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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] (1292 Views)
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Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by dachez20(m): 1:53pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
n an essay titled Afenifere: A Syllabus Of Errors,
which was written in 1998 and published in
Gamji.com , Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi wrote the
following.
”Anyone who needs a lesson in how not to be a politician,
and how never to win power in Nigeria should study
Yoruba politicians.
Unless the Yoruba masses disown Afenifere, this group of
degree-bearing political illiterates will lead Yoruba land
down its own version of a syllabus of errors, an island
unto themselves, hallucinating in their own idiocy and
content to remain marginalised citizens in their own
country while blaming the north for their self – inflicted
woes.
The syllabus of errors remains a black spot on the history
of the Catholic Church. Afenifere will be an even blacker
spot on the political history of the Yoruba.
Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi’s pedigree speaks mountains of
what his political stance would be ab initio. He probably
believes, like other Fulani politicians, that the problems of
this country have a lot to do with the shift in power away
from the Fulani to individuals like Babangida and Abacha,
products of “ lower cultures”.
The Fulani of the North, proud of the history of the
Caliphate, remain proud of the roles played by Fulani
leaders of the political and military establishment in
Nigeria- Ahmadu Bello, Murtala Mohammed, Aminu Kano,
Shehu Yar’Adua, Shehu Shagari, Jubril Aminu.
They are sad that other Nigerians do not know the
difference in ethnic background between say, Murtala
Mohammed and Ibrahim Babangida. They do not
understand how a man like Abacha, born to a cigarette-
seller in Fagge quarters of Kano (and this speaks
mountains of him, how he ruled and how he died) can be
taken as the quintessential representative of the Caliphate
whose head he disgraced and whose culture and values he
sought to erode.
So Shinkafi probably believes in the need for a power-shift:
Back to the Fulani. He may not be alone in this tendency.
Politicians like Mahmud Waziri, Bamanga Tukur, Jubril
Aminu, even M. D. Yusufu may consciously or
unconsciously have similar views.
To the Fulani, there is nothing like ceding the presidency or
power. If you want it, you work for it…If you lack the
stomach to dig in and fight, too bad for you. Southern
politicians have always failed to understand the
complexity of the North and its politics”.
These are interesting words from an interesting Fulani man.
The disdain and sheer contempt that Emir Sanusi harbors for
non-Fulanis and southerners and for Afenifere and the yoruba
people in particular remains intact till today. His assertion that
”southern politicians have always failed to understand the
complexity of the north” is false.
Despite the fact that we southerners understand the nature of
core northern politicians and leaders very well we have always
chosen to hold our peace, condone their excesses, carry their
baggage and accept their strange ways and complicated
peculiarities in the name of national unity.
The truth is that it is Emir Sanusi and his Fulani people that
have misunderstood southerners all along. We in the south
may be accommodating, tolerant and generous people but our
kindness and liberal nature must never be mistaken for
stupidity or weakness. That is the mistake that people like
Sanusi often make with their racist views and condescending
words. He forgets that the culture and history of most of the
southern empires and kingdoms predates that of the Fulani
caliphate by hundreds of years.
Seventeen years after Sanusi wrote this piece about
southerners I have decided to respond to him by sharing my
views about the core north and its Fulani leaders. This is
especially so because we have a hardline Fulani conservative
at the helm of affairs in our country today.
Sanusi wrote his views about the south in 1998 when his
fellow northerner was Head of State but I choose to write my
views about the north, not when my fellow southerner is in
power, but rather when a northerner is President. I have not
taken offence at Emir Sanusi’s views about southerners and I
sincerely hope that he and his people will not take offence at
my views about core northerners.
This essay will not only be deemed as being controversial but
its contents will also be keenly contested and scrutinized. This
is because I am going to express some home truths here
which the majority of our people know to be true but few are
prepared to voice.
I am making this intervention not out of hate but out of love
and compassion for those that have lost their lives at the
hands of our adversaries over the last 55 years. I am also
mindful of the fact that every single person that is a member
of the ruling class or that has held a position of leadership in
this country between 1960 and today, including yours truly, has
to take partial responsibility for the terrible things that our
people have experienced over the years, for the criminal
negligence that we have all indulged in, for the shameful
conspiracy of silence that we appear to relish and for the
abysmal and pitiable situation that we have found ourselves in
as a people and as a nation. Those of us that are members of
the ruling elite are all, in varying degrees, guilty and it is to
partly ameliorate that sense of guilt that I feel constrained to
speak out and expose the truth.
I am not a racist or tribalist. I deplore violence and bloodshed.
I have no hate in me for any individual or ethnic group and I
am a firm believer in the view that all men are equal before
God regardless of the circumstances of their birth, their creed,
their tribe, their nationality or the color of their skin. Whilst I
hold these truths to be self-evident , I also believe that it is
incumbent upon those of us that lay claim to being leaders to
always speak the truth about the history and unfolding events
in our country no matter how uncomfortable that truth may be.
