Reports coming from Kaduna State in north-western Nigeria have indicated that, due to hunger, bandits now collect cooked food as a ransom for kidnapped victims instead of money.
“It has been reported that bandits operating in the Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State are demanding cooked food as a ransom for kidnapped victims,” Punch Newspapers tweeted.
This is coming after an order banning some commercial activities in the state was imposed in order to curb the activities of the bandits.
A youth leader from Birnin Gwari communities confirmed to Daily Trust that they had seen changes since after the imposition of the state government’s order.
He said, “There is relative peace around Damari, Kuyello, and Kutemashi because the bandits have stopped attacking our communities. They usually stay in the forest and seize food items mostly cooked ones from vendors.”
The violent activities of bandits in Kaduna State had been so rampant despite authorities’ repeated vow to curb the menace.
Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufa’i, on Thursday carried out a major cabinet reshuffle in the state executive council.
A statement issued by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Communication, Mr. Muyiwa Adekeye, said that “the reshuffle is designed to help harness fresh energy for the government’s final lap, bring new insights and enable the commissioners to have more rounded experience of the government.”
The affected ministries include Environment, Public Works and Infrastructure, Education, Agriculture, Local Government, Budget and Planning, Business, Innovation & Technology, and Sports Development.
The Governor, according to Mr. Adekeye, added that “following the passage of the law creating metropolitan authorities to manage Kaduna, Kafanchan and Zaria as organic cities, Governor El-Rufai has nominated the following cabinet-rank administrators: Balaraba Aliyu-Inuwa Administrator, Zaria Metropolitan Authority, Muhammad Hafiz Bayero Administrator, Kaduna Capital Territory and Phoebe Sukai Yayi Administrator, Kafanchan Municipal Authority”.
In February 2021, Juliet Ehimuan, the Director of Google West Africa discovered Usman Dalhatu, a university student and the CEO of Dalsman Tech who had developed an innovative solar-powered maishayi kiosk.
After a successful application, Usman Dalhatu was accepted into the All On and The Rockefeller Foundation funded Nigeria Climate Innovation Center’s 2021 off grid energy incubation programme.
During the Nigeria Climate Innovation Center pitch session for the twenty finalists in the 2021 cohort earlier this week, Dalsman Tech was selected as one of the eight winners of the $10,000 start-up grant. The funds will be used to scale up the production of the solar-powered kiosks for distribution to kiosk franchise owners in Kaduna, Kano, FCT, and Abuja.
This brilliant innovation is highly scalable and can lead to a much cleaner energy source for tens of thousands of maishayi stands across Nigeria.
This is one of many examples of clean energy innovations developed by young Nigerian entrepreneurs that will help drive the country’s energy transition from within.
“The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted”. – George Lichtenberg
It is not uncommon that some public commentators and analysts could be mischievously deceptive in their narratives and analyses of history to accomplish an end. They could quote historical facts, mix them with fiction, and frame narratives to promote a single story. In some cases, they deliberately relegate and ignore some significant events or points to suit the writer’s bias. Recent writings on the origin and rise of Boko Haram demonstrate how some writers distort facts to frame narrative and promote bigotry.
For instance, if one can closely study the framing of Boko Haram and how it is brazenly becoming one-sided, then one can say that the whole history is rewritten to massage and satisfy the ego of some group’s bigotry. It is not farfetched to say that some of these bigots will soon claim that the generality of the Muslim North endorsed and supported Boko Haram and Nigerian Christians were the only targets and victims of the group’s deadly attacks. Why would I make such a sweeping projection with every sense of finality? To respond to this question, let’s go back to 2013.
While speaking at the 14th meeting of the Honorary International Investor Council (HIIC) held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa on June 22, 2013, former Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian, disclosed that the Boko Haram sect had killed more Muslims than Christians in Nigeria. This is not just hearsay but a verifiable fact that is naked in vision to people that are not be-clothed with hatred, ethnic and religious jingoism.
However, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) couldn’t swallow this fact and, therefore, issued a statement to disagree with him vehemently. In a press statement credited to the Northern chapter spokesperson, Elder Sunday Oibe, CAN said that Jonathan’s assertion was “misleading and unacceptable”. They further stated that,
“We want to believe that the president was misquoted; we don’t want to believe that with the security apparatus and report from security intelligence network at his disposal, he made this assertion. If it is true that Mr President actually made this assertion, then, we are highly disappointed and sad at this veiled attempt to distort the fact as it concerns the activities of the Boko Haram sect. The purported statement by the President is highly disappointing considering the facts that Christians, churches and their businesses have been the major targets of Boko Haram” (Sahara Reporters, June 23, 2013. http://saharareporters.com/2013/06/23/northern-can-disagrees-jonathan-says-boko-haram-has-killed-more-christians-muslims)
For CAN, the Boko Haram crisis was/is “religious by nature” – the familiar we-versus-them religious clashes and conflicts in Nigeria, although in different outlooks and techniques; it is a plot by some Muslims to reduce the populations of Christians in Nigeria and crackdown their businesses. Since then, CAN sympathisers subsequently frame their narrative of Boko Haram from this angle. An article titled “Cornflakes for Jihad: The Boko Haram Origin Story” by David Hundeyin, widely shared on social media in the last few days, aimed to promote this kind of narrative. Unfortunately, the author skillfully filled the article with half-truths and a mixture of facts and fiction to push the CAN’s sentiment. Hundeyin is practically siding with his former religion.
Firstly, Hundeyin makes an effort to link Sheikh Abubakar Mahmoud Gumi with the origin of Boko Haram. Many people think that Hundeyin’s “Cornflakes for Jihad” is the first futile effort by an “investigative” journalist, analyst, historian or whatever to make this manipulative effort. However, Andrew Walker’s thesis, “Eat the Heart of the Infidels: The Harrowing of Nigeria and the Rise of Boko Haram” (Oxford University Press, 2016), preceded it in that exercise. Therefore, it is not likely to be a false accusation if it is argued that Hundeyin copied the idea of featuring Gumi in discussing Boko Haram, almost verbatim, from Walker. From the arguments of Sheikh Gumi’s “influence” in the “political” realm of Nigeria to his “friendship with Ahmadu Bello”, to pioneering the “propagation of Wahabism” in post-independent Nigeria, to his contribution in the creation of Izala and his “Saudi connection” are equally and loudly echoed in Walker’s thesis.
For both Walker and Hundeyin, Sheikh Abubakar Mahmoud Gumi championed the Sunni/Salafi/Izala movement in Nigeria. Therefore, any account of the origin and rise of Boko Haram – a so-called Sunni/Salafi-fundamentalist terrorist group – must be traced back to him. Albeit impliedly, their submissions suggest that there would be no Boko Haram if Gumi did not “disrupt” the Sufi order and influence of Qadiriyya and Tijjaniya in Northern Nigeria. They claim that Gumi’s campaign of a corrupt-free practice of Islam inevitably gave birth to the radical movements in Northern Nigeria. This is to say, although without explicitly stating it in their works, every Sunni/Salafi-based movement in Nigeria, whether moderate or violent, must have had their inspirational source from Gumi. On the link between Boko Haram founder, Muhammed Yusuf, and Sheikh Gumi, Walker writes: “The title of Yusuf’s book deliberately echoes the titles of similar treatises by Sunni preachers, like Sheikh Gumi’s “The Right Faith According to the Sharia”, perhaps in order to lend his ideas credence…the two clerics share a revulsion for secularism..” (Walker, 2016:144).
This line of argument is even less faulty in logic and spirit of “balanced story” than what Hundeyin further orchestrated in his article. According to Hundeyin, Sheikh Gumi admonished Muslims, particularly his Sunni/Salafi followers, to reject a non-Muslim as a leader and advocated “for insurrection against a Christian Nigerian President” and, of course, his Christian followers. In the successive paragraphs that supported this claim, Hundeyin apprises his readers on the “consequence” of Gumi’s propagation; he states that after Gumi’s death, a Sunni/Salafi-indoctrinated group, which bears the name “Boko Haram”, toed to the path of his admonishment to carry weapons against Nigerian Christians, killing and bombing them in their churches. He wittingly makes reference to the bomb blast at “St. Theresa Catholic Church”, Madalla that “killed 37 people”, and other subsequent “killings of Christians” in Jos and Damaturu.
