Equal Opportunity

[Jibrin Ibrahim]

Ethnic Profiling and Rising Terrorism: Equal Opportunity Operations

 

Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 12^th August 2022

 

This week, there was a big story. Some of the perpetrators of the massacre at the Owo Catholic Church were arrested and sadly, that is not the big story. The big story was that they were not Fulani. Immediately the dastardly act happened, opinion leaders had asserted that they were Fulani marauders doing what they know best, engaging in atrocities against innocent people. Let me state that there are indeed Fulani gangs that do that, there are also religious extremist groups who are not Fulani that engage in such acts. The reality in Nigeria today is that many among the 100 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty are also discovering that criminality, violence, kidnapping and wanton killing of innocent souls is the fastest route to power and wealth and are being sucked into what we can call equal opportunity operations. At the same time, Jihadi ideas are spreading and gaining adherents.

   

In a couple of weeks, the monograph by Ibrahim Muazzam of Bayero University, Kano will be launched. It is an extensive literature review on the theme of ethnic profiling in Nigeria’s politics and it’s a reminder that nothing we are seeing and hearing today is new. He draws our attention to the incident of the 1^st of November 1965 when one of the main political party alliances, the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA), put out a release in Ibadan entitled, “Fulanis are a great threat to Yoruba: seven facts to prove it”. Today, we hear similar statements repeatedly.

 

Muazzam draws  our attention the one of the early and significant incidents of ethno-political violence, the Kano Riots of 1953. The immediate cause of the Kano Riots was the motion on self-government, which polarised the Northern and Southern members of the House of Representatives. All sorts of abuses were exchanged on the floor of the House and outside, due to the northern leaders’ amendment of the motion, leading one of the leaders to gravely remark about the “mistakes of 1914 coming to light”. On their way back to the North, the leaders were “booed, jeered and abused by a crowd composed mainly of supporters of the major Southern political parties. The crowd, amid shouting, called…(the Northern leaders) thieves, imperialist stooges, stupid Hausas, the men who have no mind of their own”…etc. The result was the ensuing riot.

 

 

Ibrahim Muazzam draws attention to the habit of reducing people to fixed types, stereotyping those different from us, and fixing the identities of others in manners that reject metanarratives and varied nuances through a homogenisation that draws imaginary political maps and markers, which end up victimising or pushing these others to the margins. Absurd traits are assigned to some national (or sub-national?)  groups and these have implications for intergroup relations. He draws attention to the analysis of the problem of “tribalism”, leading to “ethnic power tussle” done by Obaro Ikime (1969) in relation to events at the University of Ibadan. The basic problem, as he observed it, was the lack of a grasp of the historical factors and accidents that determined the development of various groups in the country.

 

Professor Ikime had argued that the average Southern Nigerian views the Northerner through a stereotypical lens as a ‘Gambari’, who is not just a “herdsman… but a complete nincompoop”, incapable of any higher intellectual development. The implication of this is that a whole group of people are  branded as fools in an unfounded manner., In addition, when Southerners meet a Northerner whose education or situation comparatively equals their qualification, they are irritated beyond words that a mere Gambari could dare to seek a place in the sun. In like manner, the Igbo-Nigerian is considered as “selfish, grasping, ubiquitous… avaricious and unscrupulously competitive… he is always seeking a place for his brother and the “password is Kedu Dianyi”. As for the Yoruba, he is regarded as cowardly, untrustworthy, lazy, cunning and diplomatic but self-seeking dirty in his habits and full of tricks”, according to Obaro Ikime’s analysis.

 

At the same time, the Northerners, who take pride in their cultural development due to Islamic influence on their worldview, never feel inferior to the Southerners but desire a sympathetic understanding of the factors that have influenced their lives. When the Igbo emerged as a group to challenge the Yoruba dominance, conflict arose. The “Ibo-Yoruba struggle for supremacy was rendered more complex with the arrival on the national scene of minorities from the Midwest and the east” says Ikime.

 

Muazzam reminds us that way back in 1947, Obafemi Awolowo was assertive in stereotyping the Fulani as “autocrats” and the Igbo as individualistic people. For him, in terms of receptiveness to Western culture: 

 

“the Yoruba take the lead and have benefited as a result. The Efiks, the Ijaws and the Ibibios and Ibos come next… and are doing all they can do overtake the Yorubas. The Hausa and the Fulani are extremely conservative and take very reluctantly to civilization.”

