FORTY FULANI FACTS MOST NIGERIANS DO NOT KNOW

 

⁃ By Zackarys Gundu,
Professor of Archeology, Ahmadu Bello University, taking Nigeria through Facts and authentic HISTORY.

Fulani feudalism is real and it is why we cannot reason same way. What Islam means to FULANI is ‘OCCUPATION AND USURPATION OF THE CONQUERED BY FULANI OLIGARCHY KINGDOM’.
But what Islam means to others is Religion.

Beware of the two-headed snake!

Thus,
1. the Fulani MUST lead the prayer over Hausa or any other tribe.

2. Fulani must be respected anywhere as the SHEHU even among the blind in Lagos or BORNU or KANO.

3. Till date, the Fulani may take the sons of Hausa, castrate them and use them as domestic guard over his harem of women. No Nigerian Press has ever inquired into this.

4. Till date, it is sacrilege for Hausa to raise his voice over or against Fulani man.

5. Hausa man’s luck in anything must come from Fulani. Else, he is a SLAVE forever!.

6. Every Fulani is encouraged to speak also Hausa but Hausas hardly learn Fulfude.

7. Till date, FULANI claim the right to belong or rule any Northern State or territory.

8. Till date, Hausa has no right to own land only as a tenant of the local chief. He must pay rents in form of produce every year!

9. All Emirs are Fulani. Most Governors and Senators in Hausa populated territories are Fulani. Most ministerial and juicy appointments under the current government are systematically handed to people of Fulani extraction who are residing in different states in the North. Fulani would rather support Igbo or Yoruba for the office of President for fear of Hausa rising to position of power and influence that will alter the status quo. Fulani will never gamble with this.

10. Before the conquest, Hausas were never Muslims. They had their cultures & traditions like us. But now, IT MUST BE FORGOTTEN mostly.

11. The ease of inflicting strong archaic Sharia by the north is a ploy to retain the CHAIN over the Hausa.

12. Those who chose to stay in the South most early are mostly Hausas, but a Fulani would soon come and colonize them as "Leader" or shehu. So, they lose their freedom mostly.

13. Only few Hausas are able to escape totally and blend into other tribes through marriage etc.

14. As such, CASTE system is being run in Nigeria by Fulani against the Hausa.

15. When a Fulani starts a trade or business including transportation, wholesale of goods etc, ALL HIS EMPLOYEES are mostly Hausa who are regarded as slaves and dare not steal or refuse to labour cheaply. It is a sacrilege for an Hausa to rise against him in competition.

16. When LAND & liberty is not inherited from your 3rd or more generation, do you still wonder the result of POVERTY among these Hausas rightly labelled as TALAKAWAS? It is a caste system.

18. Each time you struggle for the NIGERIA project, the preoccupation of the Fulani is how to preserve the North from being snatched away from them.

17. All your governmental apparatus mean nothing to Fulani. For example, you know very well how HAUSA is dying in silence under Fulani stranglehold.

18. If Fulani perpetrates gargantuan political CRIMES over you, and you shout HAUSA????😗🙃 or at best Hausa/Fulani. It please them because that’s the name they coined to mask who they really are. It is now that people are waking up to these deceitful strangers.

19. In psychology and sociology, MASTERS/CONQUERORS have no feelings for anything they do against their SLAVES! So, next time you see anyone gets away with dastardly acts, know that he is either a Fulani or working for Fulani interests.

20. How to make it in Nigeria? Simple, put your head under Fulani oligarchies as Arisekola, Danjuma, Uzordimma, etc did. They will throw Nigeria's money upon your laps. You will be blind to your environment and oppress your people to suit Fulani schemes. Thereafter they will ROB U OFF when they feel like!!!!🙃🙃

21. By the time people like OBJ are gone, Yorubas will start to smell their true odour in hell fire. But if anyone expects that OBJ will support Yoruba race openly more than he has done, that will be a mistake.

22. Greatest evil in Nigeria is that the entire Hausa race are oppressed without any ray of hope, yet others mostly from the south never know or care about their true identity and suffering.

23. The greatest offence that Awolowo commited was not anything more than saying: "I will educate the TALAKAWAS" (Hausa "slaves") and they will realise themselves and rise against you". Jonathan joined in the mistake when he announced his Almajiris program!

