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Nigeria’s Bonapartism, that is, the elevation of the person of the head of State above the contending forces, even when such a person was the main protagonist of the contention, has now started in earnest.
The quest for Security is now indirectly introduced as the only possible electoral mandate, the PDP and APC now being perceived as being populated by opportunists and riddled with corrupt elements. Security becomes more important when it is recognized that all the reasons adduced as the cause of Fulani herdsmen atrocities are not true. These reasons, ranging from desertification/climate change to search for pasture to cultural economy are mere attempts at justifying geo-political relocation of the Fulani in furtherance of Fulani hegemony thereby completing the age-long Fulani attempt at colonizing Nigeria.
This attempt had manifested in various ways, from the cooked and crooked census figures since 1953 to the NPC/NCNC Alliance which led to the illegal and Unconstitutional declaration of the 1962 State of Emergency in the Western Region and sabotaging the creation of Regions for the Middle Belt and the Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers Peoples, to the pre-planned military coups aimed at reiterating Fulani hegemony and the 1999 military-induced civilian administration and now to the open expression of Fulani hegemony through the Buhari Administration.
Carl von Clausewitz summarized his exposition on war as ‘the continuation of politics by other means’. In this case, the aim of the Fulani is to intimidate the rest of us into surrender while dictating the pace and content of the political space knowing full well that their political agenda of permanent control of Nigeria cannot be realized by an over-reliance on supposed democratic methodology.
Fulani atrocities in Nigeria began as a form of low-intensity warfare, usually characterized by raping and pillaging of farms often accompanied by instances of killing of villagers. Accompanying these is biological warfare wherein, either by rape or consensual sex, local women are impregnated, and the resulting child becomes a ‘Fulani’ by induction thus silently increasing the Fulani population. Criminal aspects of these activities are always overlooked by the State, wherein the Nigerian Police Force, ostensibly a force aimed at protecting the lives and properties of all Nigerians, reserve its operational impetus to protecting the Fulani while the hapless victims are instead criminalized and jailed. The gradual increase in intensity of these herdsmen atrocities is now aimed at its original political goal, which is being witnessed today. Therefore, all the solutions being advanced, from anti-grazing laws to ranching to cattle colonies can only provide an excuse and justification for continuous Fulani hegemony.
Muhammadu Buhari as a Patron of MACBAN is very well known. Yet, the Emirs, as Fulani war leaders, have also now proclaimed their MACBAN affiliation as Patrons. This, coupled with Fulani control of Nigeria’s security apparatus, shows that Nigeria has been placed on a war footing.
If it is true, and it is TRUE, that ‘war is a continuation of politics by other means’ we would have already failed if we expect the Nigerian post-colonial State to provide solutions along the various lines being suggested. Doing so means ceding the initiative to the State which has already declared itself the enemy where Muhammadu Buhari or anyone from the North transforms into the ‘Bonaparte’ of today.
It can be argued that this situation would not have arisen had the APC emerged as an alliance instead of the merger of the various parties. It can also be argued that the APC could have supported the emergence of another presidential candidate knowing Buhari’s history as part of Fulani hegemony despite his characterization as incorruptible. Yet, it is now known that corruption cannot be fought if the political structure which gave rise to it is in place. The military coup of January 15, 1966 was predicated upon fighting the ‘ten percenters’, another name for corruption, just as the anti-Gowon military coup, the 1983 and the 1998 anti-Abacha coups were; the military-induced war against corruption cannot be fought by a military-induced geo-political structure; therefore, making anti-corruption a political virtue is neither here nor there as long as its foundation remain and continued to be strengthened.
In any case, anti-corruption is also a cultural war where social and moral values of the society play a significant part, for it is those values that lay the basis for a war against corruption. The Nigerian post-colonial State, since military involvement, has steadily eroded those values by its Unitarizing methodology whereby the Peoples could no longer deepen their cultural values and are therefore left in a cultural vacuum since Nigeria, as a post-colonial construct, has no such value of its own.
And now that both parties are presenting northern candidates for the presidency with PDP being upfront with it while the APC is still trying to hedge a Buhari return with the added possibility of his being replaced by a Northerner, the reality is that a Fulani cultural paradigm will be substituted for those of the various Peoples, hence the advocacy for ‘cattle colonies’ or ranching etc as solutions for herdsmen economy, a cultural paradigm exported and forced unto the Nigerian geo-political space.
There is no economic philosophy or theory limiting production and reproduction of cattle to only the Fulani, even if they claim it as their historical and cultural practice. Any community or economic enterprise can engage in cattle production as witnessed in the Western Region with cattle production in the Farm Settlements. This means, the Fulani may as well limit themselves to their cultural economy but will have to compete with other forms of production engendered by a fundamental Restructuring of the country. Asking for grazing reserves or colonies or suggesting ranching to them is therefore economically superfluous and politically suspect.
