Northern elders give Jonathan October ultimatum to produce Chibok girls

[Kola Fabiyi]

http://africanspotlight.com/2014/08/11/northern-elders-give-jonathan-october-ultimatum-produce-chibok-girls/

Northern elders give Jonathan October ultimatum to produce Chibok girls

2014-08-11 19:35 by Web Master

The faction of the Northern Elders Forum led by Maitama Sule, on Monday, gave President Goodluck Jonathan an ultimatum till the end of October 2014 to produce the over 200 abducted Chibok girls in Borno State and also bring an end to the Boko Haram insurgency, saying that failure to do so amounts to him being deemed unfit to seek re-election in 2015.

The Northern Elders noted that the warning became imperative because they were of the firm belief that the lingering terrorist attacks and other related security challenges in the country pose a major threat to the 2015 elections and the survival of Nigeria as a nation.

Addressing a news conference in Kaduna, Spokesman of the forum, Solomon Dalung, identified lack of political will and corruption among government officials and the military authorities as being largely responsible for the lingering insurgency in the North-East, where thousands of innocent people have been killed.

The forum lamented that this situation has allowed the insurgents to take over some parts of the North-East without much resistance from the nation’s security forces.

The forum further alleged that the failure of the government to put an end to the current insecurity in Yobe, Borno, and Adamawa states was a deliberate plot to weaken the North’s political and economic potentials ahead of the 2015 elections.

They expressed disappointment over the unwillingness of prominent leaders of the region to use their connections to tackle the problem.

The forum called for a thorough investigation into the recent assassination attempt on General Muhammadu Buhari by suspected terrorists, and also condemned the alleged ill treatment being meted against northerners in some states in the South, whereby they are said to have been tagged as terrorists.

ChannelsTV

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Surprise surprise!  Is this not hypocrisy? Isn’t it universally known that since a long time ago the Northern Council of the Elders has already deemed Dr. Goodluck Jonathan unfit to seek re-election in 2015?

Ok, so they are giving him one more chance - a life extension and a temporary suspension of their final judgment which will only be confirmed if he doesn’t achieve the impossible before the end of October, i.e. Bring back their 200 girls and end the Boko Haram Rebellion - or else !

And that’s the sword of Damocles hanging over the president’s head, this ultimatum – assuming that President Jonathan gives a damn about the opinions of the Northern Elders Forum led by Maitama Sule.

If he does (care about the ultimatum), then time is running out although, “A week is a long time in politics.”

A good number of Nigerians would like the girls back and the grave for Boko Haram

One cannot escape the nagging feeling that

(1)  The Northern Council of the Elders have the potential to thwart or throw obstacles in the way of the president fulfilling their requests

(2) If they dislike President Jonathan enough, then they could even rejoice if he doesn’t bring back the girls or quell Boko Haram for good.

(The elders are serious. I’m fantasizing that Boko Haram is operating in Israel and Goodluck Jonathan is the prime minister of that country.  There too for sure the Northern Council of the Elders of Zion would be issuing a similar on Prime Minister Jonathan: 1. Bring back our girls 2. Crush Boko Haram

[ZALANGA SAMUEL]

Why now? When I was growing up in the North, the meaning of the word elder was not just that the person is elderly in age and should be respected. Being elderly means a person is full of wisdom, has great reflection about life and is able to think with foresight and broadly inclusive. In my private moment, I just wonder where the Northern elders were or the Nigerian government was, when t Boko Haram was allowed to blossom to this level of violent rebellion.Did no one saw this coming? With all the Nigerians educated with specialization in so many areas, could not have someone saw this coming? 

If Nigerian universities have been teaching courses about social rebellions etc. from a global perspective, they would have learned some insights that could have shed light on Nigeria and the North in particular. I say the North in particular not because other parts of Nigeria lack problems but the problems of the North are just too many. 

Any insightful Northern elder would have realized that by 1960, the North was lagging behind the South. Even in the late 1980s when I did my National Youth Service in Imo State at Aboh-Mbaise Local Government Area, I quickly concluded when our office was organizing for the Children's Day Celebration that the number of secondary schools and students enrolled in secondary school in Aboh-Mbaise Local Government Area alone was more than that of the whole Bauchi State. 

