Every Nigerian, in fact the entire world, has come to know who the real enemies are in Nigeria.
It will remain an effort in vain to continue trying to manipulate and maneuver facts in the name of false patriotism and ethnic chauvinism. Unfortunately Nigeria has bred quite a number of unrepentant ethnic chauvinists and warlords who believe albeit narrow-mindedly that they are being envied by the society.
This class of people are the ones who have succeeded in bringing the country to the sorry state it found itself today and while some great minds and truly patriotic citizens are trying to correct all these anomalies, these ethnic chauvinists and tribal warlords continue to chant their usual war songs and spreading confusions all over the land, the irony here being that, these self acclaimed justice fighters are just mere kleptocrats and political opportunists who use ethnic sentiments to achieve their selfish goals.
While the Arewa Consultative Forums with it's members of former both military and civilian past leaders have been holding series of meetings and consultations with the principal purpose of spuriously criticizing and raising false alarms of marginalization of the North without any reasonable facts to warrant such, any serious and objective mind continues to wonder if these so called Northern leaders know what shame actually is, one wonders what they really think Nigerians are.
While the progressive Southern people including the Yoruba leaders are busy fighting against injustices, seeking an end to internal colonialism as characterized by the ruthless past regimes of these few sons of the North, seeking ways on how to come out of the political and economic woods we are in and seeking genuinely united, progressive and civilized society, some Northern elements like Alhaji Kontagora continue to destroy the bridge of progress the others are trying to build in the name of cheap politics.
However, Alhaji Kontagora should be told that while he believes that the majority of the population is illiterate that could easily take "the words of a governor for the gospel truth", that the Southerners are well educated and independent thinkers enough to differentiate between 'a gospel truth' and a subterfuge, this is to say in essence that they need not be told whom to believe and whom not.
While Alhaji Kontagora pretended to be taking on an individual of governor Osoba's personality in his article on gamji.com "The Osoba rantings", he did quite a job discrediting the entire Yoruba race in the face of the other Southerners as a race who could not be trusted with power, in his words and I quote:
"To my mind, this is a reaction to two major developments in national politics. The first is that for the first time in our history, a Nigerian president has openly adopted a tribalistic credo which he is operating despite all the uproar and glaring objection of the majority of the citizens. The second development is the fact that president Olusegun Obasanjo's Yoruba people of the southwest have created and enthroned the Afenifere, the Pan-Yoruba sociopolitical cult, as an entity over and above Nigeria". Unquote.
This position has been widely taken by the northern leadership under the aegis of ACF since the president's decision to transfer some parastatals like the Nigerian Port Authority and Nigerian Railway Corporation back to Lagos where their bases are and from where they stand a chance of functioning better.
The North by this single decision has come to the conclusion that Obasanjo is anti-north and have been doing everything to discredit him and his entire cabinet. I must add here that any reasonable human being would agree with this step taken by the president, any reasonable human being could even suggest further that the refinery in Kaduna be transferred to the South-South where it should belong in the first place as it doesn't make any economic sense extracting oil in one end of the country only to be spending huge tax payer's money to refine it in another end. The justification of Kaduna refinery cannot be said to have been based on any logical economic principle.
Although, the president could be slow in taking some decisions, however suffice to say that the destruction perpetrated by the previous leaders of the northern extracts with their southern collaborators will take a long time to rebuild.
The north according to the ACF is angry because the illiterates are no more allowed access to the central bank's vaults anymore as it is obtained when they held sway in power, contracts are no more awarded arbitrarily to incompetent individuals who aren't qualified as we have come to know in the immediate past.
Alhaji Kontagora failed to analyze the regime of Gen. Sanni Abacha that was characterized by orchestrated elimination and executions of the Yoruba by whom he felt so much threatened and scared stiff of, during his spare time when he was not busy pilfering from the national treasury, as those were his favorite hobbies while in power.
What the northern leaders hate is opposition and Yoruba have been known to provide such rigid opposition to the caliphates hence the animosity and campaigns of calumny.
Meanwhile, the opposition here is not against the collective people of the north but directed solely to the northern oligarchs who seem to thrive on instability of the nation.
In a desperate bid to appease the minds and win over as before the other southerners outside the South-west, Alhaji Kontagora had this to say:
"This is despite the fact that Obasanjo's presidency was the making of the north, the southeast and the south-south to the total exclusion of the southwest. Thus, Obasanjo's unexpected romance with Afenifere not only alienated these other parts of the federation but led to the ascendance of the Ohaneze Ndigbo in the southeast, the Southern Minorities Conference in the south-south and lastly the Arewa Consultative Forum in the north."