24. The only intermittent respite experienced in Nigerian political space is only when a Fulani Ally is fighting Fulani interests as in the case of Abacha against the Caliphate when he tried to change the oligarchical power and control in the North from Sultan of Sokoto to Shehu of Borno (of Kanuri tribe).

25. You now know WHO & WHY THEY DO NOT WANT YOU TO STUDY HISTORY IN SCHOOLS AGAIN!!!! Nigerian Professors of History know more about Europe and America than Nigeria.

26. You can now know why no one is encouraging the ALMAJIRIS to be educated and liberated. They are young slaves in the hand of a Fulani Imams who discourage them from going to school!!!😗😗

27. Next time you see POVERTY in the North, take a good look around to also see that there's an alhaji nearby in sprawling wealth! He OWNS them. This is how it works for them.

28. What about the emerging powers of even the Normadic Fulani? Uthman Dan Fodio invited them from Futa Jalon in 1804 to fight the battle that conquered Sokoto. The allegiance remains that they protect the interests of one another. GREATER THREAT IS THAT CHILDREN OF NORMADIC FULANIS (Cattle rearers) NOW WANT TO SETTLE DOWN. The recent killings and land grabbings by Fulani herdsmen under the watchful eyes of the government is a pointer to this.

29. *One Nigeria project?* Yes, its OK inasmuch as Fulani control is not jeopardized. Who do you think are the Forex traders? And their slaves abound to serve them.

30. In as much as it enriches the Fulani your conquerors, how dare you expect Nigeria not to SELL her labours cheaply every week and NAIRA diminishes in value EVERY DAY since almost 30years ago!

31. You now know WHAT *LAW AGAINST HATE SPEECH* IS ABOUT! Just like attempt to remove history from schools!

32. Let your children know the NIGERIA they are born in and her political consequences. *There's nothing like RELIGIOUS consequences in Nigeria.* (Know this). RELIGION as far as Fulani is concerned is a political tool of oligarchic and political control.

33. You now know why Shehu Shagari, Shehu Kangiwa, Shehu Malami etc had to get modal opportunities, even at Barewa College. When next you want to liberate Nigeria from the Fulani, or cut away part of it, remember that FULANI is the owner, and has FOOT SOLDIERS!

34. Fulani tool of oligarchy is rife: For example, ask yourself: HOW MANY FULANI died at the stadium trying to get employed in the Customs?

35. How do Fulani get employment - since they don't write application letters? *Meditate* on this. When you gain admission to NDA on quota basis for example, they retire as many others at the rank of major. Whosoever sails through has to do with whom he/she knows.

36. Every Fulani is SPONSORED, but you sponsor yourself. So, know why you don't try query him at work or try make him follow the rules.

37. Every Fulani or their allies born outside Nigeria can come here to get more rights and privileges over YOU!

38. Which customs officer will dare search a rich Fulani alhaji at the borders?

39. There was one Alhaji Mandara in Sokoto in the '70s, he trafficked petroleum products by the Sokoto -Illela axis. No customs officer dared stop his illegal fleet?

40. I was classmate to as many of the Fulanis in the North. Till date, none of them is on the Alumni platform. They know we are not equals and we cannot understand. So, we continue to claim Oyibo certificates. They know who will get NNPC or CBN jobs. They know who will get Jumbo contracts to maintain Port Harcourt Refinery the way he likes not caring if it breaks down irretrievably due to non-challant maintenance? The answer is in Yoruba adage: "Ti ile kan ba n toro, omo ale ibe ni ko i dagba" (if a house is at peace, it is because the bastard there is not yet grown up).

Tell your children. Don't let them continue to make noise over the Nigeria Project that is not working. It is simply because we come to roost with strange bed fellows.

So help us God!
🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬
NNA MENN.

IGBO TRADITIONS CAPTURED IN HOLY BIBLE

1. NSO NWANYI
In Igboland all women live apart from their husbands and neither cooks for them nor enters their husband’s quarters when she is in her period, she is seen as unclean.
Even up till today such practice is still applicable in some parts of Igboland especially by the traditionalists.

Before a woman can enter the palace of Obi of Onitsha , she will be asked if she is in her period, if yes, she will be asked to stay out.

Leviticus 15: 19-20
When a woman has her monthly period, she remains unclean, anyone who touches her or anything she has sat on becomes unclean.

