Cracked Walls

The lizard finds a home in cracked walls
– Nigerian proverb

Presidency spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu released a statement a few days ago warning that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is using Christianity to wage war against Nigeria. He said IPOB is running two “interconnected and misleading campaigns” seeking to convince US,UK and EU countries that there is an on-going genocide against Christians in Nigeria. He gave details of attempts to lobby for political influence through well-funded media campaigns and other activities to damage inter-religious relations and Nigeria’s global reputation. He advised Nigerians and the international community to ignore these attempts.

I resent giving undeserved attention to groups like IPOB, but Malam Garba’s statement makes it necessary to mention it along with other more important and related issues. Actually, as a thoroughbred professional, Malam Garba would know that he has given IPOB a major platform to be heard at a time the nation and the global community  are aware of its diminishing status. There could be other legitimate grounds that make it necessary to give this group the attention it does not deserve from the Presidency to which we are not privy, but IPOB would chalk up this statement as a plus. It is safe to assume that there are strong initiatives to engage diplomatic missions of these countries in Nigeria  to mitigate damage from fraudulent claims and expose this group as clutching at straws.

The world does watch Nigeria closely, with good reason. A nation of 200 million people that has turned dancing near the edge into an art form has to be watched closely. It is in the nature of global politics that some countries or groupings will  genuinely worry when our elections threaten our democracy and  national security; when an insurgency threatens to remain a permanent feature of our lives; when corruption destroys the valuable foundations of faith and trust between citizens and leaders; when our inter-group relations constantly call to question the viability of our union; when we fail to use our resources to build an economy that should keep our huge populations within safe, productive and secure brackets; and when increasingly more and more of us fall victims to new forms of insecurity. These would be nations with huge stakes and investments  in our stability, development and survival. There are others that will walk on both sides of the street: they would prefer a Nigeria that is weak and dependent on their generosity and goodwill, yet  strong enough not to fall to pieces and threaten much of Africa and the world.

The world that watches us very closely knows better than to buy  allegations of genocide against Nigerian Christians from a group whose primary goal is to convince fellow Igbo that they are better-off outside Nigeria. Indeed, the resistance against the objectives of groups like IPOB is more pronounced among the Igbo than from  other Nigerians. The religious straw is very slippery, even if it makes good politics in some circles in the US and UK. There are tens of millions of Christians outside IPOB’s “constituency” in Nigeria, and majority will lose sleep if they know that IPOB has assumed responsibility for their place and fate as Christians in Nigeria. The current leadership of the US operates outside what the world knows as normal, but even Trump will be hard put to roll out the red carpet for IPOB to present its grievance on religious genocide in Nigeria.

This is where one wishes that the Presidency’s rare voice on matters of this nature has been heard around areas and issues that genuinely represent threats to peace and security. It could not have escaped the Presidency’s attention that a lot of energy is being expended in raising fear that Hausa and Fulani people are being smuggled with their weapons to fight and possibly exterminate and take over land from indigenous communities in southern Nigeria. Governors, ethnic and other leaders have been stoking sentiments and encouraging communities to view northerners living or moving into them to earn a legitimate existence as potential terrorists. Videos of governors hunting for northerners being “smuggled” into communities, and stories of massive yet  invisible  arms accompanying them have been shared on thousands of social media platforms.

Since the panic measures that accompanied the pandemic turned all our leaders into short-term opportunists, and northern governors started “deporting” almajirai, every northerner living in many parts of the East or the South South became an almajiri. People who had lived in, or travelled to these areas for decades to earn legitimate living within communities that knew them suddenly became terrorists, armed herders, almajirai and fair game for threats and other acts that seriously abridge their  constitutional rights to live and work anywhere in Nigeria. It is arguable whether it is purely a coincidence that the demands for an end to the union, ranging  from old, tired and expired voices to fairly new arrivals announcing affiliations of a future Yoruba nation with global bodies are suddenly being thrust at a nation battling too many fronts. The game plan appears to be to exploit a transparent weakness at the center, and make those noises that weaken the Nigerian state further. An expensive gamble is also at play here. The North will be made to “cede” the Presidency to the South, or the rest of Nigeria will walk away rather than live under another elected northern president after 2023. A variant of this gamble will be to force the hands of whoever has responsibility for putting into motion a process that will restructure Nigeria along lines preferred by the noisemakers, or the grounds would have laid for exits by whatever means necessary.

If there are northerners who feel aggrieved at the demonisation of other northerners in parts of the south, they may choose to speak up or wait for the degeneration of a situation and provocations that puts every community in the country in danger. The federal government, however, cannot be indifferent to these provocations. Calling out IPOB’s demand that powerful nations should move against religious genocide in the country may serve the purpose of exposing some expensive fiction by a group that will do anything to create the impression that it is alive and kicking as a vanguard of the Igbo and Nigerian Christians, but there are also murmurs of genocide that needs attention  in a part of Kaduna State that had shed too much blood for too long. The communities in Kajuru Local Government Area need help to stop the bloodletting that is caused by a dangerous mix of  ancient and recent motives, which appear to defy all efforts of the state government. Whatever needs to be done to bring respite to communities in this area should be done, because they deserve peace to recover, and because there are too many interests working to paint the entire region with this conflict.

If the bandits running riot in the north west of Nigeria were not known distinctly as rouges and scoundrels  of many Fulani stocks and a sprinkling of rural Hausa, the manner they empty Hausa villages and Fulani settlements will be consistent with the definition of genocide. But here we are, living with a relatively new phenomenon of gangs of bandits, rustlers and kidnappers rolled into one, armed with large numbers of weaponry, serviceable motorcycles, intelligence and confidence, roaming huge swathes of the savannah unleashing terror and making the state look completely ineffective or virtually non-existent. There are other conflicts involving communities in many parts of the north east and north central that involve Christians killing Christians, or Muslims and Christians killing each other, but in all cases not entirely over faith differences. Many of these conflicts have old roots and new leaves, and they defy resolution on permanent basis.

A productive investment of our nation’s energies and assets should be in the area of mobilising  the assistance of friendly states to acquire the weapons and other capacities we need to fight the  insurgency and sundry security challenges. We need an appreciation of our complexities and challenges as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation, as well as the fact that every group has its own grievances as a component of the Nigerian state. We need a world that understands the implications of our country going under, and the benefits of a Nigeria with a strong economy, a productive democratic system and a strong leadership role in Africa. We have cracked walls that allow the world to see through our weaknesses. We need to fix these cracks with imagination and a willingness to assume effective responsibility for our problems. The world will neither sit on the fence nor support those who seek to demolish our walls if we make sure the cracks are fixed.