The
Sultan of Sokoo’s recent visit to Enugu State where he went to
felicitate with Enugu Rangers as champions of the 2015/2016 NPFL season
has been described by a section of the media and some commentators as a
bridge-building one. But then, is it really?
In as much as the visit is commendable,
the Sultan himself, Alhaji Mohamed Sa’ad Abubakar III, putrefied his own
oil when he said that the reason why Ndigbo are killed whenever there
is a crisis in the north is “because they are the industrious ones found
in everywhere and in every village but nobody plans or sends people to
kill the Igbos”.
Apart from being ridiculous, it is
insulting to the sensibilities of the Igbo and horrifying to upright
members of the society that the reason why a people are usually targeted
for mass murder is because of their industry and number. They are not
killed because they are bad neighbours; they are not killed because they
are trouble makers, they are not killed because they are law breakers;
they are killed just because they are industrious and large in number!
This statement by His Royal Highness,
Alhaji Mohammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, is a confirmation of what we have
always known: that the Igbo are hated for nothing but jealousy and that
most crises in the northern part of Nigeria have been instigated not
because of anything serious but as an alibi for a systematic
extermination of the Igbo people.
Little wonder then the Igbo are targets
of northern Islamic extremists when there is a crisis between Israel and
Palestine in far away Middle East. When some Danes draw a cartoon of
Prophet Muhammed in far away Denmark, Ndigbo in Kano, Kaduna and Niger
would have to pay for it with their blood. When there is a furore about
Nigeria hosting an international beauty contest in Abuja or Lagos, the
Igbo in Zamfara and Yobe would have to be killed and their sources of
livelihood destroyed for the message to be passed that such contest is Haram to some people.
When the US bomb Iraq, the Igbo in
Adamawa are bombed by northern elements in return. When there is a sharp
disagreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, it is the Igbo in Bauchi
that pay for it. When the Sunnis and the Shi’as have issues with each
other in Kaduna or other places, it is a recipe for Igbo sons and
daughters to be beheaded in those places even when they are neither
Shiites nor Sunnis.
The Igbo people are not only killed by
these northern Islamists simply because they can be found ‘everywhere’
according to the Sultan, in most cases, even when they disappear from
the theatre of war and go into hiding even in custody of the police,
they are desperately but carefully sought after and killed. This has
been the lot of Ndigbo especially in the north over a long period of
time.
The authorities usually hold no one
responsible for these dastardly acts, no one is arrested, no one is
prosecuted. Even if thousands of Ndigbo are victims of issues they are
not in any way connected with, no action is taken against the
perpetrators. Media outrage follows, police look away, northern
traditional rulers keep mute, Ndigbo bury their dead, and then they
return to continue their businesses without bitterness, without
vindictiveness or vengeance in mind, not even anywhere in the South East
would there be reprisals. The sun rises (in the east) and sets (in the
west), yet, the vicious cycle continues in the north.
In as much as one would want to commend
the Sultan for his initiative, it would have been better if he had
insisted that all those who killed Madam Bridget Agbahime, an Igbo
indigene, in Kano, be prosecuted. After all, the Sultan who is also the
leader of all Muslims in Nigeria said during that visit that justice is
panacea for peaceful coexistence. If that is the case, what did he say
about the manner the case against the alleged murderers of Madam Bridget
was withdrawn and the suspects let go just like that despite the hue
and cry that followed that macabre murder of a harmless septuagenarian,
despite the promise by the police, state and federal governments to
ensure the killers face the law?
The Sultan’s visit would have made more
sense if he had visited Kano and insist that those killers be brought to
book as panacea for peace. But no, he goes to beg the victims of his
people’s murderous activities to accept their fate as the one that
naturally befalls an industrious people with large populations. It is
quite ridiculous!
Like the Sultan rightly observed, it is
the continued absence of justice that has caused the unending agitations
in the South East which is growing louder by the day and have started
receiving the attention of the international community to the
consternation of antagonists of the agitations.
Unless the Sultan, his co-traditional
and religious leaders, state and federal government officials of
northern origin stop carrying about as if they own Nigeria and relent
from skewing justice and development against those they perceive as
their subordinates, such visits of the emir would only remain a journey
of monumental hypocrisy designed to make vigilant and courageous Igbo
sons and daughters let down their guard while terrorist herdsmen from
the Sultan’s enclave run riots even in the south east unchallenged.
The governors may have laughed with him
and that is because he went to felicitate with Rangers International of
Enugu. That we understand. When the Sultan is serious about justice and
peace, we will know. For now, the bridge he went to Enugu to build
remains of paper quality blown away by the wind as soon as he started
the work.
Jude
Ndukwe is a political analyst who lives and works in Abuja, Nigeria. He
is a member of The Trent’s Elite Columnists. His column is published
every Friday. He tweets from @stjudendukwe.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
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