“We northerners have put ourselves in a quagmire, because whatever that is happening in the North is our own doing. This was because we did not do what we are supposed to do. And since we know that, we have to solve our problems ourselves” -Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III
Kenny Rogers sang in his famous Gambler: “You’ve got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run.”
That was the advice he got on one summer’s eve while on a train bound for nowhere, where he met this gambler whom when boredom overtook both him and Kenny Rogers, began to speak and summarily educating him on the ethics of gambling, not after gulping down the last swallow of Kenny’s whiskey which of course he had wanted in an exchange for the advice.
Nigerians don’t know when “to walk away and when to run” thus they always get things complicated for themselves…we don’t know what we want, we have a distorted picture of what the issues are.And it is worse with us blue blood from the North, we have over the decades in this entity called Nigeria held sway without directing the sway.
Before I am crucified in our usual if it doesn’t suit us, “kill it mood”, I will quickly engage us in these few lines, whether they be thought-provoking truth of what the Ebola virus is like, or we treat it like the drama of Dorobucci, a hit song by some Southern dude called Don Jazzy, is our business, but truth be told beyond the Ebola and Dorobucci, the North has failed the North first and failed Nigeria at large.
The quote I started with, from the Sultan of Sokoto and Chairman of the Northern Council of Chiefs and Emirs, and President General, Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, was at the Northern Nigeria Governors’ Peace and Reconciliation Committee held last year January 2013, in Kaduna.
At the meeting, he admonished that we (Northerners) “…sit and talk freely and articulate positions that will bring us out of the quagmire we put ourselves. It is important that religious and traditional rulers from our various states sit together, so that each and everyone of us will talk freely for us to articulate a position as the way out of this problem we find ourselves.
Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Bishop of Sokoto, Most Rev. Mathew Kukah, and other Muslim clerics were at theevent.A year gone, and we are in 2014, incidentally January again, and another meeting at the Lugard Hall, Kaduna, this time emirs, and the leadership of the Northern Elders Forum, with the quest for peace and unity of sons and daughters of the region, as the theme.
The monarchs and the elders deliberated extensively on the security and other challenges confronting the region, with a view to finding lasting solution to the problems. The Sultan blamed northern political leaders for slowing down the quest for a peaceful and developed region.
He lamented that after a meeting of the traditional rulers in 2013, they (traditional rulers) presented their position papers to the governors of the security situations in the north yet nothing was done.
So it is sad to see APC blame PDP and vice versa, none blaming Boko Haram. Jonathan blaming opposition, playing the victim, when he indeed is the charge de affair that needs to step up ‘positively’ his use of his power percentage for a mere 20-40% to a 101% to solve the Nigerian debacle.
However, there is little the man from Otueke can do, as he cannot be more patriotic about the North than richest African and northerner Aliko Dangote. He cannot love the North more than General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma aka ‘too much money”. If our Maradonas, our Kwankwasiyas, if our galaxy of ex-Generals and array of serving military czars cannot shine and save us in the North, we should be indeed ready for more of “I was the target of the bomb”.
If we cannot tackle Boko Haram, and indeed weep about our own being killed, maimed, and roasted by bombs in Jos, raided by unknown gunmen in Plateau, blown apart in Kaduna, slaughtered in schools in Yobe, abducted in Chibok, chased away from villages in Demboa, Biu, Askira and other parts of the North but we are more concerned about Gaza, then we have lost our heads.
If we argue about the roots, Shagari is a gentleman, Buhari is not a thief, the Sultan is truthful, and blunt, Atiku is providing cheap education in that university in Yola and, and the whole of Benue is harassed by herdsmen, and all we do is argue amongst ourselves about how Ibo gunmen are involved, or who are the real cattle rustlers, or who is Hausa-Fulani, then we are doomed.
If the issue is how to get power back from Jonathan, or how it must return to the North, we are “mumu-ing” ourselves and sitting on a Doro-Ebola, we need to leave Oritsejafor, ‘left’ Amaechi vs Patience, we need El-Rufai, Ribadu, Atiku and co to re-channel positive political cum economic energies to the region.
It is a problem of the North, but it will affect the whole nation. If we all do nothing but sit on that wall, bothNorth and South will fail and fall, when and how? Only time will tell.
