Why Plateau State Never Gets a Muslim Deputy Governor

The Nigerian Presidential Primaries of 2023 stirred anger across the country when the ruling All Progress Congress, APC, ended up with a Muslim-Muslim ticket. That simply means that, while the Presidential candidate is a Muslim, his running mate is also a Muslim. Northern Christians felt insulted by it. The party has zoned the position of the VP to the north.

New Government House, Rayfield, Jos

 

This plan stirred a conversation that refused to abate to the point that a Senator from Kogi West, Smart Adeyemi, decided he was sponsoring a bill to ban same-faith tickets. That means that if the bill is passed, it will make it impossible for any presidential candidate to come up with a running mate from the same religion as his. So, if you are a Christian, you must have a Muslim running mate and vice versa.

A lot of political pundits feel there is nothing smart about the bill; it will just stir a huge conflagration across the country. The fear is that, should that bill get passed, there is a strong possibility some states would start asking for it, as well.  In so many states across northern Nigeria with predominantly Muslim populations, it has always been a Muslim-Muslim tag team. The Christian minorities in many of such states have