2. ALA OBI
An Igbo man’s ancestral heritage, called “Ana Obi” is not sellable, elders will not permit this. If this is somehow done due to the influence of the West the person is considered a fool and is ostracized by the community.

1 king 21:3
I inherited this vineyard from my ancestors, and the lord forbid that I should sell it, said Naboth.

3. IKUCHI NWANYI
Igbos have practiced the taking of a late brothers wife into marriage after she had been widowed until the white men came. Now it is rarely done but except in very rural villages.

Deuteronomy 25:5
A widow of a dead man is not to be married outside the family; it is the duty of the dead man's brother to marry her.

4. IGBA ODIBO
In Igboland, there is a unique form of apprenticeship in which either a male family member or a community member will spend six(6) years (usually in their teens to their adulthood) working for another family. And on the seventh year, the head of the host household, who is usually the older man who brought the apprentice into his household, will establish (Igbo: idu) the apprentice
by either setting up a business for him or giving money or tools by which to make a living.

Exodus 21:2
If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve you for six years. In the seventh year he is to be set free without having to pay you anything.

5. IRI JI
In Igboland , the yam is very important as it is their staple crop. There are celebrations such as the New yam festival (Igbo: Iri Ji) which are held for the harvesting of the yam.

New Yam festival (Igbo: Iri ji) is celebrated annually to secure a good harvest of the staple crop.

Those old days it is an abomination for one to eat a new harvest before the festival. It's a tradition that you give the gods of the land first as a Thanksgiving.

Deuteronomy 16:9
Count 7 weeks from the time that you begin to harvest the crops, and celebrate the harvest festival to honor the lord your God, by bringing him a freewill offering in proportion to the blessing he has given you.

Celebrate in the lord's presence together with your children, servants, foreigners . Be sure that you obey my command, said the lord.

6. IBE UGWU
In Igboland it's a tradition that the male children are circumcised on the 8th day. This tradition is still practiced till date.

Leviticus 12:3
On the eighth day, the child shall be circumcised.

7. OMUGWO
In Igboland, there is a practice known as "ile omugwo ". After a woman has given birth to a child, a very close and experienced relative of her, in most cases her mother is required by tradition to come spend time with her and her husband. In which she is to do all the work of the wife, while the new mom’s only assignment will be to breastfeed the new baby.

This goes on for a month or more. In the Igbo old tradition, at this time, the new mom lives apart from her husband, would not cook or enter his quarters.

Leviticus 12:1-4
For seven days after a woman gives birth, she is ritually unclean as she is during her monthly period. It will be 33 days until she is ritually clean from the loss of blood; she is not to touch anything that is holy.

Our ancestors have long practiced these tradition ever before the white man set foot on our soil with their Christianity.

Nna, eziokwu Chukwu goziri ndi Igbo!

Was it a mere coincidence that most Igbo tradition are biblical?

Evidence of Jewish tradition and culture.

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Almajiri Life Experience

THE ALMAJIRI

Life as an almajiri in Kano was very tough. I could still remember how we went about in tens begging for alms and food. It’s really not a life anyone should live. I lived it years ago and could still tell exactly how it hurts; the memory of it and the hellish experiences we had to bear. Almajiri life isn’t a life. It’s like being dead-alive. I lived that life.

I was ten when I decided to remove the cloak of destitution and face life squarely. It still remains the turning point in my life and the wisest decision I’d ever taken. I could still remember vividly what led me to take such a decision one afternoon. It was at Sabon Titi Kano. We were nine in number. We had trekked all the way from Bida Road. Ali, my best friend was saying something about how very unfair it was that girls were not allowed to wander about begging as boys did. He said something about girls being lucky and fortunate because they were not subjected to the demeaning life that we lived.
“But you don’t have to think that way,” I said. “You know that if you lived a good life here on earth, you surely would enjoy in heaven when you die.”
Ali had always thought differently. He was thirteen years old. Several times he would tell me that we should elope. He said he didn’t like the way the Mallami treated us. According to him, we were treated as slaves and it was very unfair. Ali was the first ever almajiri I had seen who did not like his being a poor beggar. He always compared himself with the children of the rich.
“Do you think Mallam Ladan will ever allow his own children to move about aimlessly in the streets begging as we do?” he often asked me. “He will never do a thing like that. His children eat good food and go to the white man’s school but we don’t. And every day, we take money that we make from begging to him. That is not fair.”
No one hated Mallam Ladan as much as Ali did at that time.