The usual northern 'divide and conquer' tactic, which is almost outdated, as it is unlikely to have the usual effects any longer. The Southeast and South-South know whom they voted for and why, thus need not be reminded. Unlike the north, they are not as insatiable, These people in these parts of the country have sense and could reason, they do not have to behave themselves like spoilt brats as seen from the likes of Alhaji Sanni and his likes from the North.
They also do not need such courtesy and attention or representation as been unnecessarily rendered by the North because they know that such is insincere and could not allow themselves to be used again as a divisive tool to penetrate the South for election purposes. The likes of Alhaji Sanni should wait until the people of the South-South gain 100% control of their God given resources, the move which has the full blessings of the Yoruba and the South-East.
The North has been complaining of the arrogance of the South, having 'relinquished power voluntarily' or so they claim and shout loud enough to whoever that cares to listen, Alhaji Sanni made the same political blunder that has come to be integral part of the North by arrogantly saying that the Yoruba would never rule the country again.
The likes of Sanni should be told in plain English or is it in Hausa language that Nigeria as a country belongs equally to all, and anybody by virtue of birth or otherwise can aspire for the number one position, provided the said person qualifies, I would have loved to see our next president coming from the East or the South-south and we shall see to where the north will direct it's cry of marginalization then.
Though Alhaji Kontagora was being systematic in his diatribe by stating that nobody should vote for any Yoruba man again, It is clear that what he was saying here is that the North will never made the mistake of backing a Yoruba candidate anymore and one wonders for how long would tribe or ethnicity constitute criteria for choosing a president, Though the ACF strongmen might have amassed Millions of petrol dollars and be ready to use this ill-gotten wealth to manipulate and fraudulently maneuver future elections and electorates as they usually do, but they should know that the Yoruba and infact any southerner and other well-meaning Nigerians will not lose sleep over such threats again when we have the national ID cards in place.
Gone will be the days when ghost voters are admitted and allowed to vote and voters numbers ruthlessly inflated. Alhaji Kontagora should rather be spending his valuable time appeasing the Middle Belters to please stay put in the northern grip and to continue to endeavor more from the hands of their oppressors and slave masters because that's what the Hausa/Fulani caliphate is to this region.
In essence, they should try to build their own house, which is falling apart on their heads before attempting coming to further disrupt the south.
The entire northern soldiers of instability were gladdened by the verdict of the Transparency International that awarded the ignomious number one position medal to Nigeria as the most corrupt country in the world. These soldiers of instability saw a ready tool to discredit their arch enemy but they forgot in a hurry that assuming such a verdict is for the period of one year, The honorable speaker of the House of Representative has been indicted for corruption and mismanagement and while the Arewa Consultative Forum should have stood up and collectively condemned and supported a probe against the man, they were busy playing ethnic politics and even passing a vote of confidence on their kinsman while crucifying Obasanjo.
The Transparency International did not categorically state that the executive is corrupt but that the whole nation is and it is these people in the ACF that introduced and institutionalized corruption in the system, it was during their time we started witnessing the decay of all our infrastructural facilities, it was during their regimes it was made possible to place someone with a degree in Islamic studies to manage big parastatals like NEPA or NITEL etc, which invariably was the reason the economy in all spheres of the country were totally brought down to it's knees.
What really gladdens one's mind and gives hope for a better tomorrow is that one knows that there are still people in the North who genuinely are patriotic and progressive minded and have been standing against these tyrants that are been defended by Alhaji Hassan Sanni Kontagora, what further gladdens one's heart is that these progressives are youths and I am convinced that when these spoilers are eventually taken away to the great beyond, the present youths will strive together in a true spirits of collective patriotism to build a virile and united nation.
These Youths have been telling the ACF to stop it's rantings and rather focus on how to contribute positively about bringing developments to it's people and the entire nation rather than championing narrow and selfish agenda.
We all know that the Sharia wind blowing across the north is their makings by encouraging their governors to defy the constitutional setup against all common sense and one wonders why the south-south people as well could not defy the constitution and grab the control of their resources as well, nobody should be more Nigerian than the other.
The northern elders have set a very dangerous precedent and the consequences should be born squarely by all.
Alhaji Kontagora is again not being honest when he said: "the OPC to commit more tribalistic murders or genocide such as those they did in Shagamu, Ibadan and Lagos.."
What about the Sharia mayhem in Kaduna with its resultant genocide of hundreds of lives?
Didn't the ACF come out to justify the killing and denied any connection to Sharia? To me, this is naked hypocrisy of the highest order.
My advise to the Arewa Consultative Forum and it's loyalists like Alhaji Hassan Sanni Kontagora is to stop pulling us back the more and allow us enjoy the little progress we have recorded so far, they should stop watering the trees of hate and learn to be more accommodating both in deeds and utterances, this way, they will be doing a world of good both to themselves and the entire nation.
Moscow, Russia.
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