₦airaland Forum

There is no alternative to Nigeria's unity. People who call for secession would ultimately have to put in the work for create a national identity for their seceded states.

The only reason why Yoruba/Igbo/Hausa are united is because they're defending themselves from other ethnic groups.

If all the major ethnic groups have their own country, their incipient tribalism would rear its ugly head.

Nigeria hasn't even divided and yet the Alaafin of Oyo and the Ooni of Ife are locked in a battle for supremacy. There's also the Ife-Modakeke conflict that would rear its ugly head once again.

The Ekiti people would remember that they fought a war for decades to free themselves from Ibadan domination.

And so on and so forth.

I'm using Yoruba examples because that's what I'm very familiar with. I'm sure that there are similar divides amongst the other ethnic groups.

So, the point is that if the hard work of nation building has to be done after we divide the pie, why don't we maintain the bigger pie and do the hard work now?

People also talk about true federalism. But it would ultimately fail if we don't take active steps to encourage Nigerian nationalism.

How do we encourage nationalism? First, we need to unite behind a single language. Look at Indonesia.

They united behind Indonesian - which is basically Malay pidgin. This is despite the fact that the various ethnic groups in Malaysia already have their own languages.

We could unite behind Nigerian pidgin, but it has some drawbacks. English is better as it has a lot of advantages. Instead of pidgin, we can standardise Nigerian English.

We can do stuff like have a Nigerian English dictionary that adds Nigerian terms and expressions. Terms like sapa, fanimorous, and so on and so forth.

We should also encourage mass cultural appropriation. Students in the North should be made to learn a Southern language and children in the South should be taught a Northern language.

The Nigerian state should promote inter ethnic intercourse. A Yoruba person should be able to wear igbo traditional cloth and vice versa.

The ultimate aim is to be unable to tell what ethnic group a Nigerian is on the face of it.

The best example of this nationalist vision is the united states. The different European ethnic groups who had been fighting each other for centuries became one people in the United States. Russians, English, French, Italians and Jews all became American.

They all united under American English. There was cultural intercouse. Everyone eats pizza, croissant, spaghetti, and so on and so forth.

There is no alternative to unity. If we divide the country, we still need to cultivate a national identity. So, why go the disastrous route of dividing the country and still having to do the hard work of nationalism when we can just do the hard work now?

PS:

I originally published this article on substack and repurposed it for Nairaland. You can check out the substack post here -

https://naijachronicles.substack.com/p/there-is-no-alternative-to-nigerian?r=1rvd6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

Do subscribe

seunmsg:
How many APC members are in the Rivers State House of Assembly? How many of them are on the side of the governor? Do they have the numbers (22 members) on the Wike side to impeach the governor?

This is the question I expect our journalists to answer. But they dissapoint, as always.

inoki247:
Lol una wan turn this Lecture time or what....


Make them use am like that.....


The same Way America English is different from England own or Scotland English.,..


So make Dem use our own English too like that....

God bless you. Some people want to be forming I too Know.

Bostin:
It's called a game of politics, you know nothing about it .

Yes. Game of Politics using tribalism. The same way Tinubu does tribalism in Nigeria is the same way people are doing tribalism in Ogun State.

So, if you have Yoruba Nation, it would ultimately devolve to tribalism.

Bostin:
It will be so hard for Yayi to become the next Governor in Ogun State because he will hardly have egba's and ijebu's votes . Yewa are divided as usual, so his chances are slim .

No be Yoruba sub-tribalism be this? I thought all Yorubas were one? 😏

maasoap:
I think there is national energy crisis at the moment which I'm very sure that some people know the cause

The gas pipelines were vandalised.

Angelfrost:
I'm just thinking of how much the owner of that platform makes daily from the need of men to w@nk off to their fantasies...!

People don't join Onlyfans to self-service. It's to build relationships with women. Men who don't have girls in their dm can suddenly pay for that on Onlyfans.

Kukutente23:
This reportage is different from what channels reported
Abi channels have eaten agbado ni

It's a stupid clickbait headline.

Dogalmighty17:
Fulani terrorists kill 17 locals and dispossess them of their land. That should be the correct heading.

The reporting is lopsided. They were killed by Jukun militia, not Fulani.

LegendHero:
Make sense.

