri, the Benin Kingdom of the Oba of Benin, the Calabar Kigndom of the Obong of Calabar, the Kalabari Kingdom of King Amachree, the Amananaowei of Akassa, the Orhobos, Ijos scattered here and there all had their treaties genuinely and legitimately signed with the Whiteman at one point or the other as genuine and independent sovereignties of their own and duly recognized by the white colonialists, but were flaunted and disrespected as a result of the political ambition of a few people when Nigeria was to be granted independence. But while the Fulanis took over the territories of the Hausa who were well known to the already existing kingdoms, as have been mentioned already, from Senegambia, Mali, Mauritania, and even Niger from about 1804 by Usman Danfodio all in the name of Islamic Jihad, these other kingdoms in the South South, who were already mentioned above, had existed long before that time. It is this scenario that has caused the political insomnia that monumentally kills the sleep of the nation that restlessly makes the boys in the creek to ask who the people like Umaru Dikko are to question the people of the South South who requested for 25% of the oil revenue when he arrogantly said it is his own people from the North that will decide who gets what. A system where the ailing limbs of people from the North such as Dr. Rilwanu Lukman and Prof. Jubril Aminu are rehabilitated with the lumbago of our oil money when very vibrant and intelligent people like Odein Ajumbogobia are made to serve under these old, senile and seemingly expired people. A situation where the Hausa/Fulani led federal government released a series of amnesty conditions for the militant boys in the creeks without addressing the situation which brought about militancy and the issue of resource control against the background of this rouged state called Nigeria! Nigeria is a failed state because it is a nation where professional coup plotters like Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubaker, Yakubu Danjuma, Lawman Gwadabe, and a few others still stay at the corner to dictate what happens at the centre because they claim, the centre belongs to them and unfortunately we have a few miscreants from the South who are hanging around them picking the crumbs from the national table claiming that they are bringing it to the people of the Niger Delta but end up putting it in their pockets. Those are the politicians who claim that they were elected into office by the people such as governors, senators, house of representative members both at the state and national levels, the local government chairmen and their councilors, and the appointed political office holders. But while Northerners like Umaru Dikko are ready to insult the sensibility of the South South, in particular the Niger Delta, unfortunately, leaders like the President of the federation, that is when we eventually have one, cannot conceive the fact that Sovereign National Conference is the only option to redress the anomalies of this system because a fish which does not come with the heart gets rotten in time whether it comes with all the intestines or not. This is because the heart of this nation was stolen away by the North as a result of the greed of the Azikiwes and the Awolowos during the independence of this nation. The president orientedness of the Nigerian state, as it is presented today, (particularly under the Buhari presidency) hides a lot of things under the carpet which means our leaders are not ready to face reality. If it is not so, then the leaders would have known that something happened during the Henry Willinks Commission of 1957 to 1958 and whether the minority questions raised in that conference were fully addressed? Were there legitimate kingdoms in this place called Nigerai in 1902 when Lord Luggard and his political exploiters came to obliterate the legitimacy of the kingdoms they claimed they civilized? Were there no kingdoms in the South South when Usman Danfodio and his Islamic Jihadists came about 1804 to enculturize and religionize the Hausa who now claim to be of the Hausa/Fulani stock and would thus claim the Nigeria centre as their birth-right? Were no sovereign powers embedded in the treaties signed with the British Government up to the time Nigeria was granted independence in 1960? Were the sovereignties or treaties negotiated? Were they ever discussed? Don’t we know that there is the process of Treatization in nation creation or establishment? Why are we blinded or stubborn to the wisdom of Sovereign National Conference and why the Nigerian Sovereignty should be renegotiated and properly treatized? Why has a cabal felt that they must decide what happens at the centre if not they will send soldiers of their ethnic origin to disorganize whatever is at the centre, at the same time decide for the nation?
While Jefferson said he is comfortable with the majority because it is strong and powerful enough to always impose its power and will on the minority, Thorau reminded him that minority is wise and its wisdom most times lives far into the future thereby finally sustaining the society.
An African American in the person of Andrew young of the United State said that in modern democracy, it is not enough to win an election but that the majority that won the election must do everything to contain and carry along the minority if that electoral victory has to be sustained.
