Obidient Movement As A Fascist Group

 By Promise Adiele

For the sake of peace in Nigeria, let us unanimously agree that the Obidient Movement is a fascist group. (Make peace for reign, abi?) But if we must subscribe to that spiteful narrative, let us innovatively, redefine and explicate fascism. Although generally understood as an authoritarian rule that abhors opposition, fascism must acquire a new identity for a better understanding in Nigeria since it is associated with the famous, radical Obidient Movement. 

*Peter Obi mobbed by a crowd of admirers...

In Nigeria, the brand of fascism associated with the Obidient Movement means rejecting all forms of official criminality and conspiracy in governance. It means the revolutionary denunciation of all manipulative tendencies which invidiously compromise the architecture of equitable, democratic representation. It means all efforts to uproot the edifice of deception, outrageous villainy, and the entrenchment of illegitimate power outposts in Nigeria. It means the attack against all forms of venal forces that have kept the country in the doldrums. 

Nigerians: When A People Choose To Deceive Themselves

 By Tochukwu Ezukanma

A lady that called into a TV program said, “My father told me that during the colonial era, everything that works in Britain, also worked in Nigeria”. This is a fact. Yes, power, water, schools, railways, health care, law enforcement, etc. all worked in Nigeria. 

It was after our independence that, in our crudity and dishonesty and un-patriotism, we destroyed the institutions built, and standards set, by the British. And lamentably, in our self-deceit, we blame our problems on colonialism and the legacies of colonialism. 

Mister President, There Is Hunger In The Land!

 By Ayo Baje

“As of April 2021, the inflation rate was the highest in four years. Food prices accounted for over 60 per cent of the total increase in inflation. Nigeria’s economic growth is being hindered by food inflation, heightened insecurity, unemployment and stalled reforms”. – World Bank Report. 

*Buhari 

Talk is cheap. But walking that talk is what truly matters for effective leadership. For instance, Nigerians have over the recent years discovered that some of our top political leaders are far removed from the harsh economic realities on the ground. They make fanciful promises during electioneering campaigns only to disregard or jettison them soon after mounting the pedestal of political power. 

The Avengers As Nemesis Of A Nation’s Hubris

By Alade Rotimi-John  

These are testy times for the Nigerian nation state. She is variously buffeted on all sides by the scourge of insurgency in her North-East geo-political zone, the murderous ogre of Fulani herdsmen in the north–central axis and in the southern states of Enugu, Ekiti, Oyo and Delta, the brimming militancy in the South-South exemplifying itself in incessant bombings of oil and gas pipelines in the Niger Delta, the revamped agitation for self-determination by restive youths in the South-East, an all-time low crude oil price, the irritable upsurge in price level, the plummeting exchange value of the national currency, unbridled unemployment and the abysmal failure or non-functioning of public infrastructure e.g. electricity, etc.

Of all Nigeria’s contemporary difficulties, however, the Boko Haram attempt to take control of the country by force to foist on her its own brand of rabid or unconventional Islamism and the Niger Delta militancy directed at the nation’s economic jugular have understandably taken the centre stage. Both militant agitations must be understood as natural human responses to a perceived unfair or unjust political or social order even as they are a stark reflection of how remiss successive administrations have been regarding the requirement to resolve the contradictions inherent in the Nigerian pastiche. Only half-hearted attempts have been made to interrogate the Nigerian national question.

The socio-economic injustice in the Niger Delta finds unrefreshing or disturbing parallel in the criminal neglect of the fortunes of children and young persons in many parts of Northern Nigeria. Generally, the Nigerian state manifests smug indifference to the plight of her people even as the people are consequently provoked to question the legitimacy or appropriateness of those who have been put in authority over them to resolve the crisis of the status of their stake-holding.

Self-help is resorted to as government marshals state security and military resources to combat the “audacity” of the aggrieved people. For instance, the hubris or overweening pride of the state often displayed by her power wielders defines the response of the state to the people’s protestation of the environmental degradation or ecological scandal that is the plight of the residents of the Niger Delta. Troops are promptly mobilised and deployed just to put out or “crush” any protest. 

The people may be quietened but the rumbles remain loud. The Adaka Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa memorabilia fore-shadowing today’s restive agitations in the Niger Delta region offer a ruminative opportunity for the present occupiers of state offices. The impending battle in Oporoza is the a la carte or regular response of government: make no distinction between the culpable and the innocent, the young or aged; lump all together for violent punishment or mauling as they have not been able to restrain their children or wards from becoming threats to the national economy. Afterall, “All have sinned…”

Time To Review Nigeria

Alabi Williams

When some concerned intelligence quarters in the U.S advised that 2015 could be ominous for Nigeria, not many people took the concern to heart. Some even jeered at the peep as another meddlesomeness of the West. There was sufficient time between when the alert was issued way back in 2006 and 2015 for some reasonable measures to be put in place to shame the doomsayers, assuming that was all there was to it. There were also no signs that the matter was handed to local intelligence units to interrogate. In the absence of a concerted official position on the prediction, individual politicians swore to high heavens that Nigeria had come too far to disintegrate. Private citizens, as usual, launched into prayers to ward off the forecast from hell, and to possibly return it to those who sent it.

