Why Middle Belt is angry, by Hon. Jonathan Asake Hon. Jonathan Asake is the
National Youth Leader of the
Middle Belt Forum. He was a
member of the House of
Representatives (1999 to 2003)
representing Zangon Kataf/ Jabba Federal Constituency,
Kaduna State. He spoke in
Kaduna on the problem of the
Middle Belt with the core North. Define the Middle Belt as it stands today. In those days, the Middle-Belt
was perceived to be mainly the
North Central that we know
today, which constitutes six
states. But, by and large,
political exigencies compelled the Middle-Belt to grow beyond
geographical area of North
Central. It has now both a
geography and socio-cultural
expression of the people and it
captures all those people that are found within the areas of
geographical landmarks that
have similar cultural affinity
with one another, which are
mainly ethnic nationalities
different from Hausa-Fulani core North. These people would be found
in southern Kebbi, southern
Kaduna in the North-west
zone; southern Borno, southern
Yobe and the entire Adamawa,
Taraba, southern Gombe and southern Bauchi in the North-
east geo-political zone. You
have all the states of
Nasarawa, Plateau, Benue,
Kogi ,Niger and the FCT coming
together as the Middle-Belt today. If you take the map of Nigeria
and you map together southern
Borno, southern Kebbi,
southern Yobe, southern
Bauchi, southern Gombe and
the other states mentioned earlier, you will discover that
they fall in the Middle-Belt area
of Nigeria and the land is
contiguous. But the Middle Belt goes even
beyond this, because it also has
members who are or of core
northern origin, but their faith
and social values are in sync
with that of the majority of the people of Middle Belt. Again,
the Middle Belt is not restricted
to one religion. You find Christians, Muslims
and those that don’t belong to
any of the two. One basic thing
that binds them together is
culture. Though it is true that
we are not monolithic, the most important feature of the
Middle Belt is this: Take the
map of Nigeria and draw all
the areas mentioned as Middle-
Belt, you will realize that they
fall mostly in the middle region of Nigeria. It’s a very massive
land. In fact, it’s the largest
land mass area in Nigeria. To
me, this underscores the
importance of the Middle-Belt
in the definition of Nigeria, not the North made up of only 19
states. When did the term Middle Belt come into existence? The Middle-Belt expression
came into existence during the
days of the Sardauna of Sokoto,
who was the Premier of
Northern Nigeria. He left
several physical developments and projects for the North to
put to shame those who
succeeded him. But even during his time, there
must have been issues of
identity, history, religion,
traditions, etc. That may have
informed our forebears like the
late Chief Joseph Tarka, Pastor David Lot, the late Chief of
Kagoro (in southern Kaduna),
Dr. Gwamna Awan, and many
others to come with the term
Middle Belt. But, even at that,
the concept of ‘One North’ versus the rest of Nigeria was
very strong. And before and after the civil
war, the North looked like one
solid bloc, until the eyes of the
Middle Belt started noticing
incredible unfairness in the
way it was treated by its core- North counterpart, even when,
in actual fact, the Middle Belt is
in the majority.

Still waiting for some words of appreciation for the Igbo army officers who refused Sarduan's order to shoot Tiv people at sight during a demonstration.

naijaking1: Still waiting for some words of appreciation for the Igbo army officers who refused Sarduan's order to shoot Tiv people at sight during a demonstration.

We need an apology first since the Tiv massacred many Igbos as they were fleeing the North to get back to the East before the Civil War.

Yes col. Anuforo was his name. ---and student union leader JS Jarja thanked him profusely, but a year or so after that, the same Jarka was overseas campaigning for the elimination of Igbos

Until the core North presents a candidate. History is there for all of us.