The Killing Of Fellow Nigerians In Ibadan -By Abdulwasiu Olokooba

The attacks and onslaught launched against fellow Nigerians, particularly the northerners, by some warlords in Ibadan is a cause to the destruction of our unity as a country.

Let me be frank with you, if you think war is as easy as you think, then countries like Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan won’t make the list as hungriest nations on earth. If Libyans could catch a glimpse of what they would face after their revolution, I believed most would have prevented the killing of Gaddafi at the expense of their lives.

Except for the Sudanese revolution that started on 19 December 2018 with street protests and continued with sustained civil disobedience for about eight months, during which the 11 April 2019 Sudanese coup d’état deposed President Omar al-Bashir after thirty years in power, most upheavals landed countries in great ruins and crumpled the living and aspirations of the people. They were eventually rendered stateless and seen as people with no nationality under the sphere of international law and treated as refugees.

Believe me, if you destroy Nigeria, you and your next generations will suffer it. Stop deceiving yourself, no nation will grant you political protection if not Nigeria. You are born here and by section 25 of CFRN 2018, as amended, you are national by birth.

Whereas, those warlords here and in the diaspora possess a passport of another state each. Sunday Igboho even said unapologetically that his family are safe because they are not in this country and this means he would join them once this place is no longer fit for living. And I ask you, where would you be? Nigeria or you are capable of paying thousands of dollars to acquire the citizenship of a foreign land?

Honestly, you won’t understand what is tribalism until you are made a victim. It happened to me today. But that won’t stop me to love others, not from my clans, as fellow Nigerians.

If you could see with objective eyes, you would discern that not all Hausas are terrorists, Not all Fulanis are Bandits, Not all Yorubas are fraudulent, Not all Igbos are ritualists. I have met beautiful people from other tribes that I began to wonder if my clan is actually the best as I was made to know.

The killing of fellow Nigerians, not as inappropriately used on Twitter as #StopKillingNortherners, in Oyo state, is too barbaric and symptomatic of a state of nature which I believe Nigeria is not. I don’t see a reason a citizen should be treated as a stranger in his country. It’s wrong. The law even permits any citizen to own immovable properties anywhere in this country.

We have bad people in Hausa-Fulani in the same way we have it in Yoruba, Ijaw, or Igbo because every living being has a criminal tendency irrespective of race, colour and belief. We are all bad and it is the time we stop all these useless stereotypes that can send all of us to graves graves, God forbids, if we are too reckless to caution ourselves.

Section 14(2) of the constitution maintains that security and welfare of the people is the basic function of government in Nigeria and so it is a high time the federal government, Oyo state government, and the Northern Governors Forum should take a decisive step to end this inter-ethnic crisis that is disturbing the peaceful co-existence of Nigerians in Oyo state because Kano Riot of 1953 is still very fresh in our minds.