Mallam Ladan had always said that Ali was rebellious and that he behaved like an infidel. One day, and according to him, all infidels would never gain paradise where there were lots of merriments. I remembered one day Ali had asked a question during our usual group recitation of the holy book and Mallam Ladan, red with indignation ordered that Ali should be whipped. According to him, Ali had asked a blasphemous question. Since then, Ali expressed his displeasure and irritation about the Mallam secretly to me.

So, the day I finally made up my mind to quit almajarinci was at Sabon Titi. We gathered around a very busy canteen owned by a woman from Lafia whom everybody referred to as Mama Nassarawa. She had a very large open space with huge patronage. Most often when any of her many customers ate to their fill and there was leftover, we would swing into action. It was usually like warfare. Our survival-of-the-fittest lives were hugely dependent on the miserable remnant from the food Mama Nassarawa’s customers left in their plates.

Keenly, we watched from a close distance as the customers ate. Our eagle eyes moved from customer to customer and hand to hand. Contrary to what people think, the almajiri usually had more than enough to eat but we ate like swine; unhealthy and without control. There was a very beefy fellow eating a fat meal. He had so many pieces of meat in his soup which attracted some of us; I especially had had the rare opportunity of eating meat and fish many a time. This would happen when some people barely touched their food before passing it to us. I had often wondered then why some people would eat only little food and be satisfied. Ali had also wondered too. He had told me once that he had never had a full stomach. He would emphasize further that until his hand got tired of conveying the food from the plate to his mouth, he would always continue to eat.

The beefy fellow at Mama Nassarawa made me have a rethink that day. He was eating pounded yam. Ali and I fixed our eyes on him. Suddenly, I noticed something rather strange. This fat customer was drooling like a toddler. Saliva dropped from his mouth into his soup as if there was a burst tap in his throat. We were supposed to take a dive for the leftover of that food! Mere looking at him made me sick.
“Ali, can you see what is happening?” I muffled. “Can you see the way that man’s saliva fall freely into his soup?”
Ali smiled. “Abubakar, I am really shocked at what you are saying.” Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t seen something like this before? I can swear by my life that most of these people there are sick. And because we eat what they leave behind, we are very likely to share in their misfortune since most illnesses are contagious. Abu, we are walking corpses.”
His response gave me goose pimples. That was the day Ali and I made up our minds to go out there and change our stories and destinies. In life, Allah gives us all equal opportunities. He gives us same air to breath and same time; twenty four hours daily to live in. No one has more time than others. What we do with the time and how we choose to breath is dependent on the choices we make. Some make good choices and others don’t.
“Ali,” I muttered coldly, “may Allay forbid that I eat the leftover food from that man.”
For the first time since we became friends, Ali hugged me. “Abu, you have said a noble thing. If you mean what you have said then we must elope. We must leave now. There’s nothing as sweet as freedom.”
We both separated from the other boys that day and threw our beggarly bowls away.
That night, we found a Dangote trailer which was about leaving for Lagos. It had just the driver and his conductors. Ali and I sneaked into it when no one was watching and in no time, our journey out of Kano began.

It was not until we got to Suleja that the driver and his conductor found us in their vehicle. They had stopped along the Abuja-Kaduna Road to refuel and eat. It was past ten. The conductor pointed his torch and saw us sleeping in a corner.
“Subanalahi!” he exclaimed rather surprisingly. “Ahmadu come and see these miserable elements sleeping in our vehicle.”
The driver climbed up and found Ali and me in the truck. I was shocked when he asked if we had eaten. Ali and I replied in unison that we had not eaten. He ordered us to climb down the truck. We followed them to a food vendor’s place where he bought us good food. It was the very first time that we would be having such good meals without begging for it.

