NCEF and the Tyranny of Intolerance (II)

(Continued from last week) The jailing of Dariye for corrupt practices and the trial and detention of Jang, were the implausible excuses all these hate mongers required to set the Plateau on fire.  Curiously, the killing circle that began with the June 2017 genocide on the Mambilla plateau that was replicated in Benue State has […]

(Continued from last week)

The jailing of Dariye for corrupt practices and the trial and detention of Jang, were the implausible excuses all these hate mongers required to set the Plateau on fire.  Curiously, the killing circle that began with the June 2017 genocide on the Mambilla plateau that was replicated in Benue State has finally reached Plateau state.  It was so predictable that I am surprised those who were actively fanning the embers of hatred are now feigning outrage at the killings they orchestrated through their hate mongering.

Since the general elections of 2015 (when it emerged that other electoral coalitions could perform the feat of the electoral coalition of 1998/1999) and the ascension of Muhammadu Buhari to the office of the president, those who thought they are ‘anointed’ to rule Nigeria in perpetuity, upped the ante in ethnic profiling, hate mongering, scare mongering and shameless fabrications just to ensure a captive audience remains captive to their voodoo ways.  The recklessness with which these enemies of the country went about stoking the fire of hatred for a particular ethnic group/tribe leaves one wondering where this bile is coming from and what is the objective of trying to demonise a whole group of people?

Nigeria fought apartheid in South Africa to desegregate South African society and bring to an end racial discrimination.  Twenty-four years after the end of discrimination based on race in South Africa, some people who may be less Nigerian than me are profiling me as a ‘negroid’ and not ‘negro’ in an effort to make me less Nigerian.  Can you imagine that!  Just because the president of the country happens to be a Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani man?  I can’t remember anyone holding the tribe of Gowon, Obasanjo or Goodluck Jonathan vicariously responsible for the failures of these men; nor holding Christianity responsible for their misgovernance.

Much as I don’t like retching up ugly history, the press statement by the NCEF brings to mind the Nzegwu/ Ifeajuna/ Ironsi coup where Muslim political and military leaders were wiped out; the brutal murder of Murtala Mohammed barely six months into his government by Dimka & co; the mindless murders of several military officers by Orka and his group.  In all these acts of insanity, I can’t remember reading anywhere complains by any Muslim group that the coups were undertaken against Muslims and Islam or were seen as an attempt to Christianize Nigerian Muslims.

I wish to invite the NCEF and its members to stop stoking the fire of hatred. Despite the herculean challenges thrown up against the Fulbe in Plateau and other parts of Nigeria, the Fulbe remain cosmopolitan in their worldview and friendly, open and welcome even if they are made to feel unwelcome by the animosity and hatred espoused by NCEF. The Fulbe culturally and instinctively, no matter how clannish they may appear to the outsider, have embraced values of an open society – free speech, democracy, pluralism -increasingly mobile and visible that have informed the successful cultural practices of the Fulbe that they have been able to live harmoniously across sub-Saharan Africa long before the advent of colonization – colonialism that has drawn the artificial boundaries that have given us a false sense of ethnic localization and tribalization. Otherwise how does one explain the success of the Fulbe from the westernmost point in Senegal on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the easternmost point on the shores of Indian Ocean or from the northernmost point in Libya to the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda. 

I invite NCEF to focus on resolving the aftermath of communal strife and healing the hearts of the people that have been rendered homeless, widowed and orphaned as well as rebuilding communities torn by strife. Work of the Good Samaritan is more important and appealing than the promotion of or prolonging ethnic hatred. More and more people want to live in societies where power, wealth, information and opportunity are dispersed, rather than hoarded. They want their communities to be outward looking and cosmopolitan in spirit. 

However, the present propaganda of NCEF poses risks to NCEF itself. Continued economic and political uncertainty puts the cause of openness under threat. History teaches us that, at times of uncertainty, societies become more exposed to the forces of division – populism, chauvinism, separatism, narrow ethnic nationalism. An ‘us  versus them’ mentality. When that happens societies begin to fragment, turn inwards, and  lose confidence. Vested interests benefit while ordinary people suffer.

The choice is that of NCEF whether our societies remain closed to the cosmopolitan influence. Only then could NCEF perpetuate power concentrated in the hands of the few, whether in public offices, or the ethnic empires, or the elitist privilege of membership of NCEF. The Fulbe are an open-spirited people, but they are still too often constrained by closed and insular faith based associations of the likes of NCEF. The Fulbe are tenacious in their cosmopolitan outlook and it is not likely that the propaganda of NCEF will make them change. The egalitarian approach of the Fulbe indicates that urgent redistribution of power is needed in our nation: in politics, in society and in the economy. That is the route to a renewed socio economic framework for co-existence and politics in a more responsible community space. I do hope NCEF and its members would rise to the demands of the leadership responsibility that our various communities demand.

Toungo wrote this piece from Yola, Adamawa State.