Nigeria’s season of anomie
do not consider myself overtly fanatical or regard myself as an irredentist of any kind, ethnic or religious. It’s hard to be when you belong to an appendage tribe often dubbed hermaphrodite. I am Yagba without apology, I seek no appendage. When it comes to region, I am as northern as geography bid me. My […]
do not consider myself overtly fanatical or regard myself as an irredentist of any kind, ethnic or religious. It’s hard to be when you belong to an appendage tribe often dubbed hermaphrodite. I am Yagba without apology, I seek no appendage. When it comes to region, I am as northern as geography bid me. My tribe has hardly ever benefitted from the sharing of the national cake. Only once in my lifetime have two Yagba people been appointed ministers at the same time, and that was under Obasanjo. Like other appendage tribes, the Yagba only get the crumbs after the major tribes have taken their fill either at the local or national level. Yet, I have loved being Nigerian, whatever fraction of the whole. But for once in my life, I feel so utterly vulnerable, more vulnerable than most people. And it is sad to feel thus vulnerable. It’s a feeling that comes when your country is on the tethers and you know you’ll lose come what may.
Having covered all ethno-religious crisis in Nigeria since the Maitatsine riots of 1980, I have never seen premeditated killing as blood chillingly bizarre and senseless as the last Jos crisis. Compared to the pre-1966 coup events, it is like a sad tape rewound. The pre-1966 coup crisis was a precursor to Nigeria’s gruelling 30-month civil war and the final polarisation of the marriage of convenience contracted by the British. It would appear for once, that the local press initially tempered the reportage of the Kuru Karama killing but that the foreign press and Human Rights Watch unravelled it. It is difficult not to believe Nigeria’s unification means nothing to a voracious foreign press ever willing to make cannibalistic Africa fit the bill; but they did not start the pogrom, we did. The wells of the Plateau have upturned revealing gory contents of our value for human life. Nobody is asking for revenge, in fact, no vengeance can assuage the carnage; yet the pains are subtly subdued like those of a rape victim denied of crying.
Of course, the ineptitude of the government of the day at national and state levels – the rush with which certain state governments responded by sending luxury buses and armed escorts to evacuate their citizens fills me with strict foreboding and a gnawing feeling of vulnerability. Are we truly a country?
In all these my President was in a Riyadh hospital perhaps totally oblivious of the furore that his absence is generating – events being the true test of our national cohesion; his failure to meet constitutional requirements overshadowing a pogrom. This is why I feel no cheer reading of his return. Loyal citizens have prayed and even fasted for his recovery albeit with scanty information about his true state of health and just when the frenzy is reaching an unbearable crescendo, he is being packed back. The big question being asked around is why power is so important to the north that Mr. President could sign a supplementary budget, grant a 52 seconds interview but has no consideration for the nation that elected him enough to cede his executive powers to his vice. These are legitimate questions whose answers have grave implications for any fringe citizen like me without the backing of the other behemoth ethnic groups whose munificence ostensibly glues the entity called Nigeria. Are my days as a Nigerian numbered? Where do I go from here?
Why is Mr. President being prepared for a hasty return? Is it so he could douse the political tension; stay in for a week and then return – a gimmick perfected by tag-team wrestlers struggling to beat the rules of the game? Or is it to restore order? A court order on the executive council is responded to with tactless speed. Our senate jumped into the fray with political insensitivity evoking the questions which answers we know – in whose interest – self or nation? Niger-Deltans complain loudly that they are worse than second-class citizens not even trusted enough to properly act but qualified only as balancing legs for personal or sectional avarice. They were the first to evacuate their citizens from troubled Jos. Now America and the EU have joined the debate and yet the cabal holding to power have no sense of urgency to act in the national interest. Nigeria is in its season of anomie. Will Nigeria survive this as a strong united entity? How strong is the glue holding our country together?