According to Mervyn Hiskett's The Sword of Truth: The Life and Times of the Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, as progressive as the Islamic reform movement was in its social-cultural and political context, given the effort by some people to use religious ideals to interrogate their social order, state and society,  the conceptual categories that shaped the mindset and worldview of the reformers were not modern. And this explains many of the problems and failure of the reform movement, which is not too different from problems of exclusion that are associated with the Protestant Reformation in Europe. But few Northern Universities would teach the Protestant Reformation in Europe because they will see it as a religious campaign, not knowing that they would be amaze to learn similarities and differences between religious reform movements.

 The reality by 1960s is that the world was under Western hegemony for long and whether people  liked it or not, one would have to find a way to reasonably function within it, which is what a country like Malaysia decided to do even though a Muslim nation; just like Christians had to deal with living in Ottoman Empire and Jews as people with different religion living in Ghettos in Europe. So my point is if there was deep thinking, northern elders should have realized that if the North refuse to change or changed at  a slow pace compared to the  Southeast and Southwest and the rest of the world, the rest of the world of course would not wait for the North. The amount of investment in western education in Southwestern and Southeastern Nigeria from the period of colonial rule and after was so impressive that any serious elder who understands Nigeria should not have ignored such a gap or refuse to learn some lessons that can benefit the North. But to really promote education, you have to have a relatively open society since people are going to be evaluated based on their performance and competence and not their place or family of birth as such. The North wants to be part of the modern world while maintaining its traditional social structure. It is not going to work.

WHile I personally feel disappointed with the government of President Jonathan because I feel he could do better, but the long term causes of the problem of the North is not Jonathan. I do not want to be disrespectful of the Northern elders as such but by the same token, if the NOrth will not be honest about the region's problems, they are never going to solve our problems. The rate at which the North lag behind increased because the world was changing at a faster pace from late 1980s onwards. Our elders act slowly as if their world is the center of the universe or that the rest of the world or Nigeria will wait for them. Long ago, I read in a book on economic development by Todaro and Smith that Yobe and Borno area has one of the lowest human development indicators in the world. Interestingly, the rebels felt they were irrelevant and the only way they could be relevant was through violence. And violence is like a drug. It gives a person a false sense of power and attention. From being nonentity in the North, now everyone knows Boko Haram and Shekau in the major media outlets or policy think tanks. Although this is an unpleasant fame, but it is hard to see how peasants can ignore that. That they opposed western education is very understandable. The main credential of the people running the government that ignores them are Western. WEstern is a symbol of their source of operation.

In my local government area in Bauchi State, two traditional rulers were killed by Boko Haram people in their houses. But the killers were recruits from the village. They joined Boko Haram to get meaning in their lives. Boko Haram will go to the villages and preach and give them an alternative vision of life, and the people are not educated enough to evaluate it. Alternative to what? Well, just visit the north and see poverty.

There was a time I asked people to photocopy lots of magazine material and send it to me from Nigeria on Boko Haram. After reading it, I developed special respect for Obasanjo for having the courage to travel to Maiduguri to meet some Boko Haram leaders. He felt that military solution will not solve the problem. He wanted to know what they really wanted. According to news analysis, they wanted to kill him but his presence just overwhelmed them, and they changed their mind. Nation building is not easy.

 I truly believe that with proper thinking and planning, the government and northern elders could have stopped Boko Haram long ago. Even now that they are trying to deal with the problem, including the vision of the northern elders, they treat the issue as one of "law and order" problem and not a problem of social justice or the need for a more just society. Boko Haram has committed terrible violence but as informed people, their violence is just a sign of a much deeper problem in the state and society or social order of the North. They just want another election so that they can be in power and continue looting the treasury. The Northern elders are concerned about the elections being disrupted not because of a true love for participatory democracy or some fundamental commitment to the welfare of the "talakawas" (masses), but because it will interfere with their opportunity to ride the Nigerian political horse and trample on the masses again. And religion is used very much a legitimation strategy.