 

Such labels have therefore been in circulation for over seven decades and might therefore still be stuck in the minds of some of his followers. 

 

While we focus our energies on stereotyping the other, our real enemies, the terrorists are consolidating their grip on communities in the country. Premium Times has recently drawn the attention of its readers to a memo allegedly sent by the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai to the President stating that terrorists have essentially established a “parallel” government and “permanent operational base” in the North-western state near Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. The terrorists apparently belong to Ansaru al-Musulmina fi Bilad al-Sudan, or Ansaru for short, are believed to have moved to Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State in 2012 when they broke away from Boko Haram.

 

According to intelligence reports and human sources consulted in further reporting for this story, the terrorists that formed Ansaru were responsible for some of the high-profile attacks claimed by Boko Haram before the split. Such attacks included the UN building bombing of August 2011 and the kidnap of some foreigners. They have pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, in 2020, and is responsible for many of the high-profile abductions as well as armed attacks on the police in Kaduna State. As jihadi terrorist groups ally with bandits and begin to take over and control territory, it is high time we get out of our comfort zone of ethnic profiling and team up to save our country and our people.

 

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

 On reading this post that conveniently ignores recent history, painting a non-factual picture of the roots of the current Nigerian crisis, I ask the following-

what has led to the demonization of the Fulani name in the years since Buhari came to power?

what has led to this reversal of fortunes for the Fulani name in  a nation that voted in huge nos for a Fulani President, enabling him achieve a feat heretofore  unrivalled in Nigerian history, unseating an incumbent President, doing this through a powerful North-South alliance involving sophisticated techniques of national and international political campaigning  far beyond the skills of Buhari's Northern Muslim political associates in his previous three failed attempts at the Nigerian Presidency, a powerful campaign thrust amplifying and riding on the disenchantment of people across Nigeria with the govt of GEJ, the President from the Niger Delta, generating for Buhari a huge concentration of votes from the South, unlike his previous three attempts when his influence was localised in the North?

What happened to the huge acclaim Buhari got through his whitewashing by his former determined Southern  opposers, the likes of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka,  the author of ''The Trouble with Buhari,'' the most trenchant anti-Buhari article pre 2015, directed at proving that Buhari should never again be allowed to lead Nigeria, Soyinka swallowing his own words and supporting Buhari to win the Presidency, without any credible explanation to this day?

What happened to the goodwill galvanised by the likes of SW political leader Bola Tinubu who,  repudiating  his years ago  condemnation  of Buhari's  declaration that Abacha, Buhari's boss, did  not steal Nigeria's money, when in fact part of Abacha's huge loot was being returned to Nigeria by Switzerland when Buhari made that declaration, Tinubu campaigning for Buhari as a fighter of corruption, successfully bringing immense resources to making sure Buhari became President?

What happened to the goodwill generated by the likes of SW/Canadian scholar and social critic Pius Adesanmi who declared to his teeming social media  followers that the APCs choice  of Presidential candidate would be his own, and who, in defiance of his own earlier critique of Buhari in connection with Buhari's  Abacha whitewashing, kept his peace as the APC chose Buhari, and who kept mute as Buhari demonstrated the culture of mediocrity Adesanmi had decreed as plaguing Nigeria, Buhari proving unable to produce the school leaving certificate he claimed he had, indicating he was lying?

What happened to the goodwill mustered by the likes of ex-Rivers state governor Rotimi Amaechi and political stalwart  Timpriye Sylva, juggernauts of SS politics  who turned  their backs on their SS brother GEJ to support Buhari, enabling Buhari get the Presidency after three failed attempts,  the last one of which his supporters massacred innocents  in vengeance for his well deserved loss as a parochial candidate whose presence was localised in the North?

Where was the voice of Jibrin Ibrahim when, from the very beginning of the Buhari govt in 2015,  Fulani supremacists, represented by terrorist Fulani militia, violent Fulani herdsmen, Miyetti Allah Fulani Socio Cultural Organisations, run by Nigeria's most elite Fulani, apexical to which are the Sardauna of Sokoto and ex-CBN governor and ex-Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, with the increasingly obvious policy and security support of   the Buhari govt,   declared open season on Nigerians through a campaign of terror, massacre, land dispossession and colonisation, rape, maiming, intimidation, extortion, individual and group murders,  beginning from rivers of blood in the Middle Belt and opening out into the rest of the nation?

so jibrin, where was your voice as this horror unfolded, from the 2015 Agatu massacre,  to various massacres in the middle belt, to the SE Nimbo massacre, evils recurrently justified by Miyetti Allah as they  became a parralel  govt in plain view of all?

you were content to take refuge in the non-factual euphemism of ''farmer-herder clashes'', while the civil society organisation turned terrorist mastermind Miyetti Allah Fulani Socio Cultural Organisations has never existed in your vocabulary. 

when MACBAN, another name for the  Miyetti Allah and its Fulani herdsmen alliance,  got billions from the fed govt ostensibly to prevent what their members are doing today, running kidnapping syndicates, did you cry out agst the nation being held hostage, being extorted, and the possible deadly outcomes of such tactics?