I have my reservations about him, but no one can deny that Reno has been a good ambassador for Nigeria all these years.

Tinubu penchant for rewarding even his critics is one thing I don’t understand yet about him. But it works for him so no yawa.

Reno that has been singing his praises?

Stolen:
IF LEFT FOR BUHARI, ALL OF YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY GUN AT ALL.




IN THE BUSH THEIR IS ELEMENT OF SURPRISE.



IF ONE BULLET FROM THIS GUN TOUCH U, WE WILL ASK U THE DIFFERENCE FROM AK47.




BESIDES THEY WILL COLLECT THE AK47 FROM THEM.

Why guy come dey shout

Dogalmighty17:
Night vision goggles. That's what they will need to effectively make the difference. And that gun is a Keltec BullPup shotgun. It is 90% plastic. It doesn't have the range that an AK-47 does. Keltec guns worldwide are regarded as a flop. The company has really struggled to create a market for them.

Fulani in the bush have AK-47s, this plastic gun is a shotgun. You carry this toy and go to face Fulani better call your people not to include your mouth in the family dinner. You ain't coming back.

Oh. Thanks for your insight. The gun is just a glorified shotgun. The Ak-47 is much much better.

I guess it's because they're not allowed to carry automatic weapons by law.

Dabbling into crypto. Worst decision I have ever made in my life.

Why not use cats to police them? 🌚

hammedroyabat:
All these troops for just water? It doesn't add up..

That is a random picture from the internet.

Konquest:
It's totally improper for you to refer to Ayo Oke (who served with the National Intelligence Agency or NIA) as a "crook" based off of these vandalized articles, non-credible and biased Wikipedia entries including posts made by known ethnic bigots trolling around and highly uninformed NL posters.

I recall full well reading back then Ayo Oke's full side of the story and his detention leading to a major media trial. The EFCC has also dropped charges against him further emphasizing that he is innocent. Period.

Tell us his full side of the story then.

zeuss:
When have they ever been punished? They get away with their evil that is why it is persistent and expanding in scope and impunity, unless they are stoped it will continue to gain presence until they can walk around every part of this country killing Christians and taxing activities on ancestral lands of victims.
Go and ask the North West their experience
Mind all Fulani are invaders in the Nigeria geo space

Exactly. So, you can't punish them. Yet you're clamoring for them to be punished? Make this make sense.

Gotocourt:
Guy, Cattle ranch📌💯. Farmers will farm grasses and supply, e no hard. Hay will be the new money 🤷🏿. Ruga settlement is government taking people's fertile lands, grasses need fertile lands.

Nigeria isn't even using up to 50% of its arable land.

zeuss:
What problem? If you want land buy land......u can't reward criminals disguised as herders in live stock business, The north west is gone to herdsmen bandits who collect tax from Farmers in broad daylight and hold peace meeting with governors because of people like u,

And how is punishing them going for you?

nlfpmod

Brendaniel:
Your entire write up ended without offering any solution, and your statement that Fulani are the most hated ethnic group is not entirely true, because if it was then a section of the country would have been asking them to go back to their region like they have been doing to the Igbos.

Nomadic Fulani are the most hated. Even Hausa villagers hate them. Even the Yoruba Ronus hate them. But they don't tell them to go back to their village because they're powerful.

Brendaniel:
Then thirdly you just admitted that Tinubu is using the lives of Nigerians to play politics for his political ambition and that he doesn't give a hoot about how many Nigerians will die for his selfish ambition which he also used to become president...

That isn't in question. He's a very selfish man.

Brendaniel:
Then lastly Kano state and I think one or 2 other states or so offered them lands in buhari's time and they rejected it...

You'll need to provide evidence for this. And no. You don't offer them. It is law. It is by force. Open grazing must stop.

zeuss:
Herdsmen shouldn't bother others with the private business. Why should you roam around with your animals into private property to feed your animals? They are exempt from trespassing cos of people like u encouraging them... Trespass is criminal all herdsmen trespass and also destroy life and property

It seems like what you're after is vengeance, not a solution to the problem.

ebukal67x:
You really think Obasanjo would have tackled the issue head on? Lol. Obasanjo managed to keep the lid on it, but the undercurrents were still there. This thing is deeper than we think.

