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PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA Re: “Post-Election Violence – A Word for the President” Not since over a year ago when a reader called me “a bastard born out of a bust condom,” in response to my article on the ethno-religious inspired killings on the Plateau, have I received so many texts, most of them full of so much bile, as I did on my last week’s column. Altogether I received over 300 texts from readers of The Nation – there is no mobile phone number for readers of Daily Trust which carries the same column, to respond through. I also received quite a few responses through my email address. I have decided to share with you as many of the texts and emails as these pages would allow without any comment except to reproduce a text I received from Shehu Sani, a well known human rights activist, on the objectivity and fairness of the generality of the Nigerian media. Of course, I couldn’t agree more with Shehu about the selectivity of much of the Nigerian media in their news and views of myriads of the political crises in the country. For me the most alarming response was the text I received from a reader, not through the phone number in my column in The Nation, but through my private mobile phone number which he said he took the trouble to get from a friend of his. His response, which I have edited to spell out text jargons, is the first and Shehu Sani’s, the last: ********** Mr. Haruna, I read your article few minutes ago and got your number from a friend, Mrs. Ayo. You are biased and always one sided. Thanks to IBB, for empowering the Middle-Belt, and OBJ, for successfully severing the link between the Middle-Belt and CORE North, the earlier you Hausa/Fulani come to terms the better for you. We've proved you wrong; democracy is not only a game of numbers. We don't need you anymore. South-West, South-South, South-East and Middle-Belt, will always defeat you. All what we need from core north is to buy some of your gay emirs to give national outlook period. Ask your Hausa/Fulani paymasters, how does it feel to lose? You are left with nothing except Boko nonsense. Your letter to GJ (Goodluck Jonathan) was black mail. (It) wouldn’t work. He knows what to do. He knows his friends and foes alike. The days of parasites and rent seekers are gone forever, period. Ade Bamidele ********* Sir, He won’t listen to you. Or better still, they won’t let him listen to you. He is already talking about imposing a state of emergency in Kaduna. Somehow it is more convenient to do that in Kaduna than in Plateau. He is, after all, the shugaba mai cikakken iko. Allah ya sawwake. Abdulrazak B Ibrahim, ************** Dear sir, I read with pain your last write up. My pain emanates from your seemingly biased analysis of the unfortunate event in the country that pushed our dear north further backward. Your assessment of the President's decisions and appointments are, to say the least, unfair and it seems to me you have made up your mind not to see anything good in the president. Most likely he was not your choice. My pain also emanates from the fact that rather than discuss how this dastardly acts can be stopped in the North for our collective interest, you seem to know so much about how soldiers were posted, which area received greater protection. I am indeed really concerned that elites like you are many in our midst who are quick to criticise, scrutinise and insinuate on every move of leadership and give religious and ethnic interpretation to them. I do know any sane commander or GOC who will deliberately refuse to respond to crisis areas on the basis of tribe or religion. I expect you to know that decisions like that are collectively taken. I am sorry I do not mean to be offensive, but these kind of allusions are typical of the uninformed in the society and are aimed at further polarising the society especially the North. I am concerned because by virtue of your influence among Northern newspaper readers your thought has the capacity to further sectionalize the North on religious and ethnic lines. Again I expect you to know that the military response to crisis has something to do with Barrack distribution in Kaduna built in ‘60s and ‘70s which are generally more in the northern part of Kaduna being the earliest places of settlement. The areas currently predominantly occupied by the Christians are areas recently developed with little or no military presence. What I expect you to do as a patriot is to call on the government to put all this into consideration in the future building and location of military barracks. Rather than attempting to belittle the success of the President at the polls, we in the North should put our house in order. Mallam Mohammed, what will it pay us to continue to kill one another at a time when the South is getting united and making great strides? The election of Jonathan is one of the least challenges facing the North. Sharing of political and other appointments is only important to elites like you. The North headed the governments for decades. How did it benefit the tomato farmer in Kano or the cotton farmer in Zaria? It only benefited people like you. The issue for the commoner in Yelwa, Kabba, Dutse, Zonkwa or Gboko is who will better his lots. People like you are concerned about appointments, but we had so much of it in the past and what did we get for all that? Highest numbers of almajiris, highest rate of poverty, lowest literacy rate, highest rate of religious and ethnic conflicts. Today it is farmers in Dutse vs. Fulani cattle rearers, tomorrow it’s, Christians vs. Muslims in Bauchi (as if they are truly Muslims and Christians). They are actually groups of murderers that will soon stand before the judgement throne of God for killing in HIs name. What bothers you now is whether Jonathans election was (by the standard you set by yourself) truly free and fair, but the Zonkwa Hausa man whose source of lively hood has been disrupted by this callous conflict or the Kataf man who has to return to Zaria or die of hunger is not bothered by that. Elites like you are always often shielded from such crisis (after all you are either living in Malali, Angwar Rimi or Barnawa GRA or HighCost). But you often position yourselves as the best analysts of the situation. The victims of this crisis are not people like you so you are not in a position to even proffer a sound solution. What has the Kasuwar Magani trader got to do with all the insinuations you are alluding in the president’s speech? Does it make sense to make such allusions at a time like this? Mallam Mohammed, I expect we all to be sober at this moment in respect of hundreds that lost their lives in this carnage. The Hausa man says “ZATO ZUNUBI NE." To assume and infer what the president did not imagine is a great sin. All you attempt to do in your writing is to further whip up sentiment against the president among the Muslim north and further set them against their Christian northern neighbours. This, to say the least, is unfair, unjust and unexpected of a respected figure like you. I am pained because as one born in Kaduna with roots in Kogi State from where my parents relocated more than half a century ago I have nowhere else I can call home. Writers like you are preparing the ground for a repeat of the Jos phenomenon in Kaduna where people who have lived for centuries in Jos are now being threatened and now called settlers as I am also referred to. Even my marriage to a so called indigene would not qualify me. Finally Mallam Mohammed, let us talk about the things that will improve our economy and provide jobs for the teaming youth population in Rigasa,Tudunwada, Television, Gonin Gora and Zaria. Those are the counsels the President need. May God the Almighty continue to bless you. Edmund Harold ********* Sir, When Edwin Clark defends the South South, he is “speaking for his people”. When Ganiyu Adams of OPC defends the Yoruba, he is “a Yoruba Nationalist.” When Adamu Ciroma defends the North he is “a sectionalist” or “a tribalist.” Nigeria: Good People, Great Media!!! Shehu Sani |