Essay
…Has the Muslim North Ever Won National Elections from Ahmadu Bello to Muhammadu Buhari without the Support of Christian and Southern Saboteurs?
By Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe
THE Nigerian Christians will not understand the root of their current gruesome experiences in the hands of their Muslim neighbors through the recurring massacre of their Brethren unless they understand what the Palestinian Hamas meant in Article Seven of their Charter in respect of the Jews:
The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: 0 Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).[1]
To think that the Traditional Muslim of the North will leave Rabiu Kwankwaso and Atiku Abubakar and vote for an Unbeliever like Peter Obi in the midst of the current frenzy of jihad against Christians in Nigeria is the height of naked ignorance. What is most disturbing about the unguarded tirades of the Muslim leaders against voting for a Christian is that the same Christians who see themselves as politically maligned, alienated from important political offices, and subjected to frequent massacre will still opt to vote for the same Muslim oppressors for a mess of portage. This is the catastrophic irony of the Nigerian Christian personality, which is frequently exploited by the unruly Muslim political leadership.
The Holy Bible is replete with references to the uncircumcised. In 2 Samuel 1: 20 the Bible tells us: “Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.” In Isaiah 52: 1, the Bible says: “Awake, awake; put on my strength, O Zion; put on my beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.”
I read with pulsating rage what the uncircumcised called Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso said, not about the Labour Party Presidential candidate Mr. Peter Obi, but the Igbo and the Christians of the Nigerian nation, because as the Igbo say, Ofu aka luta mmanu ometu oha aka (When one finger dips into the oil it spreads to the rest.) By telling Mr. Peter Obi that his northern Muslim kinsmen have resolved not to vote for him because he is an Igbo and a Christian Malam Rabiu Kwankwaso is saying that it will take an Igbo or a Christian fool and a slave to Muslim Fulani to vote for him—Rabiu Kwankwaso and Atiku Abubakar—those Fulani hegemonic political merchants who believe they are the only people born to rule.
But do I blame Mr. Kwankwaso. No! The Igbo in particularly and the vast Christian majority of the Nigerian nation have stubbornly refused to accept the fact that religion is the bastion of Fulani political strength in Nigeria and that outside their crude manipulation of Islam they have no other basis to conjure the kind of political followership they presently claim.
If a political upstart and opportunist like Rabiu Kwankwaso whose political experience has never gone beyond his spiritually-caged Kano enclave can boldly tell the Igbo on their faces without qualms that his people—the Muslims of Northern Nigeria will not vote for their kinsman Peter Obi just because he is of the politically uneducated Igbo, and audaciously turn around to tell the same Igbo to vote for him because he is of the superior political breed, then he is telling not only the Igbo but the entire Nigerian Christians that they are political slaves to the immigrant Fulani. And of course it will only take a slave to vote for a man who told him on his face that he is his slave. What I wish to remind Rabiu Kwankwaso is that Fulani is politically relevant in Nigeria because of the chronic saboteur syndrome of the Nigerian Christian population who constitute the majority by every demographical and statistical calculation. Let me further remind Kwankwaso that:
1. Without the support of the Arewa-born Hausa warrior Abdulsalami Mikaila who sabotaged his Hausa Kings, Shehu Usman dan Fodio shouldn’t have succeeded in his jihad against the Hausa States.
2. Without the support of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa shouldn’t have become the Prime Minister of Nigeria.
3. Without the support of support of Christian Middle Belt and Southerners, Biafra shouldn’t have been defeated.
4. Without the support of such Christian army officers as Generals Olusegun Obasanjo, T. Y. Danjuma, Iliya Bisala, and Joe Garba, General Murtala Mohammed shouldn’t have succeeded in his overthrow of General Yakubu Gowon.
5. Without the support of General Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Joseph Tarka and South-South, Alhaji Shehu Shagari shouldn’t have become the President.
6. Without the support of Middle Belt officers such as Generals Donkat Bali, Jeremiah Useni, Joshua Dogonyaro, David Mark, and Ishaya Bamaiyi, both Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha shouldn’t have become Heads of State.
7. Without the singular support of President Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua shouldn’t have become President.