After we had told him our story, he advised that we find a mosque in Suleja to spend the night.
“If you go to Lagos, you will suffer. The people there will not help you. They will tell you to go to your parents. You are still in the north. People here will understand why you are out of school at this age. This is why you should be here and not in Lagos. I will advise that you get shoe shining kits and begin to render services to people. Whatever you make could feed you and you will have a little to save for school.”
He gave us two hundred naira each and reiterated that we must use it wisely. The money at that time was big. How Ahmadu understood us and promptly decided to come to our aid still baffles me to this day. When their vehicle left, we spent the night at Kaduna Road on a plank beside a parked lorry.
At dawn, we went to a nearby stream and bathed. It really felt so good that day because it seemed we were no longer under anyone who would dictate for us. That day, we found some cobblers and they told us how to go about getting all the kits and how to do the job. In three days, we were already dexterous shoe shiners. Days later, we were brilliant cobblers.
On our twelfth day on the job, an Igbo trader whom we went to his house to polish his shoes – nineteen pieces in all – took pity on Ali and me and ask a few questions.
“You people are too young to do this job you are doing,” he said. “Don’t you have plans to go to school?”
Ali and I told him that we had already bought all our note books.
“It’s our uniforms that are left for us to buy,” I told him.
He was leaning on his car and from the way he kept nodding; it was obvious that he was impressed with what we’d told him.
He insisted we show him the books we had bought. Ali quickly ran to the shop where we had already paid for the books but were yet to be supplied to fetch them. In no time, he was back with them. That day after we had finished polishing his shoes, Mr. Okafor gave us money to buy our uniforms. He said he would have taken us and given us a place to stay but that we were too young and he could be accused of abduction..
“Come here when your uniforms are ready,” he told us.

That was how Allah used Mr. Okafor to change our story in 1992. He took us to a public primary school and registered us.
Some people are angels and when you are lucky to meet them, they don’t care what your tribe or religion is before they choose to help you. Mr. Okafor was such a person. Ali and I began to sleep in one of his warehouses at night with some of his workers – mostly Hausas who help to offload his goods. His wife treated us like her own children. She would give us food and some of her children’s old clothes.
Tragedy struck in the year2004 when Ali and I were at ABU Zaria. Mr. Okafor had an accident on his way to his village and died. I thought this would affect us but Obinna, his eldest son took over his fabric business and still carried on as if nothing had happened. The relationship we had with the family blossomed. When we returned from school, we would work in one of their warehouses until the holiday was over. There was never a time we called Obinna and told him we needed money and he didn’t respond.

After my service in 2010, I joined the custom service while Ali through one of his friends whom he met in school became a politician. He is a lawmaker in his state house of assembly. He is doing great. We are both doing great and still good friends.
And we are still very close to the Okafors. Ours is a relationship that would last until the day Allah calls us. Our story has taught me that the saying ‘man is the architect of his own fortune,’ is very true. And also, when there’s a will, there surely will be a way. Don’t let anyone deceive you, there is light of every dark tunnel for everyone. We only remain in the darkness of the tunnel because we are just too scared to approach the light. if we make a move, we surely would be out of the tunnel.

I got married in 2015 and Obinna and his mother attended the wedding. They were also in Ali’s wedding too a year before. When we fight over tribe or religion, we do so because we are largely ignorant of our existence and how Allah can use us as angels to help one another. Humanity should always count because we are all one and the same. It is needless for us to keep pointing guns and raising daggers at one another.
.
THE ALMAJIRI by Japheth Prosper
.
(a true story)
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NDIGBO: THE REALITY OF A VIRTUAL NATION IN THE DIASPORA BY CHIMAROKE NNAMANI

NDIGBO: THE REALITY OF A VIRTUAL NATION IN THE DIASPORA

BY CHIMAROKE NNAMANI

The recent spate of the killings in Igboland, the latest being in my own constituency of Enugu East senatorial district where Rev. Fr. Paul Offu and pregnant Regina Mbah were gruesomely murdered by hoodlums alleged to be Fulani herdsmen is barbarous and horrendous. I condemn in totality the odious and dastardly acts and extend my heartfelt commiseration to the families of the victims.

I have taken note of the commendable actions of the governor of Enugu State, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, towards arresting the situation. If given time, these actions will completely stem these atrocities. I also have full confidence in the government and people of Enugu State and all relevant groups within the Enugu system that this too shall pass.

However, and more importantly, this should avert our minds to a deeper socio-political dilemma. Ndigbo, an African ethnic nationality primarily domiciled in South-eastern Nigeria and also some communities in neighbouring states who subscribe to Igboness have gone through travails leading to sociological mutation.