If it were not because of the United Nations system, it seems like if we were in the era of empires, a powerful empire in Niger or Cameroon, can just takeover parts of Nigeria if they can provide more meaningful and constructive life and future.

The whole thing is hugely embarrassing. 

Samuel

---

Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 01:12:06 -0700
From: cornelius...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
CC: NaijaO...@yahoogroups.com; naijain...@googlegroups.com; naij...@googlegroups.com; niger...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Northern elders give Jonathan October ultimatum to produce Chibok girls

Surprise surprise!  Is this not hypocrisy? Isn’t it universally known that since a long time ago the Northern Council of the Elders has already deemed Dr. Goodluck Jonathan unfit to seek re-election in 2015?

Ok, so they are giving him one more chance - a life extension and a temporary suspension of their final judgment which will only be confirmed if he doesn’t achieve the impossible before the end of October, i.e. Bring back their 200 girls and end the Boko Haram Rebellion - or else !

And that’s the sword of Damocles hanging over the president’s head, this ultimatum – assuming that President Jonathan gives a damn about the opinions of the Northern Elders Forum led by Maitama Sule.

If he does (care about the ultimatum), then time is running out although, “A week is a long time in politics.”

A good number of Nigerians would like the girls back and the grave for Boko Haram

One cannot escape the nagging feeling that

(1)  The Northern Council of the Elders have the potential to thwart or throw obstacles in the way of the president fulfilling their requests

(2) If they dislike President Jonathan enough, then they could even rejoice if he doesn’t bring back the girls or quell Boko Haram for good.

(The elders are serious. I’m fantasizing that Boko Haram is operating in Israel and Goodluck Jonathan is the prime minister of that country.  There too for sure the Northern Council of the Elders of Zion would be issuing a similar on Prime Minister Jonathan: 1. Bring back our girls 2. Crush Boko Haram

On Monday, 11 August 2014 23:51:09 UTC+2, Kola Fabiyi wrote:

http://africanspotlight.com/2014/08/11/northern-elders-give-jonathan-october-ultimatum-produce-chibok-girls/Northern elders give Jonathan October ultimatum to produce Chibok girls

2014-08-11 19:35 by Web Master
The faction of the Northern Elders Forum led by Maitama Sule, on Monday, gave President Goodluck Jonathan an ultimatum till the end of October 2014 to produce the over 200 abducted Chibok girls in Borno State and also bring an end to the Boko Haram insurgency, saying that failure to do so amounts to him being deemed unfit to seek re-election in 2015.
The Northern Elders noted that the warning became imperative because they were of the firm belief that the lingering terrorist attacks and other related security challenges in the country pose a major threat to the 2015 elections and the survival of Nigeria as a nation.
Addressing a news conference in Kaduna, Spokesman of the forum, Solomon Dalung, identified lack of political will and corruption among government officials and the military authorities as being largely responsible for the lingering insurgency in the North-East, where thousands of innocent people have been killed.
The forum lamented that this situation has allowed the insurgents to take over some parts of the North-East without much resistance from the nation’s security forces.
The forum further alleged that the failure of the government to put an end to the current insecurity in Yobe, Borno, and Adamawa states was a deliberate plot to weaken the North’s political and economic potentials ahead of the 2015 elections.
They expressed disappointment over the unwillingness of prominent leaders of the region to use their connections to tackle the problem.
The forum called for a thorough investigation into the recent assassination attempt on General Muhammadu Buhari by suspected terrorists, and also condemned the alleged ill treatment being meted against northerners in some states in the South, whereby they are said to have been tagged as terrorists.
ChannelsTV
 

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Samuel roaring in the lion’s den,

Samuel the first judge in Israel!

