The Sultan of Sokoto’s recent visit to Enugu
State where he went to felicitate with Enugu
Rangers as champions of the 2015/2016 NPFL
season has been described by a section of the
media and some commentators as a bridge-
building one. But then, is it really? In as much as the visit is commendable, the
Sultan himself putrefied his own oil when he
said that the reason why Ndigbo are killed
whenever there is a crisis in the north is
“because they are the industrious ones
found in everywhere and in every village but nobody plans or sends people to kill the
Igbos”.

Apart from being ridiculous, it is insulting to
the sensibilities of the Igbo and horrifying to
upright members of the society that the
reason why a people are usually targeted for
mass murder is because of their industry and
number. They are not killed because they are bad neighbours; they are not killed because
they are trouble makers, they are not killed
because they are law breakers; they are
killed just because they are industrious and
large in number! This statement by His Royal Highness, Alhaji
Mohammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, is a
confirmation of what we have always
known: that the Igbo are hated for nothing
but jealousy and that most crises in the
northern part of Nigeria have been instigated not because of anything serious but as an
alibi for a systematic extermination of the
Igbo people. Little wonder then the Igbo are targets of
northern Islamic extremists when there is a
crisis between Israel and Palestine in far
away Middle East. When some Danes draw a
cartoon of Prophet Muhammed in far away
Denmark, Ndigbo in Kano, Kaduna and Niger would have to pay for it with their blood.
When there is a furore about Nigeria hosting
an international beauty contest in Abuja or
Lagos, the Igbo in Zamfara and Yobe would
have to be killed and their sources of
livelihood destroyed for the message to be passed that such contest is Haram to some
people. When the US bomb Iraq, the Igbo in
Adamawa are bombed by northern elements
in return. When there is a sharp
disagreement between Saudi Arabia and
Iran, it is the Igbo in Bauchi that pay for it.
When the Sunnis and the Shi’as have issues with each other in Kaduna or other places, it
is a recipe for Igbo sons and daughters to be
beheaded in those places even when they are
neither Shiites nor Sunnis. The Igbo people are not only killed by these
northern Islamists simply because they can
be found ‘everywhere’ according to the
Sultan, in most cases, even when they
disappear from the theatre of war and go
into hiding even in custody of the police, they are desperately but carefully sought after
and killed. This has been the lot of Ndigbo
especially in the north over a long period of
time. The authorities usually hold no one
responsible for these dastardly acts, no one
is arrested, no one is prosecuted. Even if
thousands of Ndigbo are victims of issues
they are not in any way connected with, no
action is taken against the perpetrators. Media outrage follows, police look away,
northern traditional rulers keep mute,
Ndigbo bury their dead, and then they return
to continue their businesses without
bitterness, without vindictiveness or
vengeance in mind, not even anywhere in the South East would there be reprisals. The sun
rises (in the east) and sets (in the west), yet,
the vicious cycle continues in the north. In as much as one would want to commend
the Sultan for his initiative, it would have
been better if he had insisted that all those
who killed Madam Bridget Agbahime, an Igbo
indigene, in Kano, be prosecuted. After all,
the Sultan who is also the leader of all Muslims in Nigeria said during that visit that
justice is panacea for peaceful coexistence. If
that is the case, what did he say about the
manner the case against the alleged
murderers of Madam Bridget was withdrawn
and the suspects let go just like that despite the hue and cry that followed that macabre
murder of a harmless septuagenarian,
despite the promise by the police, state and
federal governments to ensure the killers
face the law? The Sultan’s visit would have made more
sense if he had visited Kano and insist that
those killers be brought to book as panacea
for peace. But no, he goes to beg the victims
of his people’s murderous activities to
accept their fate as the one that naturally befalls an industrious people with large
populations. It is quite ridiculous! Like the Sultan rightly observed, it is the
continued absence of justice that has caused
the unending agitations in the South East
which is growing louder by the day and have
started receiving the attention of the
international community to the consternation of antagonists of the agitations. Unless the Sultan, his co-traditional and
religious leaders, state and federal
government officials of northern origin stop
carrying about as if they own Nigeria and
relent from skewing justice and development
against those they perceive as their subordinates, such visits of the emir would
only remain a journey of monumental
hypocrisy designed to make vigilant and
courageous Igbo sons and daughters let down
their guard while terrorist herdsmen from
the Sultan’s enclave run riots even in the south east unchallenged while they kidnap
and kill even colleague-traditional rulers in
the Delta. The governors may have laughed with him
and that is because he went to felicitate with
Rangers International of Enugu. That we
understand. When the Sultan is serious about
justice and peace, we will know. For now, the
bridge he went to Enugu to build remains of paper quality blown away by the wind as
soon as he started the work.

www.vanguardngr.com/2016/12/sultans-excuse-killing-ndigbo-northern-nigeria/

Better tell the whole truth!

So industry and population have become offences in Nigeria? No wonder they reward indolence with their rotten quota system and outright nepotism.

At this point, its best to allow Biafra its statehood through the instrumentality of a Referendum.

So much water has passed under the bridge...at some point, one have to stop investing in a bridge that leads to nowhere.