We owe it to ourselves, to posterity and to God to do so. Let it
be said many years from now after we are all long departed
that within the madness and cacophony of national anguish,
servitude and pain and during the course of the brutal and
systemic suppression of the freedom and will of a cheated
and broken people, there were at least a few voices that were
courageous enough to call a spade and spade and to warn
about the grave dangers and consequences of ignoring the
injustice and wickedness that has thrived in our country from
time immemorial and from generation to generation.
Despite all the insults, threats, misrepresentation and,
oftentimes, slanderous and utterly bizarre allegations that I,
my family and my loved ones have been subjected to over the
years from ignorant, venal and hate-filled men, I shall be
counted among those few voices. If nothing else that is good
enough for me and with that alone I would have made a
meaningful contribution to my nations history and done my
forefathers proud. It is with this in mind that I urge readers to
fasten their seat belts and consider the following contribution.
When Cain killed his brother Abel the bible tells us that God
asked him the following question: he asked “where is thy
brother Abel?” Cain responded in a defiant manner by asking
God the following question in return: he asked “am I my
brothers keeper?” God responded by telling Cain that his
brothers blood was crying to Him from the ground for
vengeance. From that point Cain was afflicted with a terrible
curse which could not be lifted because it came from the
Living God.
Wherever he went the curse that goes with shedding his
brothers innocent blood followed him. This was made worse
by the fact that he refused to repent or show any remorse for
what he had done. Everything that he did failed and
everywhere he went he was despised, rejected, feared, hated
and viewed with suspicion by his compatriots, colleagues and
fellow men.
Tragedy and misfortune stalked him and he ended up being
nothing but a vagabond, a marauder, a parasite and a
wanderer in foreign lands. He became a byword and a proverb:
a herder of goats and cattle who lived and survived by guile,
doublespeak, stealing, pillaging and intimidating others. He
became the proverbial leech who made a headway in life only
by benefiting from the sweat, labor and hard work of his hosts
and benefactors, by sponging off whichever community gave
him succor and by resorting to violence and bloodshed at the
slightest opportunity and at the drop of a hat.
He also acquired an obsession with controlling others and an
insatiable lust for power and the perpetual domination,
suppression and conquest of what he perceived as “lesser
tribes and lesser people”. Simply put he was a dangerous
predator who sought to milk others dry and conquer by guile
and assimilation. There are comparisons to be made with
Nigeria here .
Sinister forces and dark elements from the deeply
conservative core north have killed more Middle Belters and
southerners than any other in our country over the last 55
years. Worse still those sinister forces do not just kill but they
also establish their own communities in the land and territory
of their victims and forcefully occupy it. They have refused to
stop doing so and to all intents and purposes they have
developed an insatiable blood lust which compels them to
shed innocent blood at the slightest whim in order to
subjugate others and to remain in power.
The south, whom our British colonial masters once referred to
as the “rich wife”, has effectively become the Abel of Nigeria
whilst the conservative core north, whom they once called the
“poor husband”, has now become the Cain. For many years
the Lord has been asking the core north what they have done
to their southern and Middle Belt brothers and why they keep
doing it.
For years the conservative core north has responded with
defiance and anger and asked God “am I my brother’s
keeper?” The result of this open defiance and lack of remorse
is simple and clear: it has attracted Gods wrath. Is it any
wonder that Boko Haram now ravages the core north? Is it any
wonder that every single core northern leader that has ever
ruled Nigeria since 1960 has either been killed or died in
mysterious circumstances whilst on the throne or was
removed in a military coup and then subjected to a number of
years in detention?
Is it any wonder that the core north is totally dependent on the
rest of the country for its sustenance and economic survival?
Is it any wonder that a UNICEF report which was released a
few years ago stated that if Nigeria were to ever break up that
the core north would be the most impoverished, the most
backward, the most unsustainable and the most barren area in
the whole of the west African sub-region?
Is it any wonder that they were viewed with so much suspicion
by others that the core northern states were excised from the
country by Major Gideon Orkar in his 1991 coup broadcast and
asked to re-apply if they wanted to be part of Nigeria again?
Is it any wonder that the leading south-western politician
within the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) is secretly
complaining and quietly lamenting the fact that he was used in
the 2015 elections by the core north simply to put one of their
own back in power so that their hegemony could be
resurrected and their agenda of perpetual and everlasting
northern rule could be established forever?
Is it any wonder that according to a survey carried out this
year by Global Terror Index , which was published in the United
Kingdom’s Independent Newspaper , that two of the four most
deadly terrorist organisations in the world today are based in
core northern Nigeria and are led, funded, peopled and
inspired by core northern Nigerians?
According to the report Nigeria’s Boko Haram is now officially
the world’s most deadly terrorist organisation whilst what they
have described as ”the Fulani militants” (aka Nigeria’s Fulani
herdsmen) are number four. Is it any wonder that according to
the same Global Terror Index report Nigeria is now the “third
most terrorised nation in the world” whilst Iraq and
Afghanistan remain the first and second and Syria and
Pakistan remain the fourth and fifth respectively? Given this is
it any wonder that there are loud and increasingly persistent
calls for self-determination in southern Nigeria?
