IF not for the courage and sheer gallantry of the men and women of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Boko Haram would have taken over Bama and many other towns in North-Eastern Nigeria by now and things would have been far worse.
We must not fail to commend and encourage our
soldiers when they do a good job because they are
the only ones that stand between us and the demon
hordes.
Frankly, I am very proud of the way they gave Boko
Haram the beating of their lives and threw them out
of Bama in the last few days. I take this opportunity
to salute them and thank them for their service and
this beautiful gift to the Nigerian people.
Yet, despite the admirable efforts of our military
personnel, the ‘Haramite’ infidels and barbarians
have taken over the town of Gwoza, killed the emir
and declared the place an Islamic state.
They have seceded from Nigeria and they are
beheading Christians and Southerners and all
moderate Northern Muslims that do not share their
views.
I wonder what would have happened, if it had been a town in the South that had been taken over in this
way by a group of terrorists and Christian
fundamentalists.
I wonder what would have happened, if they killed
the local traditional ruler and then started to kill
every Northerner, every Muslim and every moderate Christian in that town that did not share their views.
I wonder what Nigeria would have done to them, if it
was a Southern town that fought our soldiers,
murdered our people, butchered our young boys,
abducted and raped our little girls and declared
secession from our country in this way and not a
Northern one.
I wonder how our Northern brothers would have
reacted to this and how they would have felt, if any
Southern terrorist group had as its main objective
the wiping out of Islam and all Muslims in Nigeria
and the establishment of a Christian fundamentalist
state in the whole of the South that is governed by
Old Testament Christian canon law.
I wonder if our Northern brothers would be as calm,
as forgiving and as patient as we in the South have
been about the atrocities of Boko Haram.
The last time that a part of this country attempted to
secede, we slaughtered over two million of our
compatriots, in order to keep Nigeria one. Yet, today, Gwoza has been taken over by murderous
secessionist forces and we act as if it is no big deal.
The truth is that this is a nation of double standards
where Southerners are subject to a different set of
conventions, laws, rules and regulations when
compared to Northerners.
Northerners can get away with secession and
establishing an Islamic fundamentalist state and new caliphate, whilst Southerners dare not try to do the same sort of thing.
This begs the question: Is Nigeria really one country
and are we really one people? And even if we say it is one country and we are one people, how much
longer can this remain so, given what is going on in
the North today with Boko Haram?
Some Northerners have said that if power does not
return to the North next year, they will smash up
Nigeria and make the South pay dearly. They believe
that they own Nigeria and that they were born to
rule.
How are we as Southerners supposed to react to
this? Are we supposed to accept it sheepishly and
just bow down and surrender? Does a Southerner
from the Niger Delta not have a right to serve two
terms in office as president of Nigeria?
Are Southerners and Middle Belters not human
beings? Are they nothing but slaves to the core
Muslim North? Are the issues that Colonel Emeka
Odumegwu- Ojukwu, the erstwhile leader of Biafra,
raised after the pogroms and brutal massacre of
Igbos that took place in the North in 1966 and just
before the civil war in 1967 not still relevant today?
Were the recommendations and agreement entered
into by both sides after protracted negotiations at
Aburi in Ghana not pertinent and appropriate? Did
we not make a monumental error by not standing on Aburi and allowing Nigeria to become a
confederation?
Is it not of paramount importance that we
restructure this country and devolve power from the
centre before we all kill ourselves? Is Nigeria not
meant to be a secular state where each and every
religion, nationality and tribe is regarded as being
equal, regardless of their size, strength or number?
Should the minority ethnic nationalities not be
protected from the excesses of the majority ones? If
the basic principle of equality of all faiths and
nationalities and the equitable principle of equal
opportunities for all is violated, must Nigeria remain
one?
Should we tolerate the practice and
institutionalisation of apartheid in our fatherland 24
years after contributing so much in helping to bring it to an end in South Africa?