You say, “I personally feel disappointed with the government of President Jonathan because I feel he could do better, but the long term causes of the problem of the North is not Jonathan”

You have said much before arriving at that judgment and thrown much light on the multifarious problems of the North, but you have not  - in so many words - said is what the critics of the blame Goodluck Jonathan blame game also say : that since Nigeria gained Independence in 1960, Nigeria has been mostly ruled by men from the North,(charity begins at home?) albeit a few rascals like this one, this Northern man - who in terms of time wasted and resources squandered should have normally been held responsible for the North’s relative underdevelopment  - the north in particular, assuming that the Northern leaders didn’t mostly put their efforts in developing  the South and other parts of the Federation.

Since there’s a state and a federal budget it’s difficult to understand that there’s a possibility of an unjust disembursement of the monies and projects due to Northern States.

Enlightenment requested!

Sincerely,

We Sweden

[ZALANGA SAMUEL]

President Jonathan is the first Nigerian President with a doctorate degree. Many have said that Nigeria has not had a president that is well-educated. Well, here we have one. But watch Basil Davidson's "Africa: A Journey of Discovery" and you will be more impressed even with how Jerry Rawlings articulates himself, even if he has his own problems. Many ordinary citizens only relate to the President from what he said and how he comes across in his words. Just listened to FDR speeches in radio during and after the Great Depression.  So even at the level of articulation, one expects much from Jonathan, especially given our world today where how you are able to communicate matters. He is well-educated and we expect much from him. At least if education should make a difference in leadership, he is a bad example of such an argument in Nigeria.

Second, I grew up poor but I know what it means to grow up  poor but still be living in peace.

Just listen to this song sang in the United States when President Bush was in office though its tone may apply to President Obama as well. Can anyone sing such a song for the Nigerian president and is not the desire of all parents to see their children grow up? Here is the song which is just 4 minutes long: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf_johfwfXQ

 One does not have to read Hobbes' Leviathan before he or she is impressed with the argument that without peace and stability or what in sociological parlance is referred to as social order, there will be no civilization. it is one thing for the north to be poor but another thing now to live under the present kind of insecurity.  Those who know the north of the past can attest that it may be poor and uneducated but it was peaceful until the religious rebellion started in the 1980s. 

Jonathan made several changes to NNPC management, presumably he is the chief executive of the country. I still cannot figure out why over 200 young women and women will be abducted in our country and our leaders with Jonathan in charge just stay quiet for over two months. Initially, they even denied the abduction. Woo among us will have any of his or her relative abducted like that in his or her country and feel that there has not been a paradigm shift in what it means to be a citizen under a government in Nigeria?

 No matter what Jonathan does, he would live with the abduction as an indelible mark of his administration. If he knows through security reports that some people are involved in Boko Haram, let him just say it publicly, and allow us to decide. A situation where you are the chief executive and ordinary school girls are abducted and nothing is done about them for such a long time is such a great source of embarrassment. For a long time, they did not even address the nation about that. I do not know whether  your standards for leadership is too low. To make it clearer, if something like this happen under anybody in Nigeria, not just Jonathan we have to condemn such a leadership even if the head is from our family.

Corruption is an equal opportunity issue in Nigeria. I have been in touch with friends in Benue State and feel very disturbed about the lack of payment of salaries, the public schools not open, strikes going on and unfortunately even some of the traditional leaders are just after their own interests. And the governor is going through serious problems with credentials "forging" or manipulation. In one case, it was alleged that he did not attend classes but got a degree from the University of Jos.  Benue State is not the only place where we have such a  problem. In Bauchi State, salaries are lagging behind. How can you employ people and not pay them? in terms of true dividend of governance there are authoritarian regimes than can do better than the so-called democratic government where 25% of national budget is spent on a tiny ruling elite in Abuja.  We are humans too.  Many local governments just pay salaries but do nothing. Only international NGOs do some work. Frankly, if you do an grassroots ethnographic study of how the Nigerian government operates, especially in many parts of the North, where civil society organizations are either non-existent or weak, Nigeria is a "big for nothing" country. Singapore is a more effective state even though small. 

On another note, I want to raise a question about the North since you brought the issue in a more focused manner. Exactly what is the North? Is it just a description of a geographical region? A description of a cohesive group of people thinking the same way because they have shared interest? Or what is it?  For one, even the Northern elites are not united as such because most of them are just posturing but the real issue is they are pursuing their personal agendas.