Is it any wonder that the core north is ravaged by poverty,
disease, violence, strife, conflict, stagnation and bareness
more than anywhere else in our country? Is it any wonder that
according to a 2015 UNICEF report Nigeria has the ”highest
number of child brides on the African continent” with no less
than 23 million child brides in the north?
Is it any wonder that according to the World Health
Organisation northern Nigeria has the ”highest number of
young girls in the world suffering from vagina vesicovaginal
fistula (VVF)”, a disease which comes as a consequence of
sexual intercourse with young underage girls.
Is it any wonder that the core north is afflicted with a self-
serving and calculating ultra-conservative ruling elite who keep
their own people in perpetual subjugation, darkness and
bondage and who come from a distant foreign land called
Fouta Jallon in modern-day Guinea?
Is it any wonder that most core northerners name themselves
after the towns and villages that they were born and raised in
rather than after their families and forefathers? Is it any
wonder that we have a nomadic core northern President who
finds it difficult to stay at home?
Is it any wonder that a colorful personality from one of the
core northern states, who later became a respected traditional
ruler, was an Islamic fundamentalist in his youth, was
incarcerated for two years for being a radical jihadist and was
one of those that inspired and orchestrated the murder of
Gideon Akaluka for “desecrating the Koran”.
Is it any wonder that a core northern Nigerian by the name of
Omar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the notorious ”underwear
bomber” who tried to blow up an American airliner that was
filled with passengers in Detroit, told the FBI that his ”most
trusted mentor” and ”favorite uncle” was a well-known and
leading core northern leader? Is it any wonder that Bishop
Matthew Hassan Kukah, one of the most respected northern
voices in the country, recently said ”the northern Muslim elite
laid the foundation for Boko Haram”? 1 Like 2 Shares |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by dammytosh: 1:54pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
Respknse since 1998 ? FFK is surely jobless now. |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by balash(m): 1:58pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
Hh |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by Fajs: 1:58pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
summary pls |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by orunto27: 2:25pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
Why does he prostrate for Alafin of Oyo? 1 Like |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by hinohsend: 2:41pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
. |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by Nobody: 2:50pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
Excellent piece. Yes Masterpiece!!! |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by doublewisdom: 2:52pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
FFK much as I like you, this one is too long to read. No vex! |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by omolami: 2:59pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
Emir sanusi is very correct about Yoruba politics, Afeniferes can be bought with money always. See how tinubu sold Yoruba states out to Buhari for selfish reasons. See how Yorubas left MKO alone in his fight for his mandates. People. like Soyinka who went on asylum can now talk nonesens today Yoruba making themselves slaves from creation of Nigeria. 1 Like |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by Bigprozzie: 3:02pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
This man went to Cambridge but this article just shows that no matter what school you go, you can still suffer from poverty of the mind Full of generalisations, xenophobic, half truths and an obvious disdain for so called core northerners. For every allegation against northerners in his baseless article, there are equivalent examples of southerners doing the same or worse For every Muttalahab there is an Adebowale whose terrorist crime was more vicious than the former. In terms of corruption, there is no North or South . They become partners irrespective of their tribe. Dasuki a core northerner became the chief navigator for the misallocation of funds under the leadership of a southerner - Jonathan. Ffk is seeking relevance and wants to turn to a social critic just because his principal lost an election. As if we have forgotten the level of impunity and corruption under Obasanjo another Southerner. Should we blame that on core northerners too? 2 Likes |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by tunex23: 3:07pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
omolami:sharaap there, oloshi waray! Which ethnic group fought Abacha to standstill? Which tribe is Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi? Fela Anikulapo Kuti? Abraham Adesanya? Who formed Radio Kudirat? Where was the Yeebos during Abacha Regime? You come here saying trash, mouth mouth chest beaters. Voting GEJ out makes us slaves shay...mumu 1 Like |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by EASTSIDAZ: 3:19pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
FFK is a well informed and an intelligent dude.. 1 Like 1 Share |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by madenigga(m): 3:24pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
Bigprozzie:shutup but the moment u hear Chukwu or any igbo name people like u wont waste time to say crucify him. |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by Bigprozzie: 3:31pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
madenigga: What is your original moniker IPOD youth 1 Like |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by madenigga(m): 3:35pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
Bigprozzie:ok |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by Mrbigman1(m): 3:36pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
tunex23: Wetin come bring igbo enter talk? I thought u said una sabi speak with one voice, and d guy countered ur believe u dey cry. Nawaooo |
Re: Femi-fani Kayode Replies Emir Sanusi On His Article Blasting Yorubas [MUST READ] by Mrbigman1(m): 3:39pm On Dec 13, 2015 |
madenigga: So it's not possible that guy is from the north? Yoruba hatred for ndi igbo tire double wrapper. No wonder chinua achiebe wrote that when d drum of the civil war sounded, the educated yoruba elite gave support to massacre igbos. Anyways una dooooo |
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