The implication of this narrative on an outsider, who does not know the context of Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria, is that s/he would begin to see Sheikh Gumi as “problematic” and a source of Boko Haram’s inspiration and violent extremism. Secondly, a non-pragmatic reader may also assume that the group only targets Nigerian Christians in their series of attacks in the country. Hundeyin’s article aims to peddle that twisted narrative for no reason other than the writer’s hatred for the Muslim North (Arewa) and their Islamic culture. In one of his previous tweets, he heedlessly says that: “The world will be a significantly better place when Arewa culture completely dies off and is replaced with something fit for human civilisation” (David Hundeyin/Twitter, November 29, 2020).
In the spirit of fair analysis, it is expected that an impartial analyst would compare the socio-religious ideas Gumi propagated in his lifetime and the ideologies of Boko Haram. But this would not sell out Hundeyin’s bigotry, and so he ignored that vital aspect. The core centre of Boko Haram dogmatic tenets is a war against “western-styled” education, democracy and civil service. On the other hand, Sheikh Gumi was both a product and proponent of western-styled education; he worked with the government as a civil servant and received salaries from the state resources. As he proudly opined in his autobiography, “among [his] children were army officers, civil servants, medical doctors, an engineer…lawyers, teachers and workers in finance houses and private businesses. There was hardly any profession in which [he] did not have representation from [his] family” (Gumi with Tsiga, 1991:202).
Gumi was also pro-democrat, as evidence from his recorded preaching suggested so. He is famously quoted to have said, “siyasa tafi sallah”, which could loosely mean “politics is more significant than prayers”. This was the extent Gumi had gone to support democracy in Nigeria, and believe me, Shekau would not hesitate to call him “taghut” – an idolatrous tyrant. He had also worked closely with the Christian Head of States. They had a cordial relationship and respect for each other: Ironsi invited him to lead a delegation to North Africa and the Middle East to carry goodwill messages of his new regime; Gowon appointed him Chairman of the Nigerian Pilgrims Board and gave him “all the necessary support, although he himself was a Christian”; with Obasanjo, he could “freely talk” and express his mind on relevant socio-political issues (Gumi with Tsiga, 1991:203). However, Hundeyin willfully refuses to draw this analogy to give a sense of what Achebe called “a balanced story”. Instead, he purposely portrays Sheikh Gumi on the wrong page in the book of terrorist origin in Nigeria.
Contrary to the insinuation of Hundeyin moreover, the truth of the story is that Boko Haram did/do not target Christians only. In fact. Nigerian Muslims suffer(ed) more causalities than Christians in the Boko Haram conflict. Hundeyin refuses to mention the main enclaves of Boko Haram activities and the population ratio of Muslims and Christians there. Stating this factual data will indeed not favour his intended, warped story. The reality is that Muslims have the predominant population in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. Arguably, the cumulative of all Boko Haram killings of innocent people would show nothing less than 70% of Muslim casualties.
On a specific, direct attack on religions, Hundeyin only mentions the bomb blast at St. Theresa Catholic Church, ignoring similar incidents on August 11, 2013, at a mosque in Konduga where 44 people were killed and on November 28, 2014, at the central mosque in Kano where 120 people were killed (BBC Hausa, 2013, 2014). It is understandable if Hundeyin re-echoes the bomb blast at St. Theresa Catholic Church in his article; it is a show of solidarity to his ex-religion. However, what is faulty and even worrisome is the selective exemplification of the direct attacks on religions by the Boko Haram insurgents. A reader who is unacquainted with the details of Boko Haram attacks on places of public worship would feel that churches and Christians were the only victims.
Scenes from Kano Central Mosque Bomb Blast. Source: The Eagle Online
To further promote this half-truth, Hundeyin moves on to tell us how a Salafi/Sunni preacher was directly linked with the funding of Boko Haram. I will neither attempt to exonerate Sheikh Yakubu Musa nor believe those serious allegations in toto without reading or hearing the Sheikh’s version of the story. However, my problem here is with Hundeyin’s failure, which is intentional, to mention the Salafi/Sunni preachers that fought Boko Haram vehemently and even paid the ultimate price with their lives. It is on record that at the early stage of the Boko Haram crusade, Salafi scholars debated Mohammed Yusuf. In Bauchi, for instance, Ustaz Idris Abdulaziz Dutsen-Tanshi, a Salafist to the core, invited and challenged Muhammed Yusuf at his mosque and in the presence of his followers; so also a young Isa Ali Pantami – the then Imam of ATBU Juma’at mosque.