By simple calculations, Ndigbo are the people who occupy the vast mangrove and forest terrain in the political as well as geographical East of Nigeria. Many may wonder what I mean by political alongside geographical Eastern Nigeria. This is simple. By political actions, particularly emanating from colonialism, Eastern Nigeria starts from the eastern tip of the Niger Bridge in Onitsha, but this is a reductionist partitioning against the more meaningful and natural habitation by which Ndigbo are also known as occupying the vast plain from the western tip of the same Niger Bridge at Asaba to points far beyond the western borders of Agbor in Delta State.

These social trauma include the slave trade that began in 1471 when the Portuguese and the Spanish carted away over 3,000 West Africans, mainly Igbo, and by the time the slave trade ended in 1833, over 3.5 million Igbo had been shipped to the new world.

It is on record that as far back as 1591, the Igbo areas of today’s Nigeria were put on Portuguese world map as inhabited by some vigorous people whose deep culture celebrated energy, accomplishment and wisdom. The Spanish in 1593 were to expand on this view in identifying the terrain as deeping in a stretch of the Bight called Biafra whose people lived their lives in lifting to art form the career in sojourn (njepu), thought (echiche), industry (olu) and accomplishment (ntozu).

The truth of this glorious past and the joy of her greatness have been celebrated by our modern historians and writers who, though, regret that the same Igbo areas (Bight of Biafra) exploded in one ball of fire with the introduction of the slave trade which depleted the manpower resources as it upturned values.

It is alleged that European slave traders were fairly well informed about various African ethnicities, leading to slavers targeting certain ethnic groups which plantation owners preferred. Particularly desired ethnic groups consequently became fairly concentrated in certain parts of the Americas. The Igbo were dispersed to colonies such as Jamaica, Cuba, Saint-Domingue, Barbados, Haiti, the future United States within the then Virginia and Maryland colonies and Belize. With the goal for freedom, enslaved Igbo people were known to the British colonialists as being rebellious, cantankerous and having a high rate of suicide in the process of escaping from slavery.

In May 1803 a shipload of captive West Africans, upon surviving the notorious Middle Passage, were caged by U.S.-paid captors in Savannah via a slave ship, to be auctioned off at one of the local slave markets. The ship’s enslaved passengers included a number of Igbo people from the then Portuguese-named Bight of Biafra. The Igbo were known by planters and slavers of the American South for being fiercely independent and resistant to chattel slavery. The group of 75 Igbo slaves were bought for forced labour on plantations in St. Simons Island for $100 each. The chained slaves were packed under the deck of a small vessel to be shipped to the island. During this voyage the Igbo slaves rose up in rebellion, taking control of the ship and drowning their captors, in the process causing the grounding of the ship in Dunbar Creek at the site now locally known as Igbo Landing.

With the strongest, the best and the brightest forcibly exported to Europe and the Americas as slaves, the Igbo areas were set in an unprecedented track in retrogression. So, for about two hundred years after formal abolition and about one hundred years after apparent extinction of slave dealing business, the Igbo areas, the people and their resources lay prostrate, yet to recover even in the face of pernicious modern allocation of values.

Even in the grim periods in history, Ndigbo have held on to the dominant values and character traits which elevated those forebears of the people who thought (echiche), sojourned (njepu), worked (oru) and accomplished (ntozu). Their accomplishment showed in the glamourous Bight of Biafra culture seen by the Portuguese and the Spanish. Till date, the modern Igbo explore to the fullest those attributes which are identified as the trinity of Igbo character trait and process of personality. Every Igbo man employs his. The same Igbo sojourns, home and abroad and at the same time acts, works and creates wealth. We all know that sojourning is a great industry of the Igbo, which is achieved with the proper deployment of one of the greatest Igbo media of actualisation – Ukwu n’ije.

Ndigbo, rising in their cradle in the Holy City of Nri, had deployed the feet and fanned out into the global arena. As they journeyed, they bore the cot of reason we call akpa uche. This, we all know, we use to direct the strokes of physical gesture which we know as our aka Ikenga. These form the trinity of the Igbo character, at home and abroad. The end product is the accomplishment (ntozu). When it is told in the hills, valleys, cities and village, then we are celebrating that accomplishment. That is Odenigbo – the universal applause for fame.