8. Above all, without the support of a band of bankrupt and quisling Christians and Southern Muslims President Muhammadu Buhari shouldn’t have smelt Nigeria’s presidency.
9. The only successful Muslim Military take-over without the strong input of Christians were those of Muslim Fulani take-over from their Muslim Fulani Heads of State—Muhammadu Buhari from Shagari, and Abdulsalami Abubakar from Sani Abacha.
10. The Northern Muslims had tried to go it alone three times and failed in the present Fourth Republic through their AP, ANPP, and CPC, until the APC alliance came on board.
The irony of the lordship of the uncircumcised over the circumcised is that it often ended in disaster and retreat of Nigeria’s nationhood decades back in history. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa’s tenure as Prime Minister was flooded with the blood of the innocent through Tiv riots and Western Regional crisis, which consequently led to the first military coup, pogroms against the Igbo, and the civil war. General Muritala Mohammed was not given the space to initiate his heinous projects which were reminiscent of his civil war atrocious massacre of over two thousand defenseless Asaba indigenes. General Muhammadu Buhari’s nearly two-year rule was painted with the blood of the innocent through kangaroo trials and execution of drug agents.
General Ibrahim Babangida not only initiated assassinationss through bomb using the iconic journalist Dele Giwa as the litmus test, but supervised the elimination of 163 Christian elite military officers of Nigerian armed officers through the September 26, 1992 calculated crash of Nigerian Air force Aircraft Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport plane with serial NAF911. He capped it up with the wholesome elimination 42 Christian officers on July 27, 1990 accused of complicity in April 22, 1990 coup attempt led by Major Gideon Orkar. The Sani Abacha took the same tradition of spilling the blood of the innocent, from Chief Alfred Rewane, through Kudirat Abiola, Ken Saro Wiwa to Shehu Yar’Adua and countless unsung victims. General Adbulsalami Abubakar contributed his quota of blood through the diplomatic elimination of Chief Moshood K. O. Abiola.
Fortunately or unfortunately, whichever applies, President Umaru Yar’Adua did not have the time to implement the blood-cult policy before his untimely demise. But here we are under President Muhammadu Buhari. The present space will permit exposition of the quantum of innocent blood of Nigerians, including the army being spilled on their fatherland. But let us not forget that it was the same President Muhammadu Buhari that stated in 2012 that “If what happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood.’’[2]
So Nigerians cannot say they were not properly informed of the current massacre taking place under the same President Muhammadu Buhari—a Muslim Fulani. And for another Fulani man, be him Rabiu Kwankwaso or Atiku Abubakar to aspire to become Nigeria’s President, means that the Fulani as a group believe the rest Nigerians to be fools. This is because none of the two men has for once commented on the on-going massacre of Christians. Moreover, did Abubakar Atiku not sack his Christian spokesman for condemning on his behalf the gruesome killing by stoning of Miss Deborah Samuel? It will therefore amount to the height of moral declivity, political insensitivity, and religious defeatism for any Christian both North and South to campaign and vote for these two men. If their people said they cannot vote for Peter Obi because he is a Christian and Igbo, then it takes only Christian and Igbo slaves of the Fulani to campaign and vote for these two men.