Imam Idris Abdulaziz debating Muhammed YusufImam Isa Ali Pantami Debating Muhammed Yusuf
These Salafists continued to be critical of Muhammed Yusuf and his sect. They consistently delivered lectures to denounce his fatwa. Sheikh Ja’afar Mahmoud Adam, an unapologetic Salafist, was particularly vocal in his public censure and condemnation of Boko Haram. Unlike Hundeyin, Walker states this fact in his book:
“In 2007, Yusuf ’s former teacher, Sheikh Ja’afar Mahmud Adam, himself an ardent Salafist, had gone on record to denounce the group and warn that these ideologues were heading for a violent confrontation with the state” (Walker, 2016:148).
For many, Sheikh Ja’afar was the spiritual successor of Sheikh Abubakar Mahmoud Gumi. Some influential people requested and later attempted to transfer his annual Ramadan Tafseer to Gumi’s preaching base, Sultan Bello Mosque, Kaduna. He conducted his annual Ramadan Tafseer in Maiduguri, the early and central territory of Boko Haram terrorism. During his Tafseer sessions, Sheikh Ja’afar was not reluctant to criticise Yusuf and his new sect. On April 13, 2007, a day to general elections in Nigeria, and barely 48 hours after delivering a talk in Bauchi on Islamic views on thuggery, violence and widespread killing of innocent souls, Sheikh Ja’afar was murdered in Kano while observing Subh prayer and “it is thought to be members of Yusuf’s sect” (Walker, 2016:148).
Another prominent voice among Salafists in the fight against Boko Haram was Sheikh Muhammad Auwal Albani, Zaria. But, unfortunately, he was also killed in cold blood. In a video released to the public, Muhammed Yusuf successor, Abubakar Shekau, took responsibility for the assassination (Sahara Reporters, February 20, 2014, http://saharareporters.com/2014/02/20/bo-haram-leader-claims-responsibity-killing-kaduna-cleric-sheikh-albani-threatens).
Hundeyin has ignored all these facts about Salafi preachers in Northern Nigeria but brought a single dubious claim to frame a narrative that would deceive an uncritical, vulnerable audience. His motive is clear: he wants to rebrand the entire population of Salaaf and the Muslim North as pro-terrorist, supporting the killings of Christians in Nigeria. It is rather unfortunate that this is where the discussion is heading, and it is a wake-up call to those of us that witnessed and had a first-hand experience of the Boko Haram crisis to begin to write our counter-narrative. If we don’t write it, others will write for us. And before we retrieve our consciousness, we will be afloat in a sea of half-truths and stereotypes on Boko Haram, Islam and the North.
Aminu Nuru wrote from Bauchi. He can be contacted via aminuahmednuru@gmail.com.
It has been reported that the officers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have stormed the headquarters of Kaduna State Urban Planning Development Agency (KASUPDA) and whisked away the Director-General, Malam Ismail Umaru Dikko.
KASUPDA has for long earned the reputation as the most feared agency in Kaduna from the records of its properties demolition across the state.
Dikko, KASUPDA boss, was a Special Assistant to Governor Nasir El-Rufai, before becoming the agency’s head in 2019.
The DG was reported to be in a meeting with his staff when officials of the EFCC took over the office premises a few minutes after 10 am.
Some eyewitnesses said there was a commotion during the arrest.
Some sources say that two EFCC officials in suits, with two police officers holding rifles, accompanied the KASUPDA boss into the EFCC, black Hilux Toyota vehicle.
The DG has been taken to the Kaduna zonal office of the EFCC.
It has been more than a couple of months since the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky (H) and his wife, Malama Zeenah, were acquitted and discharged of all charges filed against them, after spending almost six years in illegal detention.
The couple who were arrested in December 2015 had been languishing in the custody of the State Security Service before later being transferred to Kaduna Correctional facility in early December 2019, with inadequately treated life-threatening gunshot injuries and numerous health complications.
It could be recalled that in July 2019, the couple had to be granted bail to urgently travel to India to attend to their failing health that kept deteriorating as days went by, an effort which was, unfortunately, deliberately frustrated by security agents which resulted in the couple prematurely aborting the trip without receiving medical attention.