 Remember Peter Ekeh's insightful  article on corruption in Nigeria entitled: "Colonialism and the Two Publics." The Talakawas (masses) in the north are terribly oppressed. They are just like "surplus people" in the global economy. They are treated as wasteland for dumbing ideological messages of manipulation so that they can be used as a support group in the fight by northern elites for personal aggrandizement against their southern counterparts. There are many of us who are in the North, but do not in terms of our consciousness see any analytical utility in using the term north as representing a cohesive group of people. 

If the country was truly free, I could produce a documentary film where ordinary masses in the North will express their concerns and you will be surprise to see that even the ordinary Muslim in the North does not see anything of value in terms of being described as a northerner beyond being from the region. People are looking for justice and fairness that will make a difference in their social and material conditions, and not some mythical northern identity when their bellies are empty. I have lived among ordinary northerners, given that I am one and truly speaking, such people not care who is in power if their concerns as human beings are attended to.   Thus from the point of view of class analysis, we need to debunk this idea of the North. In some respects it is a straw man. So the problem we have is complex. 

The Northern Hausa-Fulani leaders do not even care about Hausa-Fulani ordinary people; among us the minorities in the North, do not assume that everyone is a saint. Many leaders in such communities are equally corrupt and will not waste time in collaborating with northern elites to line their pockets. Go to the most Christian and Muslim states in Nigeria and you will find one thing: the strong dominate and take advantage of the weak. The reason why this is not pronounced in the South is that there is more education and more well-organized civil society groups that can push back.There is also less poverty. Poor people have no energy organizing to challenge authorities.  We see this though even in the U.S. Go to the Appalachian region and see how many mining communities are abused in supposedly the freest and richest country in the world. The poverty in some parts of Appalachia is worst than or equivalent to what exists in some Third World countries.

Note also that if you read Richard Joseph's "Democracy and Prebendal Politics" which is an analysis of Nigeria's second republic and the work of Tom Forrest, the national party of Nigeria is national in terms of its well-organized corruption machine.  You are right that many Nigerian leaders came from the North, but many Southern technocrats willingly made themselves available to them by offering their services. So it is a coalition. It is better to understand the leadership in terms of ruling elite coalition rather than just individuals. Some of the speeches of General Babangida when he was in power were written by erudite Marxist scholars from the South. They made him looked like he was really informed. So just note this partnership and coalition that underdeveloped the country, which Paul Brian discusses in his "Political Economy of Backwardness," where an unholy alliance of unprogressive forces just retards national development.

Finally, sometimes I am amaze that given my limited opportunity in life, I was still able to figure out some facts about the Northern Nigeria that I think more privileged people than me should have discovered and used it to inform their leadership.  I have no problem with the initial backwardness and conservatism of the North which is well-documented. The book "Bad Samaritans" written by a Cambridge professor of Korean ancestry, discusses many negative things said about German and Japanese backwardness at one point. But they changed it. We can change Northern Nigeria too with appropriate leadership. 

 As I said, the mindset of the 1804 Muslim reformers in Sokoto was more medieval than modern in terms of current discourse, just as Martin Luther, the German Protestant Reformer was significantly medieval in his worldview. He saw no problem with the feudal system and when the peasants revolted in Germany against the nobility, he said they should be crushed. He was also inspired by the divine forces to not see anything wrong with slavery. He believed in the chain of beings which means everyone has his or her location in life and should not strive to change it but function very well in his or her God-given role. So you see in this respect, the  challenges of scholarship and education in the North might make people resist learning about the Christian reformation but if they did, they will find some general similarities between that and the Sokoto caliphate. 

If Nigerians have studied the Sokoto caliphate very well, they would not  have repeated some of the mistakes that were made in the post-colonial period, because there was evidence of all such problems that we later faced, in the Sokoto Jihad.  