P. G. Unamka, one of the celebrated columnists of the Second Republic, writing for the Enugu-based Daily Star issue of Friday January 14, 1983, at page 6, under the title “NTA and Pernicious Propaganda” frankly stated with unequalled passion:
Igbos have a short memory. That Igbos love money and flattery [is an undeniable fact]. Moreover, when an Igbo is given a political position he immediately opines that his opinion at once and instantly represents the mind of all Igbos. Working on some of these assumptions, many Igbo people had been lured with money.[3]
Indeed Job 13: 12 appears to be saying to the Igbo: “Your Remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.” Thus until the Igbo begin to reflect on their past before taking any serious political cause, there will never be defined solutions to their ridiculous political quagmire. As Kalu Okore of Akanu-Ohafia reflected on the psychological devastation of the civil war:
My lesson of the war is to be vigilant because a man who murdered my father raped my sister and with a knife ripped my mother’s womb to remove her unborn baby, starved me so that I would not survive economically, introduced my body organs to kwashiokor, will not spare me if he has an opportunity to strike again tomorrow.[4]
As Okwadike Chukwuemeka Ezeife, former Governor of Anambra State also rightly put it:
When do we begin to say ‘no’; that even in my own interest let me put the fire out of my neighbor’s house? It is in the interest of the Igbo man to support justice anywhere. It is our tradition to fight for the cause of justice. People who go out of our tradition are ruining the Igbo people. It is our tradition to say the truth and only the truth and not drifting and dance-twist on issues; to say our stand and make it clearly known and those who want to come along can come along, those who don’t want to come along, can go.[5]
The Great Zik of Africa Nnamdi Azikiwe re-echoed the fundamental character of the Igbo question in Nigerian the following soul-searching poetic lines:
As an Igbo, I know what it means: To be snubbed, to be cheated, and to be ignored, by Lilliputs. As an Igbo, I know what it means: To be a scapegoat, to be slandered, to be dreaded clandestinely, by Lilliputs. As an Igbo, I know what it means: To be interned to be a refugee, to be manipulated by Lilliputs. As an Igbo, I have tasted the gall of defeat in war: of having been bamboozled, of being tolerated. As an Igbo, I shall be vigilant: To be politically free, economically secure, socially compatible. As an Igbo, I will raise my eyes to the starry skies: And the Lilliputs will tremble. As an Igbo, I will raise my eyes to the starry skies: And see a future, spiced with splendour and glory; and the Lilliputs shall be ashamed.[6]
The above poetic lines present the facts as they exist even to the present day. There is no gainsaying the fact that the Igbo have remained the convenient tool of manipulation at will by those the above stated poetic lines refer to as the Lilliputs. To put the records straight, the anima persona of the Igbo of present day is that of one who is snubbed, cheated, trampled upon and merely tolerated. His contentment lies in playing the role of a second fiddle.
But even in recent times, it has not even been possible to have him lay hold to the much orchestrated second class role. The questions now thrown to the Igbo are when shall they learn to be vigilant, politically free, economically secure, socially compatible and the Lilliputs will tremble? When shall they ever raise their eyes to the starry skies to behold a future spiced with splendour and glory?
In 1945, the immigrant Muslim Fulani of the mining City of Jos attacked the Igbo residents in dispute that did not concern the Igbo but over a dispute between the indigenous Birom and immigrant Fulani. The British Colonial administration covered it up. To the Igbo the sad episode went the way of “Is alright.” In 1953, following Action Group Deputy Leader Chief Samuel Akintola’s planned campaign visit to Kano, the same Northern Muslim horde descended on the innocent Igbo residents and massacred a number of them for a problem neither they nor their political leaders were instrumental to. At the end of the day it went as usual to “Is Alright.”
Any group of people classed as being intelligent is marked out primarily by their ability to place the knowledge of their history in the forefront of their development process. Not only are such people expected to always connect themselves to their past but are expected to do so with unequivocal pride. The history of both Christianity and Islam shifted from the realms of myths and legends simply by the ability of the Jews to preserve not only the history and tradition of Abraham but by the very fact of their ability to preserve their identity and traditions as scions of the pristine Hebrew tradition.
Thus in a nut-shell, to be intelligent is to be historically conscious of one’s identity, past and essence of existence as a member of a defined culture group. As the Igbo adage goes: Onye na-amaro ebe mmiri si maba ya a ma makwa ebe osi kwusi maba ya (He who did not know where the rain began to beat him would not likewise know where it stopped to beat him.)
As Vansina, Mauny and Thomas instructively noted:
Every self-conscious nation looks back upon its past to revive former glories, to discover its origins, and to relate its history to that of other parts of the world, and to arrive at the knowledge of the development of its political, social, economic and other systems.[7]
The big question here is, have the Igbo learned the lessons of their history—the 1945 Jos riot, 1953 Kano riot, 1966 pogroms, the 1967-70 war of attrition against them, the post-civil war economic deprivations, political marginalization and countless cases of riots, killings, maiming, destruction of hard-earned property in the North, and of recent and trending history, the dastard armed Fulani herdsmen invasion of Igboland and officially instituted genocide directed against the Igbo under the vile cover of quelling pro-Biafra agitator and unknown gun-men?