The process of slavery and dispersal of Ndigbo have continued through search for better occupation, better livelihood and also continued voluntary servitude. The Igbo nation has therefore become a nation exercising perpetual and cultural migratory shift, thus in dispersal with heartbeat outside the boundaries of the South-Eastern states which have now become a mere symbolic home for Ndigbo Global or Ndigbo Worldwide.

With this social mutation, the Igbo has to face the reality that the search for a sovereign ethnic state outside the boundaries of the official Nigeria has become untenable, elusive, and an infinite national romanticism of the sovereign nature. This dispersal was impelled by the conditions that have made the Igbo homestead inhospitable – poor infrastructure, lack of basic amenities and the abysmal lack of federal presence in the region decades after the much-touted post-civil war reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation.

Therefore, the heartbeat of a virtual Igbo nation is outside the confines of the Igbo homestead. Ndigbo Global or Ndigbo Worldwide who reside all over the world with the majority still in South-eastern Nigeria have unfettered access to the global basket of fortunes and limitless dreams. In the global arena where there is no quota system and where the society thrives on competition and merit, an Igbo can achieve his potential including high political offices that apparently elude him in the place he calls home, Nigeria.

The dreams of the Igbo worldwide are not therefore inhibited by socio-political conspiracies that have confined them to an engineered artificial minority status within the Nigerian state. Such conspiracies theorised as prophylaxis to recurrent and future attempt at recreating a Biafra type scenario, an unwritten policy heralded by the win-the-war strategy of the 12-state structure. In my humble opinion, presidential power as an immediate goal for the Igbo is now secondary. Physical and fiscal restructuring of the Nigerian socio-political space to allow for full effusion of the trinity of Igbo character is more emergent. Some Nigerians in impulsive uppity have been known to have expressed umbrage at an Igbo becoming Vice President nine years after the then war of blame that is Nigeria versus Biafra.

Zik of Africa, M. I. Power, ‘Boycott the Boycottables’, the ‘Timber and Calibers’ and many others, we pray they will continue to rest in peace in the bosom of the Lord. May they hear our cries and lamentations! Onye mu na ya jere nta sina ukwum dika ukwu anu. That is to say that my fellow hunter is now seeing my legs as those of an antelope. In the mansion they built with their compatriots through their actions and inactions, their men have become consigned to the quarters for the boys.

The new Igbo is therefore the Ndigbo Global or the Ndigbo Worldwide. That new Igbo has to define through intellectual thinking what he or she wants from the present Nigerian nation. Globalization provides a myriad of multi-sectoral potentials for human development in areas like trade, commerce, real estate, transport, agro-business, banking, construction, manufacturing, shipping, ICT, academics, sports, and so on. What he or she wants could in reality be outside political power because the leverages for achieving political power are no longer there because of inter-ethnic conspiracy that produced a hostile and neglected environment within her homestead. Thus confirming her minority status in the Nigeria of today.

From the analysis of the indices of good living such as poverty index, life expectancy, school enrollment, maternal and infant mortality rates, MDGs and SDGs, etc., Ndigbo have fared relatively well despite practical exclusion from the sanctum of power and unfair manipulation of the fulcrum of leverages of power since the ill winds of 1966. The categorisation of non-political power goals would protect her from unbridled jealousy and hostility, hence left to live in peace within the confines of geo-political Nigeria but use the global space to thrive. Yessoo – the virtual Nation in the diaspora.

Ndigbo have to sit down in a colloquium, where Igbo historians, sociologists and political scientists will define what is left for us within the Nigerian nation outside fighting for political power and then invest in the world as a canvass.

Chimaroke Nnamani writes from Ojiagu-Agbani, near Enugu, Nigeria

https://www.thisdaylive.com/…/ndigbo-the-reality-of-a-…/amp/

Summary of Obasanjo's Assessment of Nigeria

SUMMARY OF OBASANJO'S SPEECH

ON INEC

1. “Democracy becomes a sham if elections are carried out by people who should be impartial and neutral umpires, but who show no integrity...”

2. “The transmission and collation of results are subject to interference, manipulation and meddling.  If the INEC’s favourite political party wins with all the above infractions, the result will be conclusively declared and if not, there will be a ‘rerun’.”

3. “The track record of the present INEC is fairly sordid and all men and women of goodwill and believers in democracy must be prepared for the worst from INEC and their encouragers...”