Now that the couple is acquitted of all charges filed against them by the Kaduna State government, justice demands that they be allowed to attend to their health wherever they choose to go, without undue frustrations whatsoever. But on the contrary, since their aborted medical trip, the couple’s passport and other documents that will allow them to travel are reportedly withheld by agents of the State Security Services and are nowhere to be found.
In an exclusive interview with Press TV on 29th September, the Sheikh pointed out that an attempt to procure new ones proved abortive as the couple were told ‘passport flagging order’ was placed on them, meaning they could not leave the country, for no reason.
It is public knowledge that Nigeria’s health care is criminally under-equipped, debilitated, with an inadequate workforce. As a result, after carefully reviewing the couple’s health condition, many doctors have advised that they best be treated outside the country where health care facilities will be available.
The deterioration in the couple’s health condition is so glaring as the Sheikh could be seen limping and his wife confined to a wheelchair as they exited the court premises last couple of months. This is due to a lack of access to proper medical attention in their years in illegal detention.
The Sheikh and his wife have suffered enough already: six of their children were extrajudicially killed in the pace of fewer than two years, over a thousand of his followers were killed and buried in mass graves and hundreds of others killed while peacefully protesting against his illegal detention. Therefore not allowing them to travel at the moment is tantamount to rubbing salt in their wounds.
Injustice to one is an injustice to all. And, for peace to reign, clergymen, well-meaning individuals, and all people of conscience should please urge the government to allow the ailing Sheikh (H) and his wife attend to their health, especially as the Sheikh has in the face of unnecessary provocations, demonstrated an immeasurably disagreeable height of self-restraint and peacefulness.
The Sheikh and his wife are now free; they have not committed any crime as the Kaduna State High court ruled. Therefore, the right to be allowed to attend to their health outside the country is inalienable as enshrined in the constitution; it is a flagrant violation of their fundamental rights as citizens of the country.
If anything, the government should, for the good of the nation, try to maintain the fresh breath of air in the streets of Abuja and other cities considering the existential security crisis ravaging the country; it’s therefore unwise of the government to create yet another. One thing is sure: if Sheikh Zakzaky (H) is not allowed to attend to his health, those streets will soon be littered with the Sheikh’s unrelenting, indefatigable followers.
Najeeb Maigatari wrote from Jigawa State and can be reached via maigatari313@gmail.com.
The separatist group agitating for the breakaway of Nigeria’s southeastern region, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has imposed a ban on the consumption and rearing of cows in their region.
The group made the declaration in a statement signed by Mazi Chika, Head of Directorate of State, in Anambra on Saturday, adding that the ban would take effect in six months’ time.
“From that date, no more Fulani cows shall be allowed into Biafra land for any reason, not for burials, title taking, weddings, etc.,” the statement read.
However, Mr Chika stated that they would only be consuming cattle locally produced in “Biafraland.”
A Kano-based civil society, Kano Advocacy Organization (“Kungiyar Matasan Kano“) wrote a petition to the Public Complaint and Anti-Corruption Commission (PCACC), Kano State against the telecommunication companies operating in the state for abandoning their corporate social responsibility functions which they execute in the Southern part of the country.
The chairman of the organization, Comrade Alhassan Haruna Dambatta led the executive members of the organization from various local governments to the Anti-Corruption Commission where they dropped their six-page letter signed by their national legal adviser, Barrister Murtala Bala Abubakar Esq.
The reason for taking this action according to Barrister Murtala is “to ensure the telecommunication companies abide by laws on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as provided by various subsisting Acts passed by both the National Assembly and the Kano state House of Assembly.
They cited the Federal Government’s Local Content Act 2010 sponsored by Hon. Dr Abubarkar Amuda-Kannike and “An Act to establish the Corporate Social Responsibility Act and for other matters connected herewith’ sponsored by Hon. Ossai Nicholas Ossai, which states that Corporate Social Responsibility means action taken by a company to address key social, economic and environmental problems of a particular area in which the company operates.
The Corporate Social Responsibility Act, in section 21, has identified the activities expected of these companies to engage in and not limited to;
(i) Contribution towards educational development of the people in the area, (ii) Provisions of infrastructural facilities, contribution towards rural electrification projects and road construction,
(iii) Collaboration in partnership projects with local governments,
(iv) Environmental stewardship and protection mechanism,
(v) Construction and improvement of healthcare delivery system.
