Important Things to Know in a Future Battle for the Soul of Nigeria.

The Fulani have no powerful armies of their own. They have neither great numbers nor great physical strength. But they are masters of stealth, deception & manipulation.
They rely on peoples of other ethnic groups to achieve their goals both in the battlefields and in politics.
They used the Hausa talakawa to topple the kings of the old Hausa states and subsequently relegated and subjugated them under the Emirates.
They used Kakanfo Afonja to gain a foothold in Ilorin and subsequently killed him, took over the area and subjugated the Yoruba and other ethnic groups there.
They used the strife among the diverse peoples of what is now Adamawa to defeat local chiefs and install Modibbo Adama as Emir. Thereafter, they sidelined and ruled over the people.
They used the infantrymen of the Middle Belt, the generals of the South West & Mid West, and the purchased loyalty of the South South to defeat Biafra and subsequently relegated them to second class citizens of "One Nigeria."
More recently, they have used the political & media machinery of Bola Tinubu and the ACN to claw their way back to Aso Rock. You can see the way they have so far manipulated and rubbished VP Prof. Yemi Osibanjo who is the proxy of Bola Tinubu and ACN in Abuja. Ditto for Babatunde  Fashola, Chris Ngige, Rochas Okorocha, Umahi, Fayemi, Godswill Akpabio and Audu
Ogbe.
But there is good news. The Fulanis are not invincible. Wherever they meet a united and resolute force, they retreat and make peace. That's what happened when they met the armies of the old Oyo Empire in Osogbo and the Benin Empire in Afemai. They were similarly neutralized by the Kanuri and other peoples of the Bornu area who fought them to a standstill. Ditto with the Tivs, Idoma & Igala.
Today, they cannot succeed if the other interest groups in the country (North, West, East and South) join forces and resolutely put them in their place on all fronts - political, economic & military.
The Fulani must accept their place as just one of Nigeria's over 250 ethnic groups (not a super ethnic group) or be prepared to leave this union and space for good. We will no longer accept or tolerate their scheming and destabilising ways.
In doing this we must watch out for Judases & collaborators among us and deal with them decisively. That is, those who will go through the back door to receive favors and sabotage the collective effort.
They are already here with us. Some of them are "highly placed" serfs in the federal government who for a plate of porridge accept to be used as fronts for un-progressive and unpopular programs like RUGA or look the other way. Others are governors, traditional rulers and opinion leaders who likewise receive money or positions & sell out or keep silent.
We the people of Nigeria are duty bound to identify, shame, isolate and neutralize all such people, their families and business interests by any means necessary. This is a struggle for the soul of Nigeria and the fate of our children and generations unborn.
Finally, a warning to current & would-be Fulani collaborators: The fate of Afonja awaits you. A terrible and shameful end. An ignoble place in history forever. Mark these words.

Petroleum Trust Fraud By Ray Ekpu.

It is not known to this column how close Brigadier Sani Abacha was to Major General Muhammadu Buhari by December 1983. It was Abacha who announced at the end of a few minutes of martial music on new year’s eve that the government of President Shehu Shagari had been thrown into the dust bin of history. Buhari became the fulcrum of that history as Nigeria’s head of state. On August 27, 1985, there was another game, the Revolving Doors’ game. Buhari was out, thrown out, while Ibrahim Babangida, was in, thrown into the pinnacle of political power in Nigeria. Babangida clamped Buhari into the dungeon for some months where he cooled his feet, while his colleagues were bestriding the Nigerian political and military firmament like they owned the world. Babangida left or was forced to leave the throne after eight years of dangerous foot work. He called Chief Ernest Shonekan, a successful private sector entrepreneur, to come and take the baton of leadership.

 

He took it and as he was trying to hold it in his hand firmly, Abacha who had been eyeing the coveted prize greedily grabbed it in 1994. He immediately increased the price of petroleum products. The public rolled out a series of protests. As an appeasement measure, he set up the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) as an intervention development agency to bring succor to the people especially in the rural areas. He made Buhari the executive chairman of the Fund which he ran for five years (1994-1999).