Who is being declared as at the core of the terrorist crsis that has gripped the nation through kidnapping and banditry and who is identifying them along those lines?

Fulani criminal syndicates as identified by Fulani governors El Rufai of Kaduna and Masari of Katsina, governors who have tried to parley with these creatures but have now given up, declaring them as pure crooks as these deadly characters  take over their states in rivers of  blood and tears.

this is the framework demonising the Fulani name. 

 Fulani such as El Rufia and Masari have chosen the path of honesty in addressing a part of the problem.

what is the path of jibrin ibrahim as he ignores the evident roots of a contemporary crisis, reaching into decades  old history to paint a false picture of the present?

thanks

toyin

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Adepoju’s non-sequiturs aside, what is most disquieting is also what could serve as an appendage to what can otherwise only be appreciated as Jibrin Ibrahim’s enlightening update of the current situation in Nigeria - the appendage, a fast-forwarding of the earlier sentiment he thought was important enough to mention - 

“the incident of the 1st of November 1965 when one of the main political party alliances, the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA), put out a release in Ibadan entitled, “Fulanis are a great threat to Yoruba: seven facts to prove it”. Today, we hear similar statements repeatedly.”

And indeed, today we are hearing the quite terrifying announcement by Emeritus Professor Banji Akintoye in his letter to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari  with the untimely and disturbing news that 

 “the Yoruba ethnic group is in dire need of its own country out of present Nigeria” - 

almost a stab in the back of his fellow Yoruba-man  - the other wannabe President of Federal Nigeria, the Hon.Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu.

Of course, as of yet, the question of who gave the Hon. Emeritus Professor the mandate to speak on behalf of the Yoruba people will remain unanswered until a proper referendum is conducted. But, should this kind of sentiment be widely circulated in the North - that “The Yoruba people want to secede”  - wouldn’t that be damaging to Hon. Tinubu’s chances of competing with the honourable or not-so-honourable Alhaji Atiku in harvesting votes in Northern Nigeria? 

It’s already unlikely that Tinubu will reap any spectacular harvest in the Peter Obi territories….

In contrast re - the existence of the Yoruba nation within the Federation, this was funny

[Okey Iheduru]

Not so fast in your inexplicable cuddling of FULANI murderers, Prof. Jibo Ibrahim!!!

PRESS STATEMENT FROM THE DESK OF Rotimi Akeredolu Aketi 

Akeredolu Clears Air On Arrest Of Kuje Prison Escapee, Idris Ojo 

The attention of Ondo State Governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, has been drawn to the announcement of Idris Ojo as one of the attackers of St Francis Catholic Church, Owo, arrested by the security agencies. 

Governor Akeredolu acknowledged the confusion the statement has created in the public space, considering that the ugly event of June 5 attack in Owo preceded the unfortunate incident on Kuje prison. 

The Governor said there was a mix up in the announcement by the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor. 

Governor Akeredolu explained that Idris Ojo, who is number 14 on the wanted list of Kuje Prison Escapees was arrested in his brother’s house in Akure. 

“The announcement of the arrest of Idris Ojo as one of the perpetrators of the June 5 attack on St Francis Catholic Church, Owo was a mix up from the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor.

“Idris Ojo, who is number 14 on the wanted list of the Kuje Prison Escapees was arrested in his brother’s house in Akure. His brother, Jimoh Rasheed Ibrahim, received and accommodated him after his escape from Kuje prison. 

“He was thereafter moved and kept in the custody of the security operatives at the same time the attackers of Owo Catholic Church were arrested and brought into custody. Hence, the mix up.” The Governor said. 

Governor Akeredolu urged members of the public to remain vigilant and give necessary supports to the security agencies in the State. 

Signed: 

Richard Olatunde 

Chief Press Secretary to the Governor of Ondo State.

August 10, 2022.

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