Then there came Nero [III]

Whether this gamble of a gambit is suppo-sed to divert attention from incompetence; or, by tearing the country religiously apart, ensure support for it; or just to confute, confuse and further split the opposition along sectional lines, there is little doubt that it is coming at the wrong time; and it is clear that those […]

Whether this gamble of a gambit is suppo-sed to divert attention from incompetence; or, by tearing the country religiously apart, ensure support for it; or just to confute, confuse and further split the opposition along sectional lines, there is little doubt that it is coming at the wrong time; and it is clear that those promoting it think nothing of toying with Nigeria’s destiny at the altar of election victory.
The danger facing the North is not at the national conference: it is in the deterioration in communal relations that has been left unaddressed, hoping that it will go away. It will not. In the North today familiarity has bred more mutual contempt than is healthy or can be taken care of by the system itself: something must be done.
The North must learn to be proactive and vigilant. It cannot afford to continue to leave the destinies of its two religions in the hands of ignoramuses or belligerent clerics; or abandon its politics in the hands of gravy train politicians who have neither vision nor plan for the North, some singing provocative ‘Hallelujah,’ others shouting, ‘Sai mai Sallah!’ gnawing at and tearing apart the social fabric that holds us together. In this way, the North has been made to lose quite a lot, but it is a loss suffered not just by the beaten but also by the beater, not just by the North but by those who barter its politics; you may hit it, but if you are part of it, you are unwittingly hitting out at yourself, which explains why control of the ruling party got out of their hand.
Perhaps Professor Jerry Gana had done more than any single individual in this country to found the People’s Democratic Party, PDP; but today he would often come across as nothing more than a mere arbitrator for mere joiners in the party that he founded. That’s what’s called tragedy in a nutshell: not even the Prodigal Son would set the house on fire to spite his dad—you can’t mortgage your house without facing the prospect of possible homelessness. A mere desire to get even is insufficient as a platform on which to base politics.
That is why people in the North must begin to speak out as dictated by their consciences to say any truth that will lead to healing, even if they will be misunderstood by some. And here, I must state that I write as a representative of no one, neither the Muslims of the North nor of the Hausa-Fulani, some of whom have called to disagree with some of the things I have written.
One said I only write to appease Christians. This cannot be accurate for at least three reasons. One, since I write for no one, on whose behalf am I supposed to be appeasing them? Two, I personally haven’t consciously done anything wrong to Christians to warrant my seeking to appease them. Three, even if I am a spokesman for Muslims, it is not done that way, because it is more usual for a minority to seek to appease a majority that is perceived as stronger or more numerous.
Another said that I am not a Hausa-Fulani, as if I had ever flashed that as a badge of distinction, but that I am an Arna-Fulani, which was painful, not because of the prefix affixed to me, but because it could still be applied to those for whose defence I received my new pejorative label, suggesting that, so far, we had learnt nothing and forgotten everything.
There is a whole load of work before us to accomplish. We must as a people cure some of us of that malady of impunity that develops as a result of the phantom of an imagined and profoundly misunderstood dar al-Islam, and cure and beat proper sense into those who continue to cling to the notion of that narrow, so-called anti-settler indigeneship. Obviously those who imagine there will be second-class citizens in any part of the North—or anywhere in Nigeria for that matter—don’t belong in the Arewa of tomorrow. And this applies to both leaders and followers because no Northern leader has the right to lead his flock as if it is not part of a variegated, larger congregation; or tend his herd, grazing heedlessly in others’ reserves, as if it will not return to its once-again integrated, monolithic home stable.
But to be sure, the North will never be able to return to that nostalgically-remembered monolithic integra-tedness of Arewa until its people return to its virtues—and values of social inclusion, sincere communal respect, fairness and undiscriminating even-handedness. And in this everyone must all work towards this goal not only because it is the only right thing to do, but because there is in fact no other choice: as someone said a long time ago, we must all hang together, or we shall most assuredly all hang separately. But we must insist that the North will not continue to be the sacrificial lamb of national unity.
While most of the nation’s leaders have spoken of, but paid only  lip service to, the unity of Nigeria, what is astonishing is the fact that since independence this search for unity has always been predicated on terms inimical to Northern interest or posited on the necessity for breaking the region up, making Nigeria perhaps the only country in the world whose unity is sought by breaking up its parts. General Aguiyi-Ironsi, guided by Southeast elders of those days, showed the nature of the idea behind the former, while Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s politics was anchored on aspects of the latter—the breakup of the Northern behemoth. Unable to achieve this kind of unity on their own terms, an inability in the main precipitated by the superior political sagacity of Northern First Republic political leaders, they bided their time. And now, Jonathan, guided by the new elders, wishes to try his luck on ground already softened by the antics of greedy, non-representative Northern politicians and the fatal mistakes of scheming, self-centred retired military men.
And he has many fires to kindle and one doesn’t know which one is next, even as all the others lit have so far continued to smoulder. If the president decides—as it seems he has obliviously done—to be Nero, fiddling with his lyre as Nigeria burns, let’s hope that in the circumstances Nigeria throws up one Vespasianus who will lift a united Nigeria to true greatness.
In a way, it can be said that the whole idea behind the conference is that of a delayed Southern response to the checkmate of Northern unity; therefore, there is nothing for the North to fear. Of all the former three regions, the North is the only one that can subsist peacefully as a country in the event of the breakup towards which the new unhappy lords are relentlessly pushing the country. Of the others, one will be a theatre of the absurd, one of simmering conflict and the other of ‘dog-eat-dog’ or cow-eat-cow, if the latter sounds offensive.
However, in the end, whether the conference takes place or fails to do so, in order to prevent a similar fate for its people, the North must be pacified and reconciled with itself and led towards that destiny of togetherness and prosperity envisaged and planned for it by its first post independence leadership. The present leadership, made up of the political, bureaucratic and traditional elite—aided or undermined by the Northern governors as a body—has so far proved quite inadequate, and unable or unwilling to provide the type of leadership that will ensure peace and justice in the region.
But the upcoming Northern generation will break down all the artificial barriers erected by the pains of history, by the short-sightedness of visionless politicians, by the manufactured hatreds of pseudo-scholars until all divisions are sealed, all frictions healed and all bitterness reconciled. This is the real conference that the North must scale through. And thereafter, if Muslims or Christians in the North find themselves committing acts of injustice, or helping others do so, or aiding others to escape the consequences of having done so, they must accept the simple fact that at that time they have lost any claim to their humanity and are no longer acting as true representatives of their religions, both of which are founded on justice.
And it is shame on them, not just for committing a horrendous wrong or saying all the wrong things, but for desecrating and tarnishing the images of great faiths and, in the process, accomplishing a great disservice to the cause of religion by making the younger generation lose their respect for, and faith in, it. But despite the utterances and the postures of some of the North’s more divisive elites, the destiny of the region within the Nigerian nation-state, or even outside it, is one and is assured—and it shall be realised, whether with the help of the Northern political and religious elite or in spite of them—and in spite of the conference.