[pull_quote_center] “Our country, Nigeria, is about people that God put together”- Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, 8th June 2017. [/pull_quote_center]
I am sorry Mr. Acting President but I humbly and respectfully disagree. We must not use God’s name in vain. Worse still you have based your assertion on a false premise. I am afraid that you got it completely wrong. The truth is that our country is about people that the British, not God, put together.
They did not just put us together but they rigged the system and designated those of us from the south and Middle Belt as slaves and “rich wives” whilst the core north were designated as the master race, the slave-masters and the “poor husband”.
Since then the people of the Middle Belt, the northern minorities and the south have been bruised, battered, raped, sodomised, cheated, humiliated, ethnically cleansed, subjected to genocide and hatred, hopelessly marginalised and turned into servile and grovelling serfs in their own country by invaders and vandals from a distant land.
I know the history inside out from day one and the Holy Spirit reminds me of it every day. No Mr. Acting President, do not bring God into it. This is not the work of God, it is the work of the devil.
Permit me to go further. It is instructive to note that in the British general election which took place on Thursday 8th June, no less than seven Members of Parliament, all of southern Nigerian heritage and extraction, were elected into office.
They are Chuka Umunna representing Streatham. Bim Afolami representing Hitchin & Harpenden. Fiona Onasanya representing Peterborough. Chi Onwurah representing Newcastle Central. Kate Osamor representing Edmonton. Kemi Badenock representing Saffron Walden. And Helen Grant representing Maidstone & The Weald.
They have all made us proud yet not one of them is from the northern part of Nigeria or a member of Nigeria’s “born to rule” master race.
That says a lot about southern and northern Nigeria respectively. In a sane, decent and civilised society where merit is the watchword and justice and equity is the foundation southern politicians excel.
In a society that is mired in deceit and fear and that wallows in intellectual barrenness, abject poverty, social deviancy, spiritual harlotry, debilitating bondage and racial, religious and regional hegemony and discrimination northern politicians flourish whilst their counterparts from the south live in fear and trepidation and remain in subjugation, never achieving their full potentials.
The truth is that if any of those British/Nigerian MP’s had chosen to practice politics in this country as opposed to the United Kingdom, they would have been regarded as nothing more than field hands, errand boys and slaves by the northern ruling elite and, simply on account of their faith, region and tribe, they would have struggled very hard to have been considered as anything more than appendages, quislings and lackeys to the owners of the geographical space called Nigeria.
This is despite the fact collectively they constitute and represent some of the brightest minds in the world and each and every one of them is capable and more than qualified of being the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
That is how bad the plight of southerners are in Nigeria today: no matter how eager, bright, intelligent, dedicated and patriotic they are, they cannot lead without permission and a blessing from the core Muslim north and they cannot flourish or excel in the political arena without the tacit support of the master race. We are indeed living in insufferable bondage.
This Mr. Acting President, is not the work of God: it is the work of the devil.
And quite apart from the historical woes and sorrows and avoidable tragedies of the last 103 years which we have discussed, analysed, written essays about and debated “ad infinitum” what has the rulership of the almighty north and their mystical, indestructible, all-knowing, all-powerful gap-toothed Mahdi offered us in the last two years? All we see is chaos, all we feel is pain, all we shed are tears and all we taste is blood. Let us look at it critically and honestly.
2.1 million Nigerians lost their jobs in 2016. Fulani herdsmen have flooded children’s schools with their cows in Edo state, chased the kids out and put their cows in the classrooms.
A strong coalition of Arewa (northern) youth
groups have threatened the Igbos of south-eastern Nigeria and asked them to leave the north within three months.
The Northern Elders Forum led by Professor Ango Abdullahi supported their call and repeated and reiterated their threat and quit notice to the Igbo. Boko Haram has attacked and entered parts of Maiduguri.
The President has vanished into thin air, gone AWOL and disappeared and no-one seems to be sure what is wrong with him, where he is or whether he is alive or dead.
Federal Ministers that were cleared by the Senate over 6 weeks ago have not yet been sworn in.
The Buhari administration has not had a Secretary to Federal Government (SGF) running and coordinating its affairs for months now.
The 2017 budget has not been signed even though we are 6 months into the year. Nigeria is in deep economic recession and people are suffering.
Thousands of innocent men, women and children are being slaughtered by Fulani militants all over the country.
Genocide and mass murder have been committed against IPOB youths in the east and Shiite Muslims in Zaria by security forces.
Nigerians are on their knees begging for crumbs and millions of them have been turned into second class citizens and slaves.
Human rights are being abused and civil liberties are being violated in the most vicious and brazen manner whilst leaders of the opposition and their families are subjected to nightmarish and endless criminal investigations and politically-motivated and malicious criminal prosecutions.