Yes. He would have. Obasanjo faced similar issues during his time. OPC in Lagos. Armed robbers in the South East. Tiv-Jukun conflict in the North Central. And Sharia riots and crisis in the North West.

By the time he left office, all those problems were firmly tackled.

zeuss:
Why do u advocate for appeasement of criminals?

It seems like you're assuming that all herdsmen are criminals.

Lanretoye:
this one you are doing too is opposition in Tinubu’s back pocket,who knows if you become president in your life time as an Igbo man,go and carry all your aids as Fulani cos you don’t want to do tribalism

Clown. Obasanjo didn't surround himself with only Yoruba people in his government.

The Fulani are currently the most hated group in Nigeria. But they're not marginalized because even though they're hated, they're the most powerful group in Nigeria.

Why are they hated? Because herdsmen encroach on people's farmlands, and bandits who are mostly Fulani attack communities, and so on and so forth.

The Fulani herdsman is a very vulnerable. Unlike most people, he carries his wealth along with him everywhere he goes. The wealth is very movable and quite glaring to see. Unscrupulous elements looking for a quick buck can just kill the herdsman and carry the cattle worth multiple millions away.

To prevent this, the Fulani herdsman arms himself to the teeth.

What then happens when someone has a gun and his neighbors don't is that unscrupulous elements would use those guns to oppress and steal from others. Which is how the Fulani bandit came to be.

Now, it is difficult to tackle the banditry issue because the bandits use the Fulani and their cows as a human shield.

Recently, there was a report of bandits attacking a Hausa community and the community retaliated, but the people they killed in return were Fulani herdsmen and they had to apologise for mistaken identity. Of course, the Fulani who are killed would be angry and would just turn to fullblown banditry for either vengeance or adopt the bad name that we've decided to label him.

What is the solution to this?

I'm of the opinion that the Ruga settlements should be brought back. But this time, instead of establishing them all over the country, they should be established only in the North West. The reason why they should be established only in the North West is because that is the traditional home of the Fulani in Nigeria.

The Buhari government's implementation of the Ruga settlement tried to establish it all over the country, and that had people rise up in opposition to it. Because apparently it would be land grabbing of other people's land to give to another ethnicity.

If it's restricted to the North West, then there would be no uproar as the North West is traditional Fulani land.

The land to be allocated to them should be virgin land in the forests, not pre-existing farmlands. Those lands can then be developed to be made conducive for ranching.

After the honest Fulani herdsman is removed from the forests, the only people left in the forests would be bandits. We can just send the military to kill everyone that is hiding in the forests as they can be reasonably presumed to be bandits.

Unfortunately, this isn't something the Tinubu government can do because there is the risk of angering his voting base in the North West. There might be people resistant to this because of tradition and some other nonsense.

It's possible to win elections in Nigeria without buy-in from the core North if you have the rest of the country with you, as Obasanjo demonstrated.

But this option is not available to Tinubu because there is nothing he would do that would make the igbos vote for him.

This is what happens when we vote for tribalists. It's on days like this that I miss Obasanjo. He would have tackled this issue head on.

May God save us.

dangermouse:
I smoking nothing.

Making the statement devoid of any bias.

Goodluck Jonathan remains the best president Nigeria has ever had. Yaradua comes second,even though death did not allow him finish his good works. Obasanjo comes third and maybe Shehu Shagari came fourth. Him too was not allowed to finish his good works by coupists who ran the country down.

Lol. You're high. Obasanjo remains the GOAT. Bar none.

dangermouse:
Happy birthday to the best president Nigeria ever had.

Long live and prosperity in the mighty name God.

Best we ever had? What are you smoking?

SmartPolician:
Nobody actually loves this country. Everyone is looking for means to steal from this country. What's so special about keeping a country nobody loves? Nobody has been able to answer this question.

Because dividing it would leave us with a worse off situation. See all the massacres happening in Benue, Kwara, and other places of the middle belt? Can you imagine how much worse it would be if they were in an Arewa Republic controlled entirely by the Hausa-Fulani?

It's people from the big 3 who dream of having an ethnostate to themselves that always chant for division.

LagosOrigin:
This means Nigerians will pay more for fuel ⛽

For imported fuel...