Whose property is Nigeria? Is it an Hausa/Fulani property or Igbo/Yoruba property or a property for all? It is my most candid opinion that nobody wants anybody to dash her any property, rather let all of us come to the round table to discuss and contribute what will sustain the Nigerian system to enable us make the law that will be equitable and acceptable to all. That is the crux of the matter and not amnesty and privileges dashed to a people. Where is the man who dashed the boys amnesty? Is it not well over eighty days we have not seen, heard or even felt him as our leader and President (that was late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua )? Is it not our constitutional right to know about our President’s health in the truest sense of it? And where we don’t, doesn’t the constitution provide a means of how that can be addressed?
While the political situation in the country looks generally helpless, the National Assembly members, more than anybody else, appear more confused and impotent even though the onus of what will bring about the change of faith of the oil producing people of the Niger Delta and indeed the people of the South/South, a little in the short run and more in the long run, rest on their shoulders.
This piece, as old as it was written and published in the Weekly Star since 2010, is as fresh and relevant as it is today. It is so relevant now because a more tribal and perhaps vicious head is on throne to properly and openly protect his ethnic interest. While his predecessor, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan conceded a lot things to him in the name of national interest, he, Mohammadu Buhari, felt it is due to his minority complex and political impotence that he had to concede all that even when there is every reason and room to context where some children between 7 and 14 years lined up to vote in Kano, Katsina, Yobe, Zamfara, Sokoto, Mina and even in northern Zaria to vote during the last general election which the ex-military ruler claimed to have clinched the presidential seat. That, while Goodluck Jonathan did not use the army to check juvenile electoral malpractices in Kano, Katsina, Yobe, Bauchi, Borno, Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger and even Adamawa, the maximum military ruler called president has sent (tough) military men to check the guberutorial election in Bayelsa State particularly at Ekeremo in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area and other parts of Bayelsa State where we hear so many people died. Yet he is using his presidential might to hound and humiliate the so called militants in their homes in Okrika, Kalabari in Rivers State and also in Bayelsa State. In Okrika area, yours truly was one day humiliated by the soldier stationed at Nchia along Okrika-Eleme road very close to the Old Refinery. Also, the road leading to the Old Refinery, close to the main gate, is most deplorable and in very bad state. The Okrika – Port Harcourt Link Bridge that was started by the Jonathan administration has since been abandoned. Such a government is still calling for fire and brim stone in humiliating the people whose soil produce the resources that is sustaining the nation.
We, the people of the Niger Delta led by the INC, can no longer take this humiliation, and will now cry to the United Nations for Self-Determination, a call started since 1957 up to 1958 through the Willinks Commission so that there will be a stop to this Hausa/Fulani subjugation, perhaps, in collaboration with the Yoruba connivance. It should stop now.
Wittingly or unwittingly, the slur to careerism of the average northerners made light as a result of their easy proficiency in Islamic Religious Studies and Arabic Language which, with the connivance and aid of the Centre, they also easily find very lucrative jobs in the NNPC and the Refineries in Port Harcourt and Warri, save that of the Kaduna Refinery which is made easier as a result of its proximity whereas youths from the South South with very relevant qualifications in Engineering in particular from Port Harcourt, Okrika, Ogu, Bonny, Nchia-Eleme, Bori, Ahoada, Omoku, Buguma, Abonnema and even Yenegoa, Nembe, Ekeremo, Kaiama, Bomadi, Warri etc. daily roam the streets unemployed. That has reached a stage where it has become most unacceptable to the oil producing communities.
The grabbing of the Centre, orchestrated by the connivance and double-dealing of Attahiru Jega, was on the threshold of the Gobir Islamic Revolution in 1804 in the name of the Jihad that was led by Usman Danfodio.
This was worsened by the rampaging Fulanis who were determined to enculturise the indigenous Hausas by their invading forces from Senegambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, etc. and force the indigenous Hausas to imbibe new and foreign cultures including the Islamic Religion. In the process, the Banza Bokwai mixed freely with the Hausa Bokwai (the Eight Legitimate and Eight illegismate Hausas) of Daura, Kano, Rano, Gaya, Hadejia, Zaria, etc. of the eight legitimate ones who were made to look like Fulanis than Hausas that they really are.
Thank God, in recent time, after Goodluck Jonathan cleverly bowed out from the Centre, the invisible Boko Haram insurgents are gradually and easily identified and called by name losing their invisibility, unlike what happened during the regime of Goodluck Jonathan. Don’t tell me that it is because their own brother has come unto the Centre!
The political marriage between the North and the oil producing Niger Delta is like marrying a wicked and bad wife who will claim every single property of hers and all of her husband’s but will never allow her husband to come close to her property.
It is time for us to go our separate ways through a Referendum, perhaps supervised by the United Nations.
Marcus A. P. Anga.