4. “Amina Zakari has become too controversial a figure to be able to give assurance of free, fair and credible election for INEC.”

5. “A judge does not sit in judgement over a case once he or she becomes a cause for controversy...  Madam Amina Zakari should, in honour, stay out and not be seen as a source of contamination of the election.”

6. “Amina Zakari is not the only Commissioner that can be in the Collation Centre.  Let the INEC Chairman act boldly and impartially and prove his absolute neutrality and responsiveness...”

ON BUHARI

7. “Some men of God would hold President Buhari to his word on free, fair, credible and peaceful elections.  I am a realist... I am not persuaded by a track record of hollow words, impunity, insensitivity and ‘I-couldn’t-care-less’ attitude.”

8. “It is no use, at this juncture, to keep lamenting about the failure, incompetence, divisiveness, nepotism, encouragement and condonation of corruption by Buhari administration...”

10. “President Buhari and his hatchet men in the coming election think that the judiciary must be primed in their favour.  Hence, the Chief Justice of Nigeria... has been harassed and prosecuted...”

11. “President Buhari and his people believe no stone should be left unturned to rig Buhari in.  It seems to be a ploy to intimidate the judiciary as a whole in preparation for all election cases that will go before them.”

12. “Buhari has succeeded in deceiving us the first time and we will be fools to allow ourselves to be deceived the second time.”

13. “Even when figures, facts and statistics are made clear to Buhari, he keeps repeating what is untrue, either because he cannot understand or for mischief purposes and that places him on the level of a pathological liar.”

14. “[Buhari] believes he can get away with impunity and deceit as he seems to have done on many occasions in the past.”

15. “Bola Tinubu’s statement about Muhammadu Buhari in 2003 is fairly prophetic, “Muhammadu Buhari is an agent of destabilisation, ethnic bigot and religious fanatic who, if given the chance, would ensure the disintegration of the country.  His ethnocentrism would jeopardise Nigeria’s national unity.””

16. “Buhari’s watch can be likened to what we witnessed under Gen. Sani Abacha in many ways. When Abacha decided that he must install himself as Nigerian President by all means and at all costs, he went for broke and surrounded himself with hatchet men who on his order and in his interest and at high costs to Nigeria and Nigerians maimed, tortured and killed for Abacha.”

17. “...we have heard of how Buhari and his party are going about his own self-succession project.  They have started recruiting collation officers who are already awarding results based on their projects to actualise the perpetuation agenda...”

18. Buhari’s “henchmen are working round the clock in cahoots with security and election officials to perfect their plan by computing results right from the ward to local government, state and national levels to allot him what will look like a landslide victory irrespective of the true situation...”

19. “The current plan is to drape the pre-determined results with a toga of credibility.  It is also planned that violence of unimaginable proportion will be unleashed in high voting population areas across the country to precipitate re-run elections and where [Buhari] will be returned duly elected after concentration of security...”

20. “Buhari’s scheme bears eloquent testimony to this road similar to Abacha whom he has praised to high heavens and as an arch-supporter and beneficiary from Abacha, he has seen nothing wrong done by him. “

21. “It is clear from all indications that Buhari is putting into practice the lessons he learned from Abacha. Buhari has intimidated and harassed the private sector, attacked the National Assembly and now unconstitutionally and recklessly attacked and intimidated the Judiciary to cow them to submission.”

ON OSINBAJO

22. “Osinbajo must have gone for, “if you can’t beat them, join them”.  A great pity indeed and which makes people ask the questions, “Any hope?”

23. “Osinbajo has shown the human weakness and proved the saying that the corruption of the best is the worst form of corruption.”

24. “What is the connection between taking the number of PVC of the ‘traders’ and the forthcoming election?  There is something sinister about it, and Professor Osinbajo, of all people, should know that.”

ON DEMOCRACY

25. “This is a time for vigilance to fight to safeguard our votes and defend our democracy.  The price of liberty and sustenance of our democracy is eternal vigilance and appropriate reaction to ward off iniquities... We must all be ready to pay that price and not relying on hollow words of callousness.  The derailment of Nigerian democracy will be a monumental disaster comparable to the disaster of the Nigerian first military coup...Nigeria must not be allowed to slip off the democratic path nor go into anarchy and ruin.  No individual nor group has monopoly of violence or gangsterism...”
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