There is no gainsaying the fact that the strength of the Fulani leadership lies in their ability to apply the weapon of history as the catalyst for the pursuit of their manifest political objective. Their many centuries of co-habitation with the Hausa did not in any form obliterate either their identity as a distinct culture group with a distinct language or their reliance on their past. Equally remarkable is the fact that in spite of their celebrated role as the vanguard of islamization through Jihad, they still remain glued to their pristine traditional religion expressed through their customs and tradition which is rooted on the life-cycle of the cow and jealously guided and preserved by their often vicious Bororo Fulani herdsmen.
From their historical experience the Fulani are aware that the strongest economic power comes only through political power and so invest resolutely on the acquisition of political power through every means at their disposal possible. In other words, it is the man who holds the political authority that has absolute access to the nation’s scarce resources and decides what to share and who to share to. Thus as far as they are concerned it does not matter to them how many educated elites the others possess since once they are in control of political power they can re-define the conditions for attaining a particular position to suit their requirements. As Prof. M.G. Smith a strong Fulani intellectual apologist rightly put it:
There is no doubt that the ruling Fulani, particularly in Sokoto Province, have actively nourished and reinterpreted the memory of the jihad and especially the charisma of the Shehu dan Fodio, in ways politically serviceable to their rule.[8]
As K.W.J. Post further observed in respect of the defunct Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC), known among the masses as Jam’iyyar Mutanin Arewa:
The defence of the Islamic faith against the unbelievers has been one of the rallying calls of the Jami’yyar Mutanin Arewa both as a cultural organization and as an embryo political party. In 1959 the NPC was still the ‘party of the faithful’, and still used this slogan with considerable effect in the Federal election.[9]
But the Igbo should bear in mind that Rabiu Kwakwaso’s assertion was not a spontaneous outburst that might have a leeway for denial but one that is ingrained in the fundamental Fulani jihad ideology coated in inveterate hatred of Igbo people. We should not be quick to forget that in an address which was written and spoken in Arabic during the launching of Alhaji Isa Kaita’s Power of knowledge at Dubar Hotel, Kaduna on December 22, 1992, Alhaji Maitama Sule made similar degenerating statement against the Igbo:
In this country, all of us need one another. Hausa need Igbos, need Yoruba and the Yoruba need the Northerners. Everyone has a gift from God. Northerners are endowed by God with leadership qualities. The Yoruba man knows to earn a living and has diplomatic qualities. The Igbo is gifted in commerce, trade and technological innovation. God so created us individually for a purpose and doctors. We all need each other. If there are no followers, a king will not need if there are no students, a teacher will not be required etc.[10]
The instances are legion. In his infamous 1960 interview with a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Reporter who had observed in the followings:
One thing I have noticed while I have been here is that northerners seem to have the worst form of obsession about the Igbos. Could you please explain that?[11]
Sir Ahmadu Bello then went ahead to answer without any sense of equivocation:
Well the Ibos are more or less a type of people whose desire is mainly to dominate everybody. If you put them in a labour camp as labourer, within a year they will try to emerge as the headman of that camp and so on. Well in the past our people were not alive to their responsibilities, because as you can see from our northernization policy that in 1952 when I came here, there were ten northerners in our civil service.[12]
This obsession was further expressed by the Northern Regional House of Assembly during the 1964 debate on Igbo position on the controversial 1962/63 National Census. The following excerpts of anti-Igbo speeches made in the Northern House of Assembly between February and March, 1964 further pointed out the depth of this obsession. [13]
During the said anti-Igbo debate, Mallam Muhammadu Mustapha Maude Gyari had stated:
On the allocation of plots to Ibos, or allocation of stalls I would like to advise the Minister that these people know how to make money and we do not know the way and manner of getting about this business…. We do not want Ibos to be allocated with plots, I do not want them to be given plots….
On his account, Mallam Bashari Umaru submitted:
I would want you, as the Minister of Land and Survey, to revoke forthwith all Certificates of Occupancy from the hands of the Ibos resident in the Region.