 

Why did Abacha appoint Buhari the Executive Chairman of PTF? Was it as an atonement for the sin of standing by while he was overthrown by the Babangida Boys? Or was he just sympathetic seeing that the man had been left in the cold by Babangida since his ouster on August 27, 1985? Or was Abacha simply looking for a fabled disciplinarian who didn’t love money too much or the dirty part of it? Buhari needed that rehabilitation, physical, financial and reputational. He was eager to come in from the biting cold and be seen as a man who, despite the overthrow and detention, had kept his dignity and integrity such that Abacha who was Babangida’s man, could trust him with the big-wallet job.

 

The Petroleum Trust Fund was to intervene in such areas as roads and waterways, supply of educational materials, rehabilitation of educational infrastructure, food supply, health, water supply, etc. Buhari set up a capricious management structure and appointed Afri-Project Consortium (APC) led by a 42 year old man, Salihijo Ahmad. This Consortium was the sole manager of the PTF projects. Ahmad had admitted to Newswatch in an interview published by the magazine in its April 19, 1999 issue that it was APC that wrote the proposal which defined the mandate of the PTF. It suggested the criteria, procedure for selection and appointment of contractors, consultants and suppliers. It also worked out the monitoring mechanism adopted by the PTF. The APC had some 620 consulting firms reporting to it. It was the sole management consultants to the PTF. Most Nigerians had no idea how the PTF was run. It was when President Olusegun Obasanjo took over in 1999 and set up an interim management committee (IMC) headed by Dr Haroun Adamu to wind down the PTF that the worms crawled out of the can. That Interim Management Committee appointed three technical consultants to investigate various aspects of the PTF management. Their findings conducted independently were damning. When I read President Buhari’s remarks a few weeks ago in which he crowed about the achievements of the PTF under his leadership, I decided to do a facts-check since I knew that Newswatch had done a cover story titled “How Buhari ran PTF” which was published in its March 13, 2000 issue. This story was the product of a thorough investigation into the mammoth fraud as discovered by the technical consultants hired by the IMC. Details of the IMC report are distilled for you here. The findings: N144.51 billion had been given to PTF by the Federal Government during its lifetime; A residential estate was to be built at Wuse, Abuja, for N703 million but the technical consultants hired by IMC put the realistic valuation at about N328 million; Between July 1994 and July 1999, about N25 billion was either stolen or improperly expended; Extension of PTF headquarters was to gulp N650 million; Expired HIV/Aids drugs and kits worth N28 billion was supplied to several hospitals nationwide. This was confirmed by the Nigerian Guild of Medical Directors whose Secretary, Mr. Rowland Ogbonna, asked the Federal Government to withdraw the drugs immediately from all hospitals in the country. Many projects were abandoned while the completion rate of other projects was put at 30%; the sum of N500 million that the PTF deposited in a bank disappeared as soon as the IMC was announced. The bank agreed to pay the money after President Obasanjo read the Riot Act to the bank officials. On taking over, IMC discovered that there were no contract documents, drawings or specifications relating to projects. The APC could and did award contracts and vary the pricing without any reference to the PTF. Mr. Ahmad had asked the IMC officials to come and collect some documents in connection with all the transactions. On the day of the appointment he collapsed and died. The other members of the APC team claimed that they were not in a position to supply the documents.

 

There were more sordid revelations. The Afenifere did an analysis of the siting of the projects. The consumption of petroleum products by the South was 70% while that of the North was 30%. However, the distribution of the PTF projects was a reversal of the consumption pattern: 70% to the north and 30% to the south. All southern states had 4,440.43 kilometres of roads rehabilitated (24%) while states in the north had 13,870.47 kilometres rehabilitated (76%). Teaching Hospitals’ rehabilitation: South 38%, North 62%; Specialist hospitals: South 29%, North 71%; Food supply: South 17%, North 83%; National Health and Educational Rehabilitation Programme (NHERP): South 0% and North 100%; Vocational Programme: South 3%, North 97%; Primary School rehabilitation: South 12%, North 88%. Haroun Adamu acknowledged the gross imbalances in the sharing of the projects but regretted that his committee could not do much to remedy the situation since by the IMC mandate they could not embark on new projects.