(vi) Provisions of pipe-borne water, improvement of existing waterworks and construction of boreholes and public convenience.
Furthermore, the Kano State CSR law on Corporate Social Responsibility of 2011 has repeatedly exposed the need for multinationals and other companies operating in Kano state to uphold the provisions of the law as defined by both Acts of the National Assembly and the Kano state House of Assembly on Corporate Social Responsibilities.
According to Kano Advocacy Organization, “Many if not all of these companies [MTN, Airtel, 9Mobile] operating in the Southern and Western part of this country do provides these services to the people of that area, but the case is entirely in contrast to what is available and obtainable here in our state. Last year, the Ijaw Youths Council as reported in the mainstream media, among other campaigns, violently went and demobilized Ten (10) of the telecom’s mast in Bayelsa state and their reason as stated is that the contract for the supply of diesel was awarded to a non-Ijaw contractor, hence, the reason for their anger.”
“Because of the fear of threat of violence from these Southern and Western Youths, These companies operating there ensured that the Youths of the South-south, Southeast, and Southwest are assisted through Youths Empowerment programs, start-ups, vocational trainings, Hub creation, ICT Training, Digital marketing training, App development training, Computer trainings and many other concepts that are designed to empower and promotes the Youths and people of those states so that they can become productive and self-reliant. However, the case in the Northern part is entirely in contrast to what is obtainable in the Western or Southern part of this country and most especially and specifically in Kano state with the highest population of phone users where these telecommunication companies are making billions of naira without commitments to the provisions of the various laws that protected the right of the people and communities where they conduct their businesses.”
In view of the above, Kano Advocacy Organization calls for Kano State PCACC to investigate the following among others:
What are the records of MTN NIGERIA, AIRTEL, GLOBACOM, 9MOBILE in the provisions of social Amenities, like, building and refurbishing of schools, recreational centres, health care facilitates, Youths Empowerment programs among others in Kano state?
Record of Youths Empowerment programs conducted by these Telecoms in Kano state.
How much profit they made in our state and what part of it has been utilized on the people as provided by both CSR laws?
How many schools and health care facilities were refurbished or built from scratch by these Telecoms in Kano state?
How many youths in Kano state benefited from these Telecom’s scholarship programs widely celebrated in the Southern and Western parts of this country?
Record of permanent and pensionable employment of Kano indigenes by these Telecoms.
When and how did these TELECOMS partner with the Kano state government in the provisions of social Amenities in our state?
Find out what are the future plans and programs of these telecommunication companies operating in our state on community development, provisions of social Amenities, scholarship, etc.?
Provide evidence of the established and constituted Corporate Social Responsibility ‘policy committee’ referred in the act as ‘CSR Policy committee’.
A copy of their CSR performance report of the last five years as made under sections (3) and (9) of the Act.
Record of the unspent amount deducted for CSR in the last five years.
Nigerian soldiers working under the platform of Sector 5 of Exercise GOLDEN DAWN in Enugu have successfully neutralised three unknown gunmen who raided a police checkpoint on October 7.
This was announced today by Brigadier-General Onyema Nwachukwu, the Director of Army Public Relations, via the Nigeria Army’s official Facebook page.
The soldiers engaged the gunmen in a shootout which forced the latter to flee the duel scene, and the soldiers recovered one vehicle and two motorcycles.
However, Mr Onyema regrettably stated that one soldier lost his life.
The southeastern region has been seeing a series of tensions and rampant attacks on government facilities by suspected IPOB members, which could not be unconnected with their secession agenda.
We went on a trip a while ago to Jama’are local government in Bauchi state for the turbaning ceremony of my cousin as the Ubandoman Jama’are. Jama’are is a 2-hour journey from the Bauchi metropolis. On our way there, we ran into a pothole, and we got a twisted tyre. After our event, we proceeded to Azare, another local government in Bauchi, a 30 minutes drive from Jama’are, hoping that we would get a tyre to replace our damaged one. We were directed from one shop to the other, and each time we arrived at any of the shops, we met them all locked up. We got the puzzling explanation that one of the shop owners lost his father and that he and all his brothers had gone for the burial. They meant that Igbos owned all the shops, and they were the only ones that sold the size of tyres we were looking for. We had to manage the twisted tyre all the way back to Bauchi because Chinedu’s uncle had died, and nobody else sold proper tyres in Azare, a whole local government, deep in the North East!