In his submission, Mallam Muktar Bello stated:
I would like to say something very important, that the Minister should take my appeal to the Federal Government about the Ibos in the Post Office. I wish the numbers of these Ibos be reduced…. There are too many of them in the North. They were just like sardines and I think they were just too dangerous to the region.
Further submitting, Alhaji Usman Liman (Sarkin Musawa) stated:
What brought the Ibos into this region? They were here since Colonial days. Had it not been for Colonial Rule there would hardly have been any Ibo in this Region. Now that there is no Colonial Rule the Ibos should go back to their region. There should be no hesitation about this matter. Mr. Chairman, North is for Northerners, East for Easterners, West for Westerners and the Federation for us all.
Wrapping up the Debate on the Igbo, the Minister of Land and Survey Alhaji the Honourable Ibrahim Musa Gashash stated:
Mr. Chairman, Sir, I do not like to take up much of the time of this House in making explanations, but I would like to assure Members that having heard their demands about Ibos holding land in Northern Nigeria my Ministry will do all it can to see that the demands of Members are met. How to do this, when to do it, all this should not be disclosed. In due course, you will all see what will happen.
This was the state of that obsession when the Western Regional election crisis of 1964 sparked of the January 15, 1966 military putsch.
Bashir el-Rufai—the son of Jihadist Governor of Kaduna State, Malam el-Rufai was raw and direct when he stated in his twitter out rightly vilifying the Igbo for the death of Ahmadu Bello and their attempt to speak only the pogrom which he defined as a sweet revenge. As he put:
A segment of a nation undertook a coup and killed other regional leaders with so much disrespect and expected peace and acquiescence thereafter. Then attempt to make history solely define it as revenge when same was done to them. It was revenge and it was sweet.[14]
But the fundamental question which arises from this obvious irredeemable Fulani-driven Northern Muslim obsession against the Igbo is, with all their high-level intelligence expressed in their high level of education and aggressive enterprising spirit, did the Igbo take note of the depth of that Fulani obsession against them?
[1] [1] THE CHARTER OF ALLAH: THE PLATFORM OF THE ISLAMIC RESISTANCE MOVEMENT (HAMAS) Translated and annotated by Raphael Israeli Harry Truman Research Institute The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel,
[2]. Luka Binniyat, “2015 ‘ll be bloody if…- Buhari” Vanguard 15 May, 2012 https://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/05/2015-ll-be-bloody-if-buhari/
[3]. P.C. Unamka, “NTA and Pernicious Propaganda” Daily Star Friday January 14, 1983, 6
[4]. Evidence of Kalu Okore, 60, Farmer, of Akanu Ohafia, Interview by O.N. Okore, 15 January, 1992
[5]. The Eastern Voice June 10 – 16, 1996, 15
[6] [6] Nnamdi Azikiwe, Civil War Soliloquies Nsukka 1977, 58
[7] J. Vansina, R. Mauny and L. Thompson (eds) The Historian in Tropical Africa London: Oxford University Press, 1964, 59
[8]. M. G. Smith, “The Jihad of Shehu dan Fodio: some problems”, in I. M. Lewis (ed) Islam in Tropical Africa London: Oxford University Press, 1966, 411
[9]. K.W.J. Post (1959) The Federal Election of 1959 London: OUP, 54
[10] Channels Television https://www.channelstv.com/tag/maitama-sule/page/2/
[11] “Sardauna of Sokoto on Igbo People and why there is no such thing as ‘One Nigeria’” https//www.youtube.com
[12] “Sardauna of Sokoto on Igbo People and why there is no such thing as ‘One Nigeria’” https//www.youtube.com
[13] Nigerian Pogrom: the organized massacre of Eastern Nigerians (1966) Enugu: Publicity Division of the Ministry of Information, Eastern Nigeria
[14] Bashir El-Rufai@BashirElRufai https//mobile.twitter.com/BashirElRufai/status/….https//www.nairaland.com@
***Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD
Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
Pioneer Director, Centre for Igbo Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
Africanist Scholar, Author, Human Rights Activist and Public Affairs Commentator
Convener, Project Never Again Deborah Samuel for Christian Liberation
Tags: Peter Obi Rabiu Kwankwaso