 

From the findings there was massive fraud in PTF, fraudulently masquerading as achievements. The institution was a government intervention agency but run without the regulatory checks and balances that undergird the implementation of government projects. The Afri-Projects Consortium was just on its own, a loose cannon with no authority to check it. Buhari was the Executive Chairman but he was absent-minded and had capriciously surrendered the operational powers of the PTF to APC without diligent supervision. The boys looted the place dry and there was no evidence that Buhari had an inkling of the huge corruption under his feet. Sometime before the IMC takeover, a newsmagazine, TheWeek, had interviewed him about the swirling corruption allegations. He said allegations of corruption against him were false. “My integrity is intact.” His friends said so too and even insinuated that Dr. Adamu was going after Buhari because the former dictator had detained him in 1994. Adamu told Newswatch: “I am not here to probe Buhari, No, that is not our mandate. Whatever happened when he was head of state is long forgotten. He is my friend.”

 

Buhari’s personal integrity was not soiled by the Petroleum Trust Fraud but he displayed supreme incompetence as a manager. As an Executive Chairman the buck stopped at his desk and no matter how you want to slice it he takes vicarious responsibility for the humongous fraud that took place in that institution. Secondly, the grossly lopsided distribution of the PTF projects between North and South is an awful testimonial for a man of his national standing to whom the nation through the coup makers had given the highest position in the land. His lopsided appointments today constitute a déjà vu.

 

When I read what he said about Abacha I was sorry for him. He said to a delegation, Buhari Support Group led by Comptroller General of Customs, Hameed Ali. “I don’t care about the opinion you have on Abacha but I agreed to work with him and we constructed roads from Abuja to Port Harcourt, Benin, Onitsha and so on. We also touched education and health. One of the former Heads of State was bragging that he spent $16 billion on power in Nigeria. Where is the power?” The emerging confrontation between the two former dictators, former friends and former allies and now fierce foes, Obasanjo and Buhari, will receive the attention of this column in due course. For now, I think President Buhari’s open veneration of the kleptocratic and autocratic Abacha is a cause for nausea. At the 10th anniversary of Abacha’s death Buhari had given the fantastically corrupt Abacha a clean bill of integrity. Even at that time, Nigeria was running all over the world trying to retrieve the billions Abacha had scattered in several banks in several countries and several continents. The horrifying stories of the elimination of prominent politicians and businessmen by Abacha constitute a notorious portion of our national narrative. No matter how hard Buhari tries, no matter what he thinks of the despicable, despotic Abacha, no matter why he thinks the man was a saint he will never succeed in winning Nigerians to his side. He will only wake up with fleas since he chooses to be in bed with dogs.

The North, Which North ?? By Tola adeniyi.

We have lived with this myth for far too long. We have tolerated and accepted this political deception for as long as anyone can remember. But the myth has to be exposed for what it really is. The lie must be consigned to the dust bin. The mask has been removed. For too long people speak of Hausa-Fulani.

The truth of course is that the so called Hausa Fulani as a person or human being does not exist. You cannot be Ijaw-Igbo, or Hausa-Gwari. You are either an Ijaw or an Igbo! As closely related the Isokos and Uhrobos are you cannot have an Isoko-Uhrobo as a person. Egbas and Ijebus are within the same linguistic bracket, but you do not have an Ijebu-Egba. You are either Ijebu or Egba. You cannot be both!

The second myth is with the phrase Northern cabal. There is no Northern Cabal. The only all conquering and scheming cabal in the Nigerian political equation is the #FulaniCabal.

The Hausa had been conquered and controlled since about 200 years ago! And in any case there is nothing special about cabals.

