Guest Writer
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— A backroom view of the state of the struggle for a True Federalism Constitution
| By Chinweizu |
Our ‘mumu’ (is it stupidity?) has caught up with us. Now, no one can escape the dire consequences of living in our cultural and institutional deceit, self-denial and delusions.
In brotherly frankness, please take these from me, Amos Akingba.
The quote is the last paragraph of Amos Akingba’s email of 05jan15 to his aburo. It shall be the text for my discourse on why the decades-long struggle for a True Federalism Constitution stands today in danger of being defeated.
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From the backroom where ill health has confined me, I’ve been watching this struggle for a True Federalism Constitution, TFC, and I have a few observations to share with the elders and captains of the struggle.
The handwriting on the wall, as I see it, is that the chance of winning the struggle for TFC by dialogue and negotiation was lost on the Confab floor during its closing session when Arewa introduced a surprise amendment to the Confab Report requiring that it be sent to the NASS as proposed amendments to the 1999 Constitution. By not defeating that amendment, the non-Caliphate majority of the delegates—from the New South: i.e. south of Shariyaland, and comprising the zones of South-West, South-South, South-East, and North-Central as well as the indigenous non-Hafukawa who are trapped in Shariyaland itself, such as the Zuru in Kebbi State and the Chibok in Borno State, whose new alliance had secured those far reaching recommendations in the Confab Report– threw away all the marvelous gains they had made. In not defeating that amendment, the New South delegates sent the report to a NASS where Arewa can kill or gut it. Unless their fraudulently built-in dominance at the NAS S can somehow be overcome, Arewa will get NASS to nullify the Confab Report and return the struggle for TFC to square zero where it started decades ago.
Why that amendment was not defeated is a matter for another discussion. My aim here is to draw attention to what should be done to begin to reverse that setback. Every struggle suffers its setbacks, some avoidable, some not avoidable. But once it has happened, the challenge is to recover from the setback and push on till you achieve victory. To help promote such recovery, permit me to make some suggestions, starting with the quite obvious, since the obvious has a tendency to be overlooked.
A post mortem session
The first thing a team or group should do after a setback, and indeed after every operation, whether successful or not, is a post mortem (a.k.a. Criticism self-criticism , CSC) session.
During the post Confab CSC session, I suggest that prime attention be paid to understanding what Amos Akingba has perceptively and provocatively called “Our mumu.” The second issue that the CSC session should take up is the rebranding of the struggle and turning it into the Nigerian Liberation Movement, NLM.
First, what is our” mumu” and how do we end it?
Here is my take on what it is.
To guide our understanding of it, here are two precepts from Sun Tzu, the master strategician (expert in strategics, the science of strategy) from ancient China:
- “One who is not acquainted with the designs of his neighbors should not enter alliances with them”
- “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated”
Our “mumu’, broadly speaking, has been our ignorance and non-application of these two precepts.
But our principal mumu has been our ignorance of precept (a). Discovering the designs of our neighbor, by showing us that we have an enemy and who that enemy is, will help cure us of our disregard of precept (b). So let’s focus on precept (a).
Our “mumu” is our refusal to understand the designs of our Caliphate neighbors [a.k.a the Hafukawa (the Hausa-Fulani-Kanuri people), the Arewa sosei (the True North) or the Shariyalanders] with whom we addictively insist on cohabiting Lugard’s Nigeria. What we have refused to understand may be broken down into the following items:
Mumu #1: The Caliphate is the subcontractor to whom the British colonialists, under cover of granting independence in 1960, handed over Nigeria to colonize for them. They are the licensed sub-colonizers for the British imperialists.
Mumu #2: The ambition of the Caliphate, its design on its neighbors in Nigeria, is to be the perpetual colonial masters over all other Nigerians-–this is sometimes hazily glimpsed as their “born to rule” mentality. The non-Caliphate Nigerians have failed to investigate the designs of our Caliphate neighbors. As a result we have not understood who it is we insist on cohabiting Nigeria with. Without knowing their colonialist designs, we have sought to build a “One Nigeria” in which they are included as partners. In so doing, we have been like mice who insist on cohabiting a cage with a cat, on the blind assumption that the cat is their brother, and is just another mouse, and therefore not a predator who eats mice. The cat has gladly gone along with the foolish and undiscerning mice, hoping they’ll never wise up to its designs until it’s too late for them.
Mumu #3: The Caliphate uses religion, its project of “advancing Sharia”, as cover for expanding its influence beyond its Arewa/Shariyaland base area into the rest of its inherited colony called Nigeria.
Mumu #4: The Caliphate is incorrigibly anti-democracy, and will use whatever it can—coups, pogroms, fraudulent constitutions, rigged elections etc.—to prevent democracy from taking root in Nigeria. That is the prime lesson from June 12 and the frauds of the 1999 constitution, but we’ve refused to learn and apply it.
Ignorance of, and even willful refusal to understand, these four things is what constitutes “our mumu.” Our mumu has been the radical error of the non-Caliphate Nigerians since negotiations for independence began in the mid-1940s. It is still with us as we go into the 2015 elections. And that is where it could accomplish our permanent enslavement to the Caliphate.