In Chapter 7 (The Aftermath), of his book entitled "The Sword of LIfe and Times of the Shehu Usman Dan Fodio," Mervyn Hiskett, documents "The Failure of Ideals." You will see how the Shehu in his old age became very disappointed. The El Kanemi will accuse the jihadist of being inspired more by material concerns than religious purification given that Kanem Borno was Islamic before even Hausaland. And many of the Shehu's friends betrayed him even before the jihad wars ended. The people became interested in material concerns, getting concubines etc. As Hiskett argues: "even before the campaigns were over, "Abdullah b. Muhammad had turned against the worldliness and greed that they aroud; and had spoken in bitter terms of those of his associates: 

whose purpose is the ruling of the countries and their people, In order to obtain delight and acquire rank, According to the custom of the unbelievers, and the titles of their sovereignty, And the appointment of ignorant persons to the highest offices, And the collecting of concubines, and fine clothes, And horses that gallop in the towns, not on the battlefields, And the devouring of the gifts of sanctity , and booty and bribery, And lutes, and flutes, and the beating of drums (cited in Hiskett, p.105).

Hiskett further argues by quoting a poem written by the Shehu (i.e., Shehu Othman Dan Fodio), titled "Wallahi, Wallahi"(i.e., I swear by God), that the Shehu had to come out openly to defend himself as the leader of the jihad because of accusations of aggrandizement. He was terribly hurt and offended by that. To quote Hiskett: 

"It is somewhat confused, possibly owing to his (i.e. The Shehu) his inadequate command of that language (i.e. Hausa); but the burden of it is clear; an angry denial of any personal ambition or desire for aggrandizement. These Are its opening lines, which illustrate the tone of the whole: 

I swear by God, we have been given great good fortune,

Whosoever is a Muslim and follows worldly desires,

Woe to him, I swear by God, he has fallen from his high estate,

I give you proofs a thousandfold and more,

I have accepted nothing from the rule of temporal office,

Only, I swear by God, the authority of the Sharia'a alone,

WHoever accepts office in order to exploit the country

For worldly ends, I swear by God, he eats carrion!

Whoever accepts office in this way

I swear by God, it is the knife of Satan cuts him down.

As for me, I have not sent anyone (to do forced labor for me) but it is the governors of the towns)

Who have sent you, for their own ends, I swear by God (iIsket, p.107).

There is a lot in this quote even from the poem by Dan Fodio to indicates the problems of the North early in the 19th century before even the modern leaders you are talking about. History is not just reading about events but it means imagining, analyzing, interpreting, drawing lessons and insights and applying  them to our own context. My point here is that a critique of the North can come from the Fulani critique of Habe rulers and the debates that ensued about the failure of ideals of the Jihad among the jihadists. If we had learned what led the ideals of the jihad to fail, we would not have thought that good intentions alone in the post-colonial period would guarantee progress in Nigeria just as good intentions of reform by the jihadist did not necessarily create a really and just and fair North.

And if you study the work of Pope John Paul II, yo will see that he really worked hard and contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, especially Poland his country of origin. He thought that after godless communism disappeared people will become God-fearing and believing.  But when he later returned there in his life, it is consumerism and pornoopgrahy all over. He was disappointed. But we see this over and over with religious reform. My point is not that religious people should not pursue reform, but human reality shows that there are always unintended consequences.

In one sense, the jihad in Sokoto was a remarkable effort by Africans to reform their society just as Martin Luther attempted in Germany; both failed in many respects and created inspiration in many respects. Our role is to study them carefully and learn from their struggles. Their worldview was surely not modern. 

The Shehu for instance characterized Habe people who converted to Islam but felt oppressed based on ethnicity and therefore collaborated with non-muslims (infidelds) to revolt, as infidels themselves and insisted that they should be mercilessly killed. What is the difference between him and Luther's position on peasants that revolted or what Luther said about Jews? 

These are religious people but they saw humanity through just the lens of their faith, which is still a a problem in Nigeria today, especially the North.  I know that in my state of origin, Bauchi, some people now see me as an infidel. This is why the Sokoto jihad has to be honestly discussed in modern context and some of our Muslim brothers in the North, have to understand that such a discussion requires courage, as it may appear as a kind of deconstruction and deflationary. It treats the leaders of the jihad from the point of view of critical history, i.e., as ordinary human beings in their times and not some larger than life people who dropped from heaven. But they can take solace in the fact that such problems with religious reforms movements as seen in Sokoto caliphate are also applicable in other religious reform movements. The problem is many northerners would not see value in learning about religious movements in other religious or cultural traditions because they think it will dilute Islam.

