One wonders whether they slit open their own stomachs with a long sharp sword and spilled their own bowels all over the battle field. I say this because no-one seems to be interested in bringing those that butchered them in the sanctity of their own homes and their own land to heel. Such a selective application of justice can hardly be described as being reasonable or fair and surely that is not the way to foster better relations between the Hausa Fulani and the Yoruba in Ile Ife or elsewhere. A note that was sent to me captured the mood rather well when the author said the following:
“There
is no Yoruba person who has incited anything beyond puttinga our case
across. We cannot keep quite when our people are being harassed and
intimated. Barrister Gbenga Awosode,an Ife indigene has just been
summoned to Abuja yesterday. As we speak no member of the Arewa
community has been summoned. Our people have been killed on our land and
on Arewa land over the years with no arrest made in history. We will
not look for anybody’s trouble but if anyone look for ours he will get
it double. Yoruba will not die on our knees. Any death that will kill us
will meet us on our feet. But before we die……”. The concern is clearly
building-up and the anger is mounting. Yet despite that the impunity
continues. I say this because in the last seven days alone the Hausa
Fulani have slaughtered scores of innocent people in Ile-Ife (Osun
state), Buruku (Benue state), Arochukwu (Abia state), Malagum (Southern
Kaduna) and Igbeti (Oyo State). Must we continue like this?
Our
faith, identity and ethnic nationalities are under attack and are
threatened with annihilation and you want me to accept it in the name of
one Nigeria? The fundamental question that we must all answer either
now or later is as follows: if we cannot live together in peace and
unity as one nation must we stay together by force? Is the unity of
Nigeria truly sacrosanct? And if the older generation believes that this
is so must the younger generation believe so as well? Never in the
history of our country, other than during the civil war, has there been
so much ethnic and sectarian blood-letting as there is today? And it is
the usual suspects and those that the late and great Chief Bola Ige
called “the Tutsis of Nigeria” that always spark it off and attack
others either in the name of their faith or in their quest to take over
and forcefully seize the land of others or in the name of herding cattle
and grazing cows.
When
one considers this one is constrained to ask the following question: is
it a crime to demand for the restructuring of our nation or for the
peaceful and equitable dissolution of our very unhappy union? Can we not
at least attempt to be civilised and start learning from others? Must
we continue to ignore the voices of our fathers, elders and reverred
heroes like the great Pa Ayo Adebanjo and the gallant General Alani
Akinrinade who saw all this coming many years ago and who urged us all
to sit up and prepare for the worst? Must everything here be by
compulsion and by force? Must some of us be regarded and classified as
field hands and slaves whilst others are described as being “born to
rule?” Is this not insulting to the majority? Is it not unacceptable? Is
it wrong for people to exercise their God-given right of
self-determination? Is that not the basis and the very essence of
freedom and democracy?
The
wave of ethnic nationalism rising throughout the world, including
countries like Holland, the United Kingdom, France, the United States of
America, the Russian Federation, Israel, Germany, Turkey, Austria and,
increasingly, Nigeria cannot be resisted or played down. And in Nigeria
the more of our people that our collective ethnic oppressors kill, the
more that wave will rise. The right to take pride in our ethnicity and
invoke the principle of self-determination cannot be denied. We reject
the concept of globalisation and the enthronement of a new world order.
We reject the concept of an artificial, man-made, multi-cultural,
multi-religious, mongrel mega-nation that is made up of ethnic and
religious incompatibles.
We
reject the notion that we must bury our ethnicity, forget our
differences, arrest our development, discard our values and enthrone the
idea of a strange and complicated hybrid nation where we are expected
to live with and accomodate those that hate our faith, despise our
people, scorn our values and that rape, maim and kill our loved ones and
compatriots in the name of religion, conquest, land, cows and cattle.
The
truth is that no force in hell or on earth can stop the rise and
establishment of the sovereign state of Biafra, Oduduwa or any other
ethnic nation that will one day be carved out of what is presently known
as Nigeria. This is what the German Nazi leader Adolf
Hitler once described as “Mein Kampf”, meaning “my struggle”. This is my
hope. This is my desire. This is my dream. In conclusion I call for
restraint from both sides in the Hausa Fulani and Yoruba conflict in
Ile-Ife. I call for the restoration of peace and I pray that the souls
of all those that were slaughtered rest in perfect peace. God bless and
be with the people of Ile-Ife and the Yoruba nation now and forever.
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