When a former minister of the Federal Republic from the core North says that the killing of any Fulani person by the Nigerian Armed Forces or, indeed, by anyone else, in their fight against Boko Haram “is a debt that will be repaid,” what are we to make of that? When a leading presidential candidate from the core North said an attack on Boko Haram “is an attack on the whole of Northern Nigeria” and that the Islamist terrorists “should not be killed” and “their homes should not be burnt,” how are we meant to feel?
When the Northern spokesman of the leading
opposition party says that Boko Haram ought not to
be proscribed and that to proscribe it would be
“unconstitutional and unjust,” how are we supposed
to react?
How are we meant to feel about the constant threats
and provocative submissions of some of the core
Northern delegates at the recently concluded
constitutional conference? Permit me to give two
examples: Firstly, a vocal delegate from Yobe State,
who was the national secretary of the defunct
Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), who is a
close associate of General Muhammadu Buhari and
who is a leading member of the opposition, said the
following:
“Let me come back to the issue of derivation. All
these big names, professors; they almost knelt down
before us that we should maintain the status quo for
the stability, security of the Nigerian nation; all these
people shouting at plenary.
These are the people we liberated from the South-
East. They should be told; is it because they have
transient power?”
Secondly, a leading traditional ruler from Adamawa
State, who was also a delegate at the conference, said that if the North did not get its way during the
proceedings, he and his people “would leave Nigeria
and relocate to the Cameroons” where half of his
kingdom was actually situated and where half of his
people reside and come from.
One must ask if these people know the implications
of what they are saying. Are the rest of us meant to
take all this lying low and do they really expect us to
keep our mouths shut and not express our deep
sense of outrage and utter disgust?
When the Northern elders told the president that he
ought to withdraw the soldiers that are fighting Boko
Haram from the North-East, cancel the state of
emergency that he declared in the three most
affected Northern states and that if he did not do all
these and produce the girls that were abducted from Chibok at the soonest, he should “forget his re-
election bid in 2015,” what does that mean?
Do they not appreciate the fact that this is nothing
but cheap blackmail? Do they not know that it
reinforces the suspicion that Boko Haram is just a
tool in the hands of the core North to ensure that the president is intimidated into throwing in the towel and to ensure that the country is brought to its knees, unless and until power is returned to the core Muslim North?
Do the core Northerners themselves understand that this can result in a terrible reaction from the rest of the country against them and that they may end up losing everything that they have gained and benefited from Nigeria in the last 54 years, if they do not desist from indulging in that sort of reckless rhetoric or from treading that dangerous and unpredictable path?
How much longer do we have to put up with this sort of thing? For how long do we have to put up with these threats and this assumption that we are
second-class citizens in our own nation?
How much longer do we have to shy away from
asking the same question that others asked many
years ago, namely, is Nigerian really one country?
Are we a nation or a mere geographical expression?
Has anything changed since Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the leader of the Yoruba, asked that question as far back as 1947 in his book entitled Paths To Nigerian Freedom?
Is the principle of ‘self-determination” with its
inherent quest for freedom and its ethos of “justice
for all” a dirty word? Is it not a perfectly natural,
legitimate, equitable and lawful aspiration which has
the full backing of international laws? Do people not
have a right to determine what their future will be
and whether that future will be spent as Nigerians or as non-Nigerians?
Surely, it is time for us to answer these difficult
questions, even though we keep sweeping these
matters under the carpet. It is time for us to either
answer the nationality question once and for all or
begin to prepare for the break-up of this great
country into two, three or, perhaps, even more.
It happened in India, Malaya, the Sudan, Indonesia,
Abssynia, Austria-Hungary, Yugoslavia, the Soviet
Union, Czechoslovakia, Yemen, Gran-Colombia,
Prussia, the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire,
United Arab Republic and in many other countries
and it is in the process of happening in the United
Kingdom today with the upcoming referendum on
independence in Scotland.
If that is the only thing that will bring peace, stability
and lasting progress to our shores, why should
Nigeria be any different?
• Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Aviation.
tribune.com.ng/quicklinkss/opinion/item/15348-is-nigeria-a-nation

We knw boko haram is a kid wen it comes to the rage of the Nigeria Army, but the question: what were they waiting for?

I am not a fan of the messenger but the message is very, very difficult to ignore.