You are not worth a Boko Haram IED

Let me refresh your memories about this case. Isa Mu’azu is from Bauchi State, one of the most beautiful and most habitable places in Nigeria. He arrived in Britain and sought asylum last July. He said he faced persecution in Nigeria from Boko Haram and would be killed if he returned to Nigeria. The Brits, […]

Let me refresh your memories about this case. Isa Mu’azu is from Bauchi State, one of the most beautiful and most habitable places in Nigeria. He arrived in Britain and sought asylum last July. He said he faced persecution in Nigeria from Boko Haram and would be killed if he returned to Nigeria. The Brits, who over the years have heard many ridiculous tales from Nigerians seeking “asylum” did not believe this man. His case was fast-tracked through the courts and his application was rejected. He was detained at an immigration detention centre and on Thursday last week, the UK Court of Appeals rejected his plea that his detention was illegal and cleared the way for his deportation.
Meanwhile, Mu’azu had rallied many gullible members of the British public to his cause. Some busybody lawyers rushed motions through the courts seeking to stop his deportation. Other British do-gooders began to stage protest rallies and some even called for the resignation of the Home Secretary for her determination to deport Mu’azu. After an attempt to deport him in a chartered plane failed at the weekend, the plane was given clearance to land in Nigeria and Mu’azu must be here by now.
Welcome home, our brother Mu’azu. I want you to answer a few questions from Nigerians. Must you spoil the name of your fatherland just because you want to live in the Whiteman’s country? Why can’t you stay at home and help to develop your own country? I hear that you are from Bauchi; was Bauchi like this when Malam Yakubu and other glorious ancestors set out to develop it? What stops you from carrying on from where they and their successors stopped?
You said Boko Haram will kill you if you return to Nigeria. There are more than twice as many people in Nigeria as there are in Britain; how many of us have Boko Haram insurgents killed? You Isa Mu’azu, who are you for Boko Haram to even waste its precious IEDs looking for you? Are you an airforce base? Are you an artillery regiment? You are not even a common police station, so why should Boko Haram waste its time looking for you? Or are you saying that insurgents have nothing better to do than to go looking for a man who could not even stand the comfortable blankets of a British detention centre? I beg!

Emirs, what is your own in this?
 
Every now and then, you hear politicians grumbling that our royal fathers involve themselves in politics. Never mind that it is the loser who usually complains; the winner is too busy using the royal fathers for his own politics.
Traditional rulers’ involvement in politics is usually carried out in hushed tones, but I was amazed to read a newspaper advertisement at the weekend jointly signed by five emirs of Gombe State. They are the Emir of Akko, Alhaji Omar Atiku; Emir of Yamaltu Alhaji Hassan Jonga; Emir of Deba, Lt. Col. Abubakar Mahdi; Emir of Pindiga, Alhaji Mohamed Ahmad, and Emir of Gona, Alhaji Abdulkadir Abdulsalam.
They commended Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo for “the unprecedented provision of infrastructure” by his regime and “the progressive people-oriented style of his administration.” They then “observed with dismay the attempt by some few unpatriotic politicians and disgruntled elements to heat up the state particularly [sic] cause political friction and insecurity for their selfish benefit by making unguided [sic] statement [sic] in the foreign media.”
If politicians are attempting to cause political friction, is that not their normal line of operating? You royal fathers, what is your own in that one?