At Emab plaza in Abuja, I dare not step in to buy even a memory card, and my ‘customer’ NG, who is Igbo, would jokingly hound me for not telling her that I was coming to buy a phone! She was a shop attendant to her brother, who is a friend of mine. He had opened new outlets, and she became the CEO of the Emab division. I dare not buy what she sells from elsewhere. I’m off the hook and free to spend my money at any other shop, only if she doesn’t have what I’m looking for. My relationship with my Igbo friend’s shop is not less than 15 years old!
There’s a car service place at Wuse 2, on the famous Adetokumbo Ademola Crescent in Abuja. They usually get your tyres checked, balanced and aligned, and all that car check routine. An Igbo guy, Pat, hangs around there; when you have to get a new tyre, Pat is there, ready to get you all the brands, from Korea to Japan, China, France — you name it, and he’s got it. So Pat is the go-to guy even when I’m far away in Bauchi, and I need to get the accurate market prices of tyres from different brands. This is a ‘customership’ that has spanned over 15 years as well!
So goes with the guy at the Barbing Salon. Chike is about the nicest hairdo guy I have ever known. Courteous, cheerful, hardworking and good at his job. For the entire corona lockdown year, I left my clipper with him. Finally, a good one year after, I hop into town, and there is my clipper, safe and sound. It was serviced and polished, looking even newer than I left it. Chike’s courtesy leaves you scraping through your pockets to get something for him, aside from the shop’s charges. From working in his Oga’s shop, he had moved to his own place, with a few of the other barbers he worked it.
Igbos own an estimated 60% of land, property and businesses in Abuja. There is no denying them being industrious, hardworking and very enterprising. They are all over the country, handling numerous firms and bossing most of the trade they engage in. That is why it is super difficult to understand the meaning, purpose and direction of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Biafra is all over Nigeria, and it is just silly to try to corner it to a cranny as small as Niger State! If you alienate yourself from Nigeria and create your own country, do you expect to keep all the businesses all over Nigeria and get patronage from Nigerians? Isn’t this a money-wise, pound foolish idea? The whole concept of self-determination and the attendant superiority complex is eating up the UK now – albeit they may not accept it publicly. It is the same trap that awaits Biafra, should it see the light of day.
The Nigerian army recently rolled out Operation Still Water, an ember months programme, to maintain security during the festive period. It is a continuation of the previous operations such as Crocodile Smile, Python Dance, and so on. In the midst of it, popular actor Chiwetalu Agu was arrested at Upper Iweka Road, Onitsha, Anambra state, for inciting public members and soliciting support for IPOB. He was donning an IPOB attire when he was arrested. The army denied maltreating him, as was widely reported. A video surfaced later, which gave a snippet of what their interaction with him was like. He said that the Sun showing on his cloth was a rising Sun and that the colour combination was just coincidental and didn’t signify IPOB. He said he was educated enough to know where to go to and where not to go to. He squarely denied IPOB and said he had nothing to do with it. So many Igbos are coming out of their shells to deny IPOB and publicly give their activities a dressing down.
The Igbos we relate with every day are not the ones that IPOB represent, right? So the barbaric activities of the group need to be clamped down by the Igbos themselves. They must make it clear that the narrative of that movement is not theirs and is not in their own interest.
Joe Igbokwe’s house was razed in his hometown of Nnewi, Anambra state. Dr Chike Akunyili was killed in the Idemili North local government of Anambra state. A fire that seems to rage on from a distant neighbour’s residence clearly indicates that your own house is not insulated from the same kind of fire. A proverb in Hausa says, “If you see your neighbour’s beard in flames, you must hurry and rub your own with water.”
The tiny flame that started in Borno has spread like cancer to the entire North. South easterners should not allow this in their backyard. The earlier the Igbos rise against this so-called rising Sun, the better for us all. We have a risen Sun to be grateful for already. There is no need to go looking for more Sun. The heat would definitely be unbearable!
Tahir is Talban Bauchi can be contacted via talbanbauchi@yahoo.com.