For some 70 years now, we have assumed that the Caliphate is simply our partner in the project of winning independence from Britain and building Nigeria into a nation. But, in fact, the Caliphate has always had other designs. It has been a colonialist predator and not our partner in building “One Nigeria”. We non-Caliphate Nigerians have been acting on this lack of understanding of our Caliphate “partners”. Here are key examples:
- 1950s: Because they wanted a big One Nigeria, the South (the Eastern and Western regions) delayed their independence and waited for a North which claimed it was not ready. Had they understood the colonialist designs of the Caliphate, they would have refused to even consider the idea of co-existing with the Caliphate within Nigeria, and would have taken their independence separately in 1956. In waiting for the North, the South were like mice on a ship who refused to set sail until the cat came on board. That was our Mumu #2 in action.
- 1970s: During the negotiation for the 1979 constitution, the North insisted on inclusion of Sharia in a secular constitution. They were accommodated without our realizing that we were accommodating a cat among the mice. That was our Mumu #3 in action.
- 2014: At the Confab, the Arewa delegates came as a militant colonialist corps determined to protect their empire at any cost. But the non-Caliphate delegates went there without consciously organizing as a militant anti-colonialist Crusader corps to battle the Caliphate colonialist Jihadist corps. The non-Caliphate delegates therefore approached the confab as if it was a boardroom negotiation between partners in building “One Nigeria” whereas it was a serious battlefield. That, again, was our Mumu #2 in action.
- Then, after having made significant gains in the negotiations, the non-Caliphate delegates failed to defeat the last minute Arewa amendment that, rather than bypassing the NASS and treating the report as a basis for an entirely new constitution, sent the report to the NASS as mere recommendations for amending the fraudulent 1999 constitution. Had they gone to the confab with the militant spirit of freedom fighters for liberation from Caliphate Colonialism, they would have been on high alert and would not have allowed that trickster amendment to go through. Again that was our Mumu#2 in action.
- 2015: As we head towards the February elections, our voters, not having learned the prime lesson of June 12, are ignorant of the incorrigible anti-democracy character of the Caliphate colonialists. They therefore regard the GEJ-Buhari contest as just another contest between two Nigerian democrats. Not recognizing that Buhari is the candidate and agent of the anti-democracy Caliphate colonialists who aborted June 12, or not recognizing what that would mean should Buhari win, many are prepared to vote for Buhari rather than against him. That is our Mumu #4 in action.
This is quite ominous. Just as the Caliphate, from its fear of democracy, aborted June 12, you can bet that, through an elected or rigged-in “President Buhari,” it will abort the present experiment in democracy using any means it finds necessary—coup, army mutiny, pogrom, martial law, state of emergency, the illegal suspension of the constitution or some other gimmick that would help them eternally entrench their fraudulent 1999 constitution. Buhari is hypocritically posing as a democrat who will sweep the political stables clean of corruption etc. From his history we know he won’t. Enemies of democracy have been known to get into office through democratic election only to turn and destroy the democracy by which they won power. That’s exactly how Hitler got the power with which he plagued the world. So beware of Buhari’s democratic posturing. Recall his transgressions when he was military head of state and learn your lesson. Can the leopard change his spots or the cat stop mousing? So, the paramount issue in this election is Buhari and the Caliphate colonialism that he represents. Do we want them to perpetually enslave us and rub pepper into our eyes? That’s what our history says should determine how we vote. If Buhari wins, we are defeated and will end up enslaved to the Caliphate Colonialists. If Buhari is defeated, we have a chance to continue our liberation struggle.
The first task of Nigerians today should be to understand our “mumu,” and having done so, to work out ways to end it. After recognizing the designs of our Caliphate neighbors for what they are— namely Caliphate colonialism, that is to say, the perpetual enslavement of all non-Caliphate Nigerians, we can understand that they are the enemy in our midst and why. Having come to know our enemy, we would have fulfilled the first part of Sun Tzu’s precept to “know the enemy etc.”
Without knowing that the Caliphate is our enemy, we can’t hope to win our struggle for TFC.
After the leaders of the TFC struggle understand all that, their next task should be to get the tens of millions of non-Caliphate Nigerians to also understand and end this our “mumu.” Only then can they vote in their own basic strategic interest and vote against Buhari and the Caliphate.
Whether that public enlightenment task can be accomplished before Feb. 14, is another matter. But however much can be done should be done. The enlightenment campaign should be continued thereafter so as to prepare the minds of non-Caliphate Nigerians for the post-election resumption of the struggle for TFC. That knowledge will help to mobilize them for the rest of the struggle.
Let me sum up briefly. We need to know that the Caliphate is an incorrigible colonizer and anti-democracy feudalist; it is determined to colonize and perpetually enslave all the other Nigerians. You can’t defeat an enslaver until you recognize that his mission is to enslave you. It is only after gaining that precious insight that you can organize appropriately and do whatever is necessary to defeat him. Gaining that insight and acting on it would constitute the ending of our “mumu.” If Buhari wins on February 14, then all of us of the New South lose—regardless of our religion, regardless of our ethnicity, regardless of our political party, we all and our posterity become slaves of the Caliphate colonialists.
For a historical essay on the Caliphate Colonialism that we are up against, please Gooogle : Chinweizu, Caliphate Colonialism, The Taproot of the trouble with Nigeria, Nigeria Village Square
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Tags: Caliphate Colonialism Chinweizu feudalist Nigeria Village Square The Taproot of the trouble with Nigeria
