Michael Atkinson The only reason I can give is that the North believes that Nigeria is their inheritance. They do not see Nigeria as a country as the rest of us would like to see it. Their plan from day one is to rule Nigeria forever unless the rest of us are ready to stop them. Just eleven days after independence in The Parrot of October 12, 1960, the Sardauna of Sokoto and the Premier of the Northern Region said the following: “This New Nation called Nigeria, should be an estate of our great grand father, Uthman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the North as willing tools, and the South, as conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us, and never allow them to have control over their future” Just six or seven months after that interview, he gave another interview to the DAILY TIMES of May 3, 1961 saying the following: “I’m set and fully armed, to conquer the Action Group, AG, in the same ruthless manner as my grandfather conquered Alkalawa, a town in Sokoto province, during the last century” The basis of this boastful interview could be traced to the events that occurred in 1959. It would be recalled that as a result of the elections of 1954, there were 162 seats in the Nigerian National Assembly. Out of this, the South has 83 seats and the North has 79 seats (these 79 seats include the Yoruba parts of Kwara). This allocation of seats was based on earlier census and it shows that there were more people in the South than in the North. If you take away the Yoruba of Kwara, t means that the North would have even less than 79 seats. But because Ahmadu Bello was afraid that his kinsmen would not be able to effectively compete with the rest of the country and dominate it the way he envisaged, he refused to allow Nigeria to have independence in 1957. After the West and the East received self-governance, the British overlords, in order to assuage his fears and put Nigeria in his control, created in 1959, 312 seats for the Nigerian National Assembly without any election or new Census – repeat without any elections or census. Out of this 312, the North was allocated 174 from the blues in the anticipation of the Parliamentary Political System being put in place for Nigeria’s independence in 1960. This effectively put political control of Nigeria in the hands of Ahmadu Bello and his stooge, Tafawa Balewa who in 1950 was reported by the TIME MAGAZINE of October 10, 1960 to have said there was no basis for Nigerian unity and it was only a wish of the British. He was able to carry out his threats of conquering the Action Group. The kangaroo trial of Chief Obafemi Awolowo without any evidence and his imprisonment was the first step. The rigging of elections in the West to install Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola which led to resistance on the part of the Yoruba people. In the heat of this Western Region crisis in 1964, a Mallam Bala Garuba was reported in The West African Pilot of December 30, of that year to have euphorically said the following: “The conquest to the sea is now in sight. When our god-sent Ahmadu Bello said some years ago that our conquest will reach the seashores of Nigeria, some idiots in the South were doubting its possibilities. Today have we not reached the sea? Lagos is reached. It remains Port Harcourt. It must be conquered and taken.” If you analyze the quotes I have just referred to, you will understand why the North is insisting on ruling for another 8 years despite having ruled Nigeria for the 36 of its 50 years. If you remember, when Olusegun Obasanjo became the Head of State in 1976, it was by the grace of T. Y. Danjuman, a Northerner. When Obasanjo became the president in 1999 it was by the grace of another group of Northerners led by IBB. After he became president and there were impeachment considerations, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi implored the armed forces not to be loyal to their commander-in-chief. This was not a Freudian slip. He was making the appeal in the belief that Nigeria has a caliphate army. Given the history of the political role of the “Nigerian armed forces”, no one doubts this. It was the fruition of a deliberate plan by Alhaji Ribadu, the Defence Minister under Alhaji Tafawa Balewa as instructed by the Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello. The enslavement and exploitation of the rest of Nigeria has gone on for so long that it has become a state of mind. Even Southerners who do not know their own history now believes that there are more people in the North than in the South which is far from the truth. Some of the politicians from the South who have assimilated this falsehood are the ones that are easily bought off to betray their peoples and compromise the country because they have been psychologically pulverized to believe that they can only be second rate in this country. They have been convinced to the point where you have politicians without any self-esteem and they have now believed that the best they could attain was only second fiddle to the Hausa/Fulani elites. This oligarchy has been allowed to get away with a lot of outrageous acts. As a Southerner, you cannot get a government job anywhere in the North except through a contract. You are treated the way a Lebanese or any other foreigner would be treated. Their use of the military has helped in a way. Until the 1975 Coup d’etat that brought in Murtala Mohamed, the North was still paying custom duties on materials and goods that passed through the Western Region. They used the military to stop that without any form of discussion. But an answer has been found to this issue of the military. Do not ask me what it is because I will not tell you. Everyone would find out at the appropriate time. But if you really want to know, it is difficult to grudge the North for trying to do the best it can for its elite at the expense of the rest of us. The first law of nature is self-preservation. But it is left for the rest of us to challenge them for our own survival or acquiesce, if it is in our interest. But trust me, enslavement is never in the best interest of anyone.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 13:54:29 +0000
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