Trump said the blasphemy laws of the Muslims have resulted in the death of many Christians. Some say no, it is not only Christians that are being killed but Muslims too are killed by the terrorists.
When America’s Donald Trump thundered that he was going to send America’s boots to Nigeria’s soil to solve a problem Nigeria has had now for about 15 years, there are Nigerians who felt by the way those words were crafted they could not have been made by President Trump. A friend responded when I placed the words on a common WhatsApp platform we share. “It is too pedestrian,” he said, “Trump won’t speak like that.” It didn’t take long before experts in the use of the internet flooded the platform with the link to the statement, which was made on the Truth platform. My friend just expressed a fear, he just wanted to push off the evil day. Now those days are with us. Our country may be at war with America any moment from now. And that war, hold your breath, is the solution to Nigeria’s political problems, which gave rise to our current religious and insecurity problems. There is no reason for Trump not to make good his threat. He must prove himself a man of his word. He is not our president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose love for policy flip-flops is now common knowledge. Trump is a man of his word, he spoke very rashly to Tinubu, to Nigeria, and he will make it come to pass. Time was when Nigeria too spoke rashly to the UK when Nigeria nationalized British Petroleum because of its policy on South Africa during apartheid. It was during the reign of tough-talking Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher did not counter the hot words and Nigeria won accolades of nations, especially nations in Africa.
But times have changed. Then Nigeria had money, plenty of it. Naira was freely spent on the streets of London like the US dollar is now more acceptable on the streets of Lagos and Abuja than our naira. It was an era General Yakubu Gowon, former head of state, said money was not the problem of Nigeria but how to spend it. But times have changed, Nigeria has squandered her money, she has no electricity, literacy is very low among its people and the youths are running to all manner of nations to escape from the hell which home has become. In Indonesia, Nigerian youths are daily slaughtered for drug offences. I remember during my postgraduate studies at the University of Lagos where I was on a university scholarship, a form was given to me by my head of department. It was from a university in Indonesia. It was a cylostyled copy. I took one look at it, squeezed it and threw it in the trash can. I said within myself “me, go for PhD in Indonesia, God forbid.” Nigerians were proud then, we went to universities in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany and most parts of the West. But today, even Malaysia is restraining our students from admission into their universities. Things have really gone sour in our beloved country. I never knew that the Fulani can be afraid, I don't know they could plead for peace and love in the nation. They are this peacockish humans who look you with one eye, ask you if you know what it means to come from Sokoto, or Daura or Katsina, and before you know vanish. All you need to see to appreciate the grand Fulani pride is to take a look at Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, one of the two emirs in Kano. Somebody gives him a walking stick as he alights from his Rolls Royce, he takes it and walks with majestic stride. A horde of dogari or palace guards run after him, and in a nation where all are constitutionally said to be equal. Somebody stays beside him adjusting his flowing babanriga which are in several layers, he wears a designer's pair of shoes, and even when he is on a platform giving a lecture the man adjusting his babanriga stays permanently behind him. Even the king of England, Charles Arthur George will be green with envy, it is royal grandeur at its best.
That is the attitude the Fulani brings to everything, their great grandfather owns Nigeria; every other Nigerian is a slave. In offices they look down on everybody. They let others do the job and they take the credit for it. They come to office when they like and close when they like. They are untouchable. Remove them from a government department today and the next day they are in another better government job. But when Donald Trump threatened to bring his soldiers to our shores in Nigeria, Fulani began to scamper for safety. The whole of social media was filled with posts accusing the US of one ulterior motive or the other for wanting to attack Nigeria. One Fulani lady particularly said she is from a family where there are Christians and Muslims and they have been living with one another peacefully. She appealed to Nigerians to reject the scheme of President Trump. Arewa Consultative Forum, which is an instrument of Fulani in the country kept mute, the Northern Elders Council has nothing to say to Trump. The usually garrulous Hakeem Baba Ahmed is not speaking. When they speak on social media it is to appeal for oneness which they think we already have. The Sharia Council appealed to Nigerians not to allow any foreign lies to divide the nation. That amused me. So the Fulani thinks there is unity in Nigeria which they don’t want Trump to destroy. They must be living in a dream world or trying to deceive other Nigerians. If Nigeria has unity or peace at all, it is unity and peace of the graveyard, unity and peace that favours only the Fulani.
Donald Trump has shattered the myth of untouchability around Fulani. They know that if Trump makes good his threat and they know he is a tough man who carries out his threats, it is in the north of Nigeria that the “guns will blaze” as Trump said. That is the part of the country where the problem of religious freedom is, the part of the nation where the laws of the country are never obeyed. So they also spin all kinds of conspiracy theories. Trump is only interested in the gold and lithium and other minerals of the north. But they don’t tell us who has been stealing the minerals before now. They don’t tell us about the complicity of some governors of the north because of their arrogance and religious threats, which is why the federal government has not been able to curb them. They did not tell us that the illegal mining of these minerals gave birth to banditry in Zamfara State, which spread to other parts of the north and remain till today. The leaders insist on practicing Sharia. The foremost leader of the north, Sir Ahmadu Bello refused all the entreaties of the imams during his time to proclaim the Sharia on the north, rather he went to Pakistan to borrow the penal code which worked fairly in the north.
