About a month ago I was at the Ahmadu Bello University. And I got a shock. I had been to a number of universities across the length and breadth of Nigeria in the last couple of years. I enjoy interacting with these young students because they remind me of my time in school three decades ago. I expected ABU students to be at best ‘normal’ like the ones I’d met at Ife, or Akungba, or UNN. But they were crazy. I mean absolutely, raving crazy. They heckled their lecturers and spoke up at every turn. They cracked jokes while the seminar went on. They hailed the professors they liked, and addressed their student union leaders as ‘Commander-in-Chief of the supreme headquarters’. They referred to themselves – as a throwback to our military era – as 50,000 strong ‘armed forces’. It was hilarious. My mouth was wide agape for the most of the seminar at which I spoke for about 5 minutes! I’d never seen anything like it. ABU students – most of them boys – owned their school. They were happy to be in university and had retained that innocence and rascality of ‘Aluta’. In the South, students had become subdued and cowed by their lecturers and school administrators. Many are victimized, and some have had to turn to cultism for expression.
In ABU, I could see where Dino got his bravery. I could see where many of Nigeria’s leaders who attended that university found their confidence even if many of them are not very vocal in the public space. That camaraderie, that sheer bravado cannot disappear ever in anyone who passed through those four walls that is Ahmadu Bello University. I made a few comments about that experience afterwards, and noted that the only downside is that the mostly-male students – who are also mostly Muslims and Hausa-speaking – may not be showing enough sensitivity to the minorities amongst them (ladies, Christians, non-Hausa speakers and southerners). We could write that off to the exuberance of youth, but again, like the confidence and bravado, these attributes may never depart from whoever had imbibed them. Intellectualism is intoxicating in the North. In the South, we passed the curve quickly and may have now become anti-intellectual. Unlike most of the ABUsites I met that day, very few students will pass through a federal university down South today and claim they had fun.
And so when I learnt that Arewa ‘Youth’ had met at the Arewa House in Kaduna and issued an ultimatum for Igbos to leave the North by October 1st, 2017, my mind went first to ABU. I imagined those crazy young fellas I had met on that day if they had to make statements about what is going on in Nigeria today. I reckoned that it was just up their alley as ‘comrades’, reacting to similar threats from the South East of Nigeria, to voice out their opinions in a way that will shock most Nigerians. For them, it will just be a stroll in the park because the orientation of the average university graduate from the North is that of unhindered exuberance and excitement. Education still means a lot to them beyond a meal ticket. We know that the North is still greatly disadvantaged in that department as against the South where degrees are now a dime a dozen. Let us say education to them means better access to power than a meal ticket. And yes, the students I met in ABU, understand power!
In my reckoning however, there was no serious need for such threats apart from the recent sit-at-home enforced in some South-East states. The sit-at-home was not violent, but the statement from the Arewa groups brought out the fact that even non-indigene residents of those states could not go about their legitimate businesses that day. Now, that has implications for the future. I actually admired the level of success recorded by the lockdown and felt it was a call for the government to sit up, but I didn’t consider then, that non-indigenes (such as Hausas trading in their Sabo settlements), would not find such funny and had stayed at home out of nothing else but fear. For them it’s not really about the money they lost for a couple of days, but that they were corralled and threatened into submission. There are always miscreants in every part of Nigeria, willing to take advantage of such fluid situations to unleash mayhem. Still, that one-day lockdown should not have provoked this type of ‘Orkah-esque’ declaration which the Sun Newspaper (a tabloid with specialty in sensationalism and where Mr Femi Adesina was Editor-in-Chief), tagged as ‘The Beginning of the End’ for Nigeria. My anger was directed at the Sun newspapers. A day after their prediction of ‘the end’ for Nigeria, their front-page was emblazoned with “Igbos Spit Fire!!” Now, that newspaper, owned by Orji Uzor Kalu is not shy of burning down this country while it smiles to the banks.
After a few days, the video of the declaration surfaced. First, the statement was given by an old person, and not a youth. I realized it was not a youthful exuberance thing after all and so the matter needed to be taken more seriously. Of prominence as one of the chief drivers of this declaration is one Yerima Shettima, who sat beside the declarant. I Googled Shettima to find out who he was. It so happens he was detained for months by the Department for State Security in 2009, for allegedly recruiting and training a militia of Hausa boys in Idi Araba, Lagos. That means the guy is a hot potato – just like Nnamdi Kanu. The lesson here is that each one of Nigeria’s 519 or so tribes has an Nnamdi Kanu – a hot-headed guy who professes tribal superiority and is ready to incite people to arms.
As a matter of fact, since that statement, we have seen many groups coming up with wild statements. A group of youths in the Niger Delta asked the Federal Government to withdraw all oil blocks given to northerners, and asked their allies in that area to resume the bombing of oil drilling infrastructure and pipelines. Another group from the South-west is inviting Yorubas to get ready to exit to their own country in a short while. Another Yoruba group has also asked Igbos to leave the territory by October 1, 2017, if they cannot stop talking of Biafra.
Let us unpack some of the issues:
1. The myth of Arewa House
The Southern people of Nigeria would usually complain that the North claims superiority over the rest. In this incidence, I saw how that superiority is handed on a platter to the North. Nnamdi Kanu and a bunch of people have been saying all sorts of things against other Nigerians and some of those who rushed to the press to say ‘Beginning of the end’, upon a singular statement from a Kanu-type rabble-rouser never saw anything wrong. The Southerners did not show restrain. Many didn’t even try to find out who was what before drawing dire conclusions. They showed they were scared of the North. The rationale, according to those who justified this position is that Northerners are known to carry out what they say. Some also pointed to the millions of Almajirai children up North, who could be used to effect the quit notice in a violent manner. Granted. But I would prefer a more cautious, methodical approach. Of course many extremists from the other side jumped into the matter.
To be continued next week
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