Cabals exist everywhere in human communities. We have cabals in my home town Ago-Iwoye. We have cabals in Ijebu. There is Egba cabal. There is the Tiv cabal. What we have had all along and had sheepishly submitted to is what I call the derivative of the politics of language.

The Republican Party in the United States is the world’s master in the coinage and deployment of politics of language to deceive, bamboozle and terrify opposition. The politics of language is used to make an unsuspecting opponent lose faith in his or her own self-worth.

I have written copiously on the subject of The Politics of Language and have also given scholarly lectures on the subject at academic forums. I should give an example; everybody knows that all currencies of the world are made of paper. But in the deployment of politics of language the US brands its own currency the Hard Currency making other currencies of other nations to look like tissue paper.

Politics of language refers to some people as ‘people of colour’ as if there is any human being on earth whose skin is colourless! I have argued even at a lecture I gave to a huge international gathering in Edmonton Canada 2002 that there is no Blackman there is no Whiteman. There is no human being whose skin colour is that of charcoal or for that matter the colour of white chalk or cotton wool. The African is chocolate brown while the Caucasian is pink, like colour of a leper!

This brings us to the myth of the so-called Fulani cabal. Like I said we cannot even talk of the North Cabal because the North of the great Sir Ahmadu Bello does not exist anymore. And the Fulani cabal as possessing any extra-ordinary powers like a Magician does not exist, just as the US branded Hard currency does not exist.

Simply put, what we have had and does exist is a group of cunning schemers who have ridden on the legacy of heroic Sir Ahmadu Bello who at a time in history believed that the rest of the contraption called Nigeria must forever be subjugated to the whims and caprices of the Fulani, who at that point in history were the sole power block in the old Northern region.

It is a historical fact that the Fulani Jihadists overran the whole of the expanse of land carved out by Lugard and named Northern Protectorate. The Jihadists also stole parts of the Southern Protectorate until they met their Waterloo at Osogbo. It should also be pointed out that the Jihadists could not penetrate or conquer the Kanuris of Borno Empire who at that point in history had superior civilization and superior knowledge of the Quran and Islam.

Sir Ahmadu Bello was a great tactician, great strategist and great visionary politician who was also lucky to have the backing of the dubious colonial masters. Sir Ahmadu realized very early in his political career and with knowledge of the teachings of immortal Chairman Mao Tzekung of China coupled with the said backing of the insidious British that power flows from the barrel of the gun.

The so-called North when there was something like that up till 1967 was armed to the teeth. It was however not the Fulani that were armed, it was their ‘slaves’, the other ethnic nationalities in the North; the people of Lantang, the Gwaris, the Jukumns, the Tivs, the Southern Zaria Christians in the Kataf region, the Godogodos, and several other minorities who were to be the monkeys for the baboons meals.

These were the men, the foot soldiers in the Military Wing of the ruling political parties of the then North. They were the coup makers any time the Fulani masters felt the need to prolong their stronghold on their territory called Nigeria. That monopoly has been weakened since 1999.

But the scale has fallen off the eyes of these slaves of yesteryears. Following the Dimka and Orka led Coups, and following the execution of Mamman Jiya Vatsa the minorities that were hitherto used as tools for coup making have had a rethink.

Anybody who thinks the Military in present day Fulani colony of Nigeria is the same Military of pre-1967 is living in fools’ paradise. We do not need to look far; we have seen the level of morale in the wrong headed prosecution of the Boko Haram insurgency.

There is so much mistrust and distrust in the land. There is so much greed in the land. There is no single grain of patriotism or nationalism anywhere in the land. And the Military are not immune from the malady that had consumed Nigeria since 1999. The translation of this code is that there is no more the Army of the North. The Northern military euphemistically called the Nigerian Military does not exist anymore in reality.

But the real death knell of the so-called North came about by the unwarranted prosecution and unabashed persecution of Christians in the Northern region. I wish the so-called Northern leaders who appear to be condoning the slaughtering and butchering of Christians in the North have their ears put to the ground to know the degree of angst the persecuted groups nurse against the power blocks in the North.