That is why in a country that the Fulanis are now calling one and where there is love in their view, there are two sets of law, the penal code in the north and the criminal code in the south. So where is our unity, one country; two sets of law. Even Ahmadu Bello did not listen to the Imams that building hotels are not Islamic. He argued that if the north did not have hotels the Muslims will be discriminated against. So he established guest houses in the north. They not only accommodated guests, they also sold beer. Today that is gone, these religious bigots are destroying beer in beer parlours. And it so happens that those who sell the beer are Igbo who are mostly Christians. It so happens that the Igbo have some of these Sharia bigots who patronize them. Yet in the open they break their beer bottles as Sharia punishment. Yet they say we are one nation with freedom of religion. Freedom of religion must mean that other Nigerians who are non-Muslims will be able to live their lives as they deem fit without breaking the laws of the nation. Even Muslims who want can drink alcohol as long as they are not forcing any other person to join them.
Trump did not mince words like we mince them when we discuss here so the gods of Fulani will not be angry. Trump said the blasphemy laws of the Muslims have resulted in the death of many Christians. Some say no, it is not only Christians that are being killed but Muslims too are killed by the terrorists. But what is the comparative number? Nobody has given us the statistics.
Deborah Samuel Yakubu, 19-year-old student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto was brutally murdered by a mob of Moslem students on May 12, 2022 in Sokoto because she acknowledged Jesus as the one that helped her to pass her exams where others failed. Her Muslim classmates deemed her blasphemous. For God’s sake, Deborah did not abuse Prophet Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, she only acknowledged her own Jesus. For that reason, and without trial she was stoned to death and burnt. And some, even Tinubu’s government will have us believe that there is religious freedom in our constitution as proof that there is religious freedom in Nigeria. What is the value of a constitutional provision of freedom that did not cover Deborah Samuel. Even Muslims would be wrong to kill a fellow Muslim for blasphemy. All Nigerians ought to speak up to protest such killings. Blasphemy law must be according to our constitution. It is a breach on the fundamental right to free speech.
Religion must not be by force. The Muslims must also speak up. I must not be forced to go to heaven. If Allah expects me to be brought before him in heaven at the forcible behest of another person, then I’m not worshipping Him of my own volition. Allah had me because my Imam or my emir or my sheikh forced me. Then the reward for such will be to the one that forced me to heaven before Allah and not to me. But the sacrifice must be personal so that the reward also will be personal. Any other way is illogical. But that is the choice of these Sharia bigots. And they say there is religious freedom in Nigeria. Is it freedom to be harnessed by force. No, there is no freedom in such situation and it is right to declare there is no religious freedom in Nigeria. Is there Christian genocide in Nigeria? First, there must be no kind of genocide in Nigeria, Christian, Muslim or ethnic. There must be no killing and our constitution proscribes capital punishment for murder. But what would you call the murder of 156 adults and scores of children killed in one day in a village in Plateau State, all who are Christians, to which the surving villagers have built a monument listing their names on a pillar. The people who survived said the killers came from neighbouring countries and some states in Nigeria, Bauchi, Kaduna, Gombe etc. When they killed them they take over their lands and settle there. What is that? In simple language it is premediated and targeted murder and has a purpose to displace the people; it is genocide.
The motives that have been ascribed to Trump does not matter. What matters is: are people wantonly killed? Was Deborah Samuel killed? Leah Sharibu was kidnapped along with 109 other girls from her school in Dapchi, Yobe State, in February 2018. Leah Sharibu’s case is distinct as she remained in captivity after the other Dapchi girls were released, reportedly due to her refusal to convert to Islam. What has the government done since the Buhari era to get justice for Deborah Samuel and to rescue Leah? Nothing! Was Gideon Akaluka beheaded in Kano by these Sharia people? Yes he was. Gideon Akaluka was a 30-year-old Igbo trader who was brutally murdered in Kano on November 2, 1995. His death was sparked by allegations of blasphemy, after he was accussed of using sheets of the Quran to wrap items for a woman believed to be his wife. There are many cases. Which of them has attracted the attention of our law. Which of them has been punished. None. So how can President Tinubu tell the world there is religious freedom in Nigeria.
Daniel Bwala, Tinubu’s political communication advisor appeared before a Russian Television to make a case for existence of religious freedom in Nigeria. Toward the end of the interview, you heard the interviewer saying “ thanks for the interview, your view has been heard in the necessary quarters.” You get the impression that government was directly recruiting Russia into the fray. The Chinese embassy has also written that China takes exception to America’s interference in Nigeria’s internal affairs. In Chad the government has drafted its soldiers to its border with Nigeria to stop all bandits from crossing over to its territory. Cheering news at the threat of Trump, the terrorists that Nigeria’s government has not been able to conquer are already running away.
We have been shamed and China and Russia cannot help us except we want our nation reduced to rubbles like Ukraine. We are in this shame because we have not built a country of our dreams. Bwala blames the IPOB separatists for prodding United States of America to declare Nigeria a nation of particular concern. What does he expect the separatists to do? To continue to be second rate people in a nation they call their own. President Tinubu has eaten the humble pie and is begging. That’s how low we have brought ourselves. We are called a disgraced country. And some are crying. Empty patriotism, text book patriotism. We are a disgraced nation because we cannot guarantee three square meals for our citizens, because we cannot provide education for our citizens, because we cannot guarantee freedom for our citizens, because though we are rich in resources, our leaders steal them, we are disgraced because we cannot get justice in our courts because our judges sell justice.
We need Trump to tame the Fulani. The war will certainly start from the north and I don’t think any part of the country will receive those Fulani who will flee because they don’t have any friends anywhere. Whatever anyone will say we must make bold to say the Fulani are the chief problem of Nigeria. Their pride and domineering attitude reach to high heavens; they must humble themselves and come to the table of brotherhood so we chat a path of mutual respect that will get the nation going in the right direction.
First Published in METRO
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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
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