 But by just focusing on their own tradition, it will be hard to do honest and objective historical work without pointing at terrible things that are not inspiring for our times. Some think studying European history or any other country's history is imperial or may be belittling African or Nigerian history. But what we see clearly is that this is not a problem of European or other people's history. 

One can teach Sokoto Caliphate, Oyo Empire, Benin Kingdom and Kanem Bornu with imperialistic tones or what Saint Augustine called "libido dominandi" the lust to conquer. Much depends on our human interest and commitment otherwise, any scholarly material can be abused depending on the intentions or commitment of the person working with the material. Even Holy books can be abused.  Imperial tendencies or the desire to control, dominate and oppress is not a uniquely European or White problem. It is a human problem that expresses itself in different historical contexts and circumstances. The average person in the South who is powerful may want to oppress ordinary people too but the context of his or her society will not allow that.

Samuel

---

Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 06:21:49 -0700
From: cornelius...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
CC: naijao...@yahoogroups.com; naijain...@googlegroups.com; naij...@googlegroups.com; niger...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Northern elders give Jonathan October ultimatum to produce Chibok girls

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

(Amended)

Dear Samuel,

Many, many thanks. No exaggeration, in Swedish we say “tusen tack” (“1,000 thanks”). I asked for enlightenment and was not disappointed. I am now savouring the enlightenment, will do the homework  and other references you have given me (and the questions arising) – the truth of live and let live and the Northern poor man’s helplessness and sense of identity.

There ought to be a fruitful harmony/ marriage symbiosis between Nigerian historians and Nigerian sociologists like yourself, working in tandem, the later especially, to throw light on some of the various forces at work, producing the climate of fear, neglect, indifference, and corruption –with- impunity, instead of a just social order. The other “fruitful cooperation” as described by you, between the corrupt political elite, the “ruling elite coalition” (the “well-organized corruption machine”) and “the many Southern technocrats who willingly make themselves available to them by offering their services.” – they should  be prosecuted and disbanded

You say that you “still cannot figure out why over 200 young women and women will be abducted in our country and our leaders with Jonathan in charge just stay quiet for over two months.”

It’s incomprehensible. Perhaps because Nigeria is such a big country – 180 million people, or because there is a dearth of role models for some of our politicians and men of understanding, since it seems that many of them don’t take the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.)  or his brother  Jesus of Galilee or the theology of St. Paul too seriously.

By analogy (a very real one) I should like to point at the gravity of the situation created by the kidnapping of over 200 Chibok schoolgirls by Boko Haram by asking our good man Dr Goodluck Jonathan  & his government  what they think would have been the likely consequences for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government  if (God forbid) Hamas or Islamic Jihad (who also want to create an Islamic state) or al-Fatah’s military wing the al-Aqsa’s Martyrs Brigade had kidnapped 200 Israeli schoolgirls in Haifa  or from the so called West Bank and were boasting on CNN & the BBC  that they were going to sell them into slavery for twelve dollars each - and a few weeks later the terrorists had released a video showing that about half of the Israeli schoolgirls now wearing hijab and burqa  had just been “converted“ to al-Islam  and we were to assume that the remainder of the girls were by then either happily or unhappily married to the terrorists and in various stages of advanced pregnancy, and carrying their terrorists babies.

What do you think Benjamin Netanyahu would or should have done? (I think that all the terrorist leaders would have gone into hiding immediately – because they would know that they would be on the wanted dead or alive list.)