“Bonaparte” Buhari touting his administration’s economic initiatives is also in furtherance of the Fulani hegemonic political agenda. British colonialism pursued an economic agenda in pursuit of colonialism hence the development of the railways to transport goods from the north to the south; the educationally system aimed at producing clerks and managers of colonial political and economic enterprises while negating our humanity, for example, the vernacularizing and criminalizing of our Languages etc. These were negated by our Self-Government, at least in the Western Region, where the government’s philosophy of “development of man” was its primary focus hence the economic initiatives saw to progressive industrialization, socio-economic and cultural advances which made it possible to regard the period as our “Golden Era”. We cannot therefore afford the luxury of separating the political from the economic as the economy serves the political and political power further drives economic trajectory towards its own objective.
There are political forces in Yorubaland who argued against a Buhari presidency even though, their alternative, continuation of PDP rule via a Jonathan Presidency was not acceptable. The hard choices that were necessary to be made in 2015/2015 were made. The hard choices for 2018/2019 MUST now be made. For the Yoruba, attempting to generate a pan-Nigerian solution to the National Question in Nigeria has always resulted in unnecessary sacrifices as Awo and MKO experiences prove.
Proliferation of local wars exist in many parts of Africa mainly because the security apparatuses lack the political Legitimacy for a Security-State. The political Legitimacy of the political state is non-existent hence the security actions of, and in the State, becomes a free-for-all with each participant seeking a Legitimacy of its own, usually by force of arms. Going this route for us in Nigeria is a non-starter, not the least because that is exactly what herdsmen terrorism would want us to do, that is, stampede us into taking some precipitate action which will induce their military to clamp down, introduce the Security State and enforce Fulani hegemony by proxy.
This possibility must be denied. Fulani terrorism exists only because the Nigerian post-colonial State allows it to; expecting such a state to embark on ‘modern’ economic measures to address the problematic is therefore akin to substituting ringworm for leprosy.
What then are the hard choices to be made?
Solution to herdsmen atrocities, Fulani or not, must be treated as the political issue it is and not a security or economic issue. That the Nigerian Police Force had never made any attempt to prosecute any herdsman over the years is a pointer to the irrelevance of the force as a pan-Nigerian institution. Any culture making claims to a cultural economy has the sole and exclusive right to address its cultural economy. Nomadism is NOT a Nigerian economy hence there cannot be a Nigerian solution. A solution to nomadism cannot be imposed on the rest of us.
All previous efforts at ‘negotiating’ a new Nigeria always end when such ‘negotiations’ end. Need we remind ourselves what these negotiations through “public debates” or “public sittings” have done to our body politic in legitimizing doubtful socio-political legacies - IMF debates, Political Bureau, Niki Tobi's Constitutional review, Abubakar's consultations, Obasanjo’s All-Parties Technical Review Committee, Jonathan’s Conference, various National Assembly Retreats on the Constitution, etc? In each of these, it was a case of working to the answer; where, at the end, a pre-determined position will emerge which will vitiate the struggle for Ethno-National Autonomy.
This has now been confirmed by APC’s Committee on Restructuring following the footsteps of its Bonapartist leader who had earlier rejected Restructuring in favor of “process” by coming up with the required “process”; proposing draft Bills for Constitution amendment to create state police and courts of appeal, merger of states, more revenue allocation to states etc while ignoring the weightier matters of Restructuring, that is, Resource Control. Even when it noted the agitations for Resource Control and expected “consequential Constitutional amendment” in the event of its being accepted”, it feigned ignorance about its meaning. More so when Resource Control is not only about mineral or economic resources but also more importantly, HUMAN resources, which is socio-cultural. Yet, it is obvious that once this is made right, Constitutional Re-Formation of Nigeria follows.
Achieving this imply denying the political space and Legitimacy for the Bonapartist Security State by the Nationalities in Nigeria. This can be done when all the Nationalities, or as many as would, present their own Presidential candidates for 2019. The 1999 Constitution will, by inference, become void. The Legitimacy of the Nationalities’ electoral votes will create the mandate for re-Formation of Nigeria by the Nationalities and Cultural-Political space for the Nationalities will be restored. In summary, the Peoples of Nigeria must seek first, their political kingdom.

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Oodua,
I love your analysis and revelation. Very solid and instructive!

MayorofLagos:
Oodua,
I love your analysis and revelation. Very solid and instructive!

Actually I did not read the post but I think the girl has no right to slap her boyfriend in public. Maybe they should report the issue to their village elders but if the neighbours refuse to pay the rent, they should just kill the landlord and forget about the missing car.