To that extent therefore the North of the visionary leader Sir Ahmadu Bello is dead. Ahmadu Bello was not self-seeking, he did not amass wealth and whatever politics he played, whatever policies he enunciated, and whatever strategies he deployed were for the greater benefit of the whole of the North. Eternal credit remains interred in his bones for uniting the North of his day with the adoption of Hausa language as lingua franca of the whole North.

It is this universality of the Hausa language in the North that deceives the south to believe erroneously that every speaker of Hausa language is Hausa or Fulani. Foul!!

The greatest blow to the unity of the so-called North is the brutal and brutish barbarism of the Fulani herdsmen whose madness does not have rhyme or rhythm. All they know is to spread grief, anguish and dreadful pain wherever they choose to display their unbridled cruelty and impunity.

They have wreaked havoc in Adamawa, they have raped and killed in Taraba, they have massacred thousands of innocent Agatus in Benue, they have wreaked havoc in Niger, they have continually butchered thousands in Southern Kaduna, Kogi state is under their hammer and Plateau is under their occupation, the list is endless. And these lands and people being ravaged are NORTHERNERS!!!!

And all these people being ruthlessly assaulted have relations and families in the Military, the Police, the SSS, the Immigration and Customs as well as in other armed Security outfits in the land. Yet some one somewhere will seat his whimsical ass on the sofa in an air-conditioned office gazing at the millions of Naira hidden in his mind and say there is a North. Which North??

Let no one try it; the cohesive Military that committed pogrom against the Igbos in 1967-70 does not exist anymore!!! The world of 1967 is not the world of 2017!

If any part of the internally colonized contraption called Nigeria wishes to opt out of the yoked marriage, it should be allowed to go in peace. The inevitable breakup if we do not go confederate, should be allowed without undue and mindless bloodshed which invariably will result in the same breakup.

 

Chief Tola Adeniyi is a former Managing Director of Daily Times of Nigeria.

Buhari has Always Been on the sides of the Fulani Herders.

It was on 13 October 2000, General Buhari led a delegation comprising of General Buba Marwa, Alhaji Aliko Muhammed, Alhaji Abdulrazak and Alhaji Hassan…all wearing long faces arrived governor’s Adesina’s office. In fact, the anger in them was palpable as all pleasantries extended to them were ignored. Emitting fire, the general accused Lam and the government of Oyo State of complicity in the killing of over 68 Fulani people in Oke Ogun area and perversion of justice.

The governor identified all the points raised by Buhari and simply asked the heads of the security organizations directly involved to respond to the allegations. First to speak was the Commissioner of Police who debunked all the claims. Instead of the allegation that the natives were killing Fulanis, the commissioner said pointedly that the opposite was the case.

“The killing of the natives by the Fulanis was duly reported to the police and, of course, we can’t make arrest because, as soon as they kill, they migrate to other areas. Who are you going to arrest? That is the problem”.

On the killing of Fulanis, which he said was as result of “piled up anger”, the commissioner disclosed that arrests had been made and the suspects were in police custody. Next was the Director of SSS, who equally debunked the allegations by Buhari. At this point, all the tensions and apprehensions evaporated. Trust Lam any day, he must rub it in. He spoke for about 20 minutes and the generals were at the edge of their seats for the entire period. They were like chicken that had just been thoroughly beaten by the rain. Lam said:

“I want to say that we really have to appeal to our people, the itinerant Bororo people, that they should observe less aggression. It is not good , it is not right just coming from somewhere then you just pass through farm lands cultivated may be with the person’s life savings and then overnight everything is gone. That is not right, even Allah does not approve of that. We even wonder when they talk about this people carrying dangerous weapons, I say do they really believe in Allah? When you just take life like that and go away! Are we not forbidden not to take human life?”

Excerpt of an article published in Vanguard in Nov, 2012 by Agbaakin Kehinde Olaosebikan (former Chief Press Secretary to Governor Lam Adesina.