Stoking the fire, that is what Professor Ango Abdullahi, Chairman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) is doing by telling northern herdsmen living and doing business in Southern Nigeria to return to Northern Nigeria. He says he is giving the directive based on the allegation that some southern leaders had threatened war against the herdsmen. A group of youths called Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has made the same call on northern herdsmen to return. Professor Abdullahi put it this way: “We are worried about their well-being. If it is true that their safety can no longer be guaranteed we rather have them back in areas where their safety can be guaranteed.”
It is a fact that there is an escalation of insecurity in many parts of the country especially in the north east, north west as well as south west and south east but the solution is not in making dubious and mischievous calls for people who have been living peacefully with other Nigerians to move from their places of abode to their home states. There are already many internally displaced persons in various parts of the country who need to be rehabilitated before they can return to their normal places of abode.
When socio-cultural organisations such as the Northern Elders Forum and the Coalition of Northern Groups give such orders you begin to wonder on what authority they are doing so. They do not have any administrative or legal authority over the people that they are commanding to leave their places of normal abode and return to the north. They have no refugee camps or facilities for their reception, rehabilitation and resettlement. They have not told us what will happen to them if and when they return. Will they provide food, shelter and employment for them and their families or will they all go to live in Ango Abdullahi’s house?
Professor Ango Abdullahi was a Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna. He was used to treating his students as children but that was okay because as the Vice Chancellor he was their surrogate father. But he is not in the same situation today and the northerners making a living in the south are not students who must be dictated to.
Many of these people have lived in the south for decades and have been acculturated and some inter-marriages have taken place between them and their hosts. Those are the people that Professor Abdullahi wants to uproot with his flippant and irresponsible directive. The northerners who live in the south belong to different professional groups. Some of them are cattle rearers, currency dealers, security men while others are okada and keke riders. There are also those who are white collar workers, who work for the oil companies, telecommunication companies as well as banks.
It is amazing that Abdullahi and his youths expect these people to throw their jobs away and troop to the north and face an uncertain future when those with whom they live and do business have not given them a quit notice. It is true that there is widespread insecurity in the country but it is the responsibility of every Nigerian not to pour petrol in the raging fire. Rather it is the duty of every Nigerian to seek to quench the fire so that it does not become a conflagration. People like Abdullahi for whom the country had done much by giving him a position of pre-eminence as a Vice Chancellor owe the country the duty of contributing to its stability by guiding and advising our youths appropriately on national issues.
His remarks on the situation of insecurity in the country are the equivalent of rabble-rousing. If the Governors of the northern states are not calling on their citizens who live elsewhere in the country to return home on what basis is he issuing his unfriendly directive? It is heart-warming that the Federal Government has promptly issued a statement asking the people to ignore the ill-advised directive of Abdullahi and his group. Every Nigerian under the protection of the Constitution is free to live and work anywhere in the country. It is true that the killing of Mrs Olufunke Olakunrin, daughter of Pa Reuben Fasoranti, Leader of Afenifere, has ushered in some disquiet in the South West but it is important for people to let the Police complete its investigation on the woman’s death instead of the attempts made by several people to politicise the matter without having solid information on the matter. It is also reassuring that the Chairman of the South West Governors’ Forum, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, has weighed in with a definitive statement on the matter. He has condemned what he described as the “unpatriotic outbursts of self-serving organisations of opportunists.” He said further: “All Nigerians who have legitimate reasons to be in our midst are welcome in the region. The governments and the people of the South West will protect all persons regardless of their ethnic and or religious backgrounds. Only criminals will find our space not hospitable.”
What Abdullahi and the youths are playing with has the seeds of a conflagration. If the northerners in the south obey them and return to the north, it means that southerners living in the north will also be forced willy-nilly to relocate to the south. The bitterness that these expulsions and the exodus will generate will be tough to handle. At the moment the country is swarmed by refugees and escapees from Libya and other places which have complicated our unemployment and refugee problems.
At present Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder. With the upsurge in kidnapping, banditry and other crimes we already have our hands full. We do not need any further stoking of the fire. This is the time for people to talk responsibly, softly, sensibly and make only suggestions that can bring our temperature down, that can calm frayed nerves and can give us the chance to return the country to a state of normalcy in the near future. Those who are beating war drums and promising to offer fire and brimstone have never seen war. They may have seen war in the movies but that is make-believe. They may cringe when they see blood spilling but that is red ink, not blood. In the real world, in a real war, what people will see will be real human blood, not red ink. Professor Abdullahi was not in the Eastern region during the Nigerian civil war. He is not a soldier so he has not experienced war. The youths were certainly not born during that war so they have no idea what war is or how a situation that looks mild can degenerate into a shooting war. Those of us who were in the thick of the Nigerian civil war for 30 months have stories of horror and deprivation to tell. No one who has gone through the trauma and adversity of one war would ask for another. Nigerians are trying too hard to bring their country down with reckless, inflammatory statements.
It is only those who read about wars in books who think that it is nothing to worry about. This country has a lot that it can offer its citizens and make their lives better if only we are ready and willing to give peace a chance. No country can thrive in a perpetual state of disharmony. Since 2009 or so when we started dealing with the Boko Haram menace our country has been on a slippery slope. While we are still battling that premium-level insurgency other insecurity issues have compounded our problem and made us look like a banana republic. If we are to dig ourselves out of the hole in which we have found ourselves all men and women of goodwill must rise and support every effort made in the search for peace.
That search will not cause an outbreak of peace if we do not deliberately court peace and shun war or war-like sabre-rattling. The government and the security forces seem to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem. It would not be out of place if President Muhammadu Buhari heeds the calls made by several people for the convocation of a bi-partisan security summit. That summit would bring together experts in various fields of endeavour. We may be surprised that at the end of the day new ideas may emerge that can significantly assist us to confront our security demons more effectively.
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