Government officials are not only incompetent but also hopelessly corrupt yet they act with impunity because they are considered to be above the law.
A dark, evil, sinister cabal of religious bigots and ethnic supremacists have held the Acting President captive and they are running our country even though they were never elected and most Nigerians don’t even know their names or what they look like.
Apartheid is alive and well in Nigeria where the “master race” of northern Muslims head every single military, security and intelligence agency except for the Navy.
The Government has encouraged a culture where cattle are regarded as being more important than human beings and where Christian leaders, clerics and the Church are subjected to humiliation, insults, shame and all manner of indignities.
The National Assembly is being harrassed and the Judiciary is being intimidated.
Nigerians are divided, hungry, fearful of the future and very angry.
The Igbos of the south east and the Niger Deltans of the south south are so marginalised and disgusted that they are agitating for secession and the creation of the sovereign and independent nations of Biafra and Rondel respectively.
The Yoruba of the south-west are so distressed and alarmed that they have turned the word “restructuring” to their battle cry and warned that if it does not come sooner than later the disintergration of Nigeria will become inevitable the Republic of Oduduwa will become a reality.
The people of the Middle Belt and the northern minorities, historical victims of the most barbaric and pronounced form of oppression and supression from a relentless and unforgiving master, for the first time in our history, are crying that they are not part of any Arewa north and that if the south insist on going they would rather leave with them rather than stay in bondage and as slaves and appendages of the core north for another 100 years.
What a mess Buhari and his APC have put us in. They are a curse. They are the greatest evil that has EVER befallen our country and by 2019, by God’s grace, we will flush them down the toilet where they belong.
Nothing speaks to our situation better than the profound and reassuring words of Chief Osi Asika, a respected diplomat and a seasoned and experienced political commentator. A few days ago he wrote the following:
“It is naive for man to try and change certain forces and phenomena or the way they impact on our lives and ourselves individually. Seasons come and seasons go, as do empires and civilizations. Winters today are not what they used to be. Rome has long fallen as have many other man made empires. For any to believe that the Fulani will be any different amuses, nay titillates. Pass the popcorn please!”
He concluded by saying,
“Talk about the Berlin wall, the disintegration of the USSR with a laid down history that can be traced back 1000 years, economical and political structures that defined the state and some joker is talking about a 100- year old contraption being unassailable in terms of disintegration or restructuring? There is always a paradigm shift of thought, exposure and perception between the field Negro and the house Negro.”
These are edifying and prophetic contributions. Asika is absolutely right. No matter what our adversaries and oppressors may say, do or throw our way, the time for glorifying themselves will soon be over.
Freedom and liberty will come in its due time and season to all those that insist on it and fight for it and no oppression or oppressor, no matter how powerful, awesome relentless, vicious, insidious or cruel, lasts forever.
One day, sooner than later, the emperor shall fall, the chains shall be be shattered, the bars shall be cut, the gates shall be broken and the empire shall crumble.
For He that is high and lifted up, whose train fills the Temple is with us: we have no fear.
For the Ancient of Days, the Lord of Hosts, the El Shaddai never abandons His own and never fails: we shall prevail.
For the Elohim, the Adonai, the Mighty One in Battle, the Man of War has promised it and so it shall be.
May the God of all flesh and the Lord of the Universe heal and deliver the defenceless, the weak, the voiceless and the oppressed in our land.
May He tear down the citadels of the wicked tyrants and strip them bare for all to see.
Our nation may be plagued, haunted and afflicted by monstrous and horrendous terrors and filled with fear but stand firm, stand strong and always remember this: no matter how dark the night, joy comes in the morning.
We shall decimate and destroy the gates of our collective adversaries and tormentors and we shall defile and desecrate their shrines, temples and holy places.
In this struggle nothing stands in our way apart from the iron gates of trepidation. It is time to shed our fears and shatter those gates.
If you are not ready to die for something, you are not worthy of living for anything. Our Lord paid the price so march into battle with courage and strength.
Fight a good fight and know that we cannot be defeated because the Holy one of Israel, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Blood of the Sprinkling, the Lord strong and mighty, is with us! All honor, all glory and all praise be unto His name forever.
Femi Fani-Kayode is a lawyer, a Nigerian politician, an evangelical christian, an essayist, a poet and he was the Special Assistant (Public Affairs) to President Olusegun Obasanjo from July 2003 until June 2006. He was the minister of culture and tourism of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from June 22nd to Nov 7th 2006 and as the minister of Aviation from Nov 7th 2006 to May 29th 2007. He tweets from@realFFK.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