(pix:nigeriancurrents)

Year 2015 has come and gone and the house has not fallen, even though we did not do anything special to reinforce its structures. Glory be to God. But how long can the house continue to stand when there are no deliberate efforts to prolong its lifespan, except to hope and pray? But citizens continue to do a lot of other things to hewn at its foundations and the leadership refusing to hearken to calls to retool for enhanced cohesion and greater performance.

Until three weeks ago, the most disturbing news item was that of herdsmen who prowled communities of Benue, Enugu, Oyo, Delta and everywhere, unleashing terror on armless victims and setting their homes ablaze. Skirmishes between herdsmen and farmers had gone on for decades, but such were settled with sticks, and perhaps bows and arrows. Herdsmen used to carry local guns for hunting animals. In those days, herdsmen travel for kilometers in search of grazing lands and they did not seek to drive local farmers away to inherit their lands. If there were skirmishes, they were isolated and were within the capacity of community leaders to manage.

But as if to hasten the U.S prediction on disintegration, even if not within the 2015 timeline, herdsmen of recent years leave no one in doubt about their notion of a country. They want to operate like doctors with borders, roaming without inhibitions of law and space, trampling on territories and annexing vast swathes, even ancestral lands. They went to Plateau and left behind desolation and deaths. Then they went with temerity to Kaduna, south of the state and inflicted collateral damage on the local population. Then they went to Nasarawa, where prevailing internecine suspicions among local tribes aided their exploits. Then they crossed into Benue, Kogi, Ondo, and Oyo and were unhindered, even though they made front pages when they visited chief Olu Falae. It was in Enugu, and of recent Ekiti that their accomplishments received more than the usual feeble condemnations of the past.

The Rise Of Fulani Militants As World 4th Terror

By Law Mefor  

It is a story of the untouchables. They grew bolder and stronger right under our watch, while entrenched political and busi­ness interests force government af­ter government to feign ignorance and look the other way as they commit atrocities. They prance through the lengths and breadths of Nigeria with AK47 assault ri­fles, machine guns and sundry war weapons, killing, raping, maiming and sacking and razing communi­ties without consequences.

Call them ‘Fulani militants’ or ‘Fulani herdsmen’ or ‘cattle rustlers’. Whatever you choose to call them, it is the same gang of criminals who have grown and gained global record, since 2014, as the world’s 4th deadliest terror group, inferior only to ISIS, Al- Shabaab and of cause their kin called Boko Haram.

The latest in their trail of sor­row, tears and blood (as Fela would put it) is the ongoing Agatu mas­sacre, which prompted President Muhammadu Buhari, himself a Fulani, to order an investigation on February 28, 2016. Before the Agatu massacre, cattle herdsmen and cattle rustlers have caused similar mayhem in most parts of the Middle Belt, especially Plateau, Kogi and Benue. Other parts of the country are equally not spared by the rampaging brigands - Kaduna, Enugu, Imo, Zamfara, Kano, Kat­sina and many other States all have tales of woe about their gory visita­tions.

They come in the dead of the night when villagers are deep asleep and set their houses on fire. Those who manage to escape are shot. Their brazen killing of over 60 in Zamfara in 2014 was an opera­tion that lasted for hours with law enforcement agents doing nothing. From experience, therefore, noth­ing comes out of investigations launched into their evil activities and this has made them to grow wilder and stronger.

They are brazen and fearless and appear to enjoy consider­able political cover from the high and mighty. For example, rather than help find solutions to these increasing wars between Fulani militants and farmers, some peo­ple who are in a position to broker peace encourage their activities. Such persons like Mallam Nasir El- Rufai, former minister of the FCT and now Governor of Ka­duna State, who rather than find solutions to such threat to national security, could only tweet on July 15, 2012: “We will write this for all to read. Anyone, soldier or not, that kills the Fulani takes a loan repay­able one day no matter how long it takes”. Tacit approvals of such divi­sive and dangerous activities and unwitting protectiveness of those who perpetrate them, are no doubt contributing to their brazenness, arson and murder.

Their growth has been alarm­ingly steady and Government re­sponse only half-hearted. In 2013, the Fulani militants killed around 80 people in total. But by 2014, the group had killed 1,229. Operating mainly in the Middle Belt of Ni­geria and has also been known to stage attacks in the Central African Republic (CAR), according to the latest report from the Global Ter­rorism Index, the group has now gained reputation as a terror group.