The pressure on Mr Netanyahu & the IDF - by all Israel & Diaspora - to “Bring Back Our Girls NOW” would have been immense. The ultimatum from the Northern Council of the Elders of Zion would have been clear: Bring Back Our Girls Now – or resign because of ineptitude and incompetence. Try to imagine (auditory imagination) the wailing of the Jewish mothers and grandmothers – the preachments of the Rabbis, the avalanche of fatwas from Muslim scholars and prayer leaders, the gnashing of teeth by opposition parties and the civic rights groups, the concern being expressed by President Obama & his First Lady at the White House and how the wily Ms Hillary Clinton would be adding sauce to her presidential ambitions...

And there the analogy or any comparison ends. To begin with, Mr Netanyahu would not have waited for a few weeks before addressing the nation about such a serious issue, and yet another few weeks before granting the distressed parents an audience  or visiting and commiserating with the parents and families of the abducted girls. But Israel is not Nigeria, just as Sweden is not the Sudan

It’s abysmal the scant regard the authorities have for life of the poor citizen and all the holy tenets of Bible and Quran about reverence for life, love for God and of course His creation....

In any given country I guess that the life insurance premium of the individual is the coefficient of the exact value of a life in monetary terms - although in 419 Nigeria I guess it’s possible to get a forged death certificate to present to the coroner and the claims investigator at the Nigerian insurance office and to collect.  As to the level of corruption before Buhari & Idiagbon took over and in my neck of the woods and the Delta creeks, people got paid six months arrears in salaries within a week – by military decree - I wonder how the present level of corruption can be quantified, apart from the rumours to which I’d like to add just this one painful episode which is still bothering me (every dog should have his own day to bark, and as you say, “We are humans too”):

 The manager of Savannah Bank at 10 Aba Road, Port Harcourt, sent his clerk to tell me that he wanted to see me.  He wanted me to give him HALF of the money in my account  so that I could leave Nigeria  with the rest in £ Sterling ( when in fact I was legally entitled to take out 100% of what was in my account in £ Sterling -  so I asked him ( the thief) , “ And if I don’t give you half of MY MONEY ?” . He said, “Then you will have to wait.”   How long? I asked him.  “A few months” he said. That was in July 1984. I’m still waiting. You know Ban Ki Moon’s number two man, Jan Eliasson? Well, I called him (in 1985) and when I told him the sum involved, he just laughed.  The Lootocracy owed Swedish firms billions. Of course, if I had  Chameleon-like adapted  to the swindler Bank manager’s reality I could have started to bargain with him as I bargained with Hausa traders , I could have started by offering him 5%  - but I was in a totally Swedish mode at the time and I was feeling so affronted.  I could have also taken the matter to the Deputy Commissioner of Police or the Chief Justice of Rivers State  or the former Governor of Rivers State or others who were within my orbit, but didn’t because I hate NEPOTISM.

The differences/ rift between the East (Igbo) and the West (Yoruba) is probably less than that between the North and the South even when it’s “Oh East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet “  And yet this question remains unanswered : In the name of unity and national cohesion , will the West and the East ( Awo vs. Ojukwu /Zik) ever bury their differences and must the North insist  that it’s now their turn – once again – to field a candidate and bag the Nigerian presidency one more time?

One of Nigeria’s most eminent sons, the great Shehu Usman Dan Fodio should be properly introduced (his life and times) and taught in Nigerian schools of the North, South, East and West, along with  Ajayi Crowther and Herbert Macaulay

Please scroll down to the 12 – 13^th of March and the comments section of “The roots of Nigeria’s religious and ethnic conflict” HERE

Professor Toyin Falola’s heir apparent Moses Ochonu’s first two books on this list throw some more light on the historical North  - Ochonu tells us what is popular knowledge, that “It is no coincidence that Northeastern Nigeria, Nigeria’s least Western-educated region, is also arguably the country’s poorest constituency” – so, back to my original question which is, since the North is said to be less developed than the rest of Nigeria  - is the imbalance not to be addressed by simply allocating and disbursing more funds to promote the development of the North in the areas in which the North is lagging behind?  You mention the role of the NGOs and I wonder whether the NGOs in Nigeria are what Professor Tunde Zack-Williams once observed as happening in his motherland (private communication) - as the displacement or replacement of Government functions by the NGOs

Over here, the Swedish elections are only a month away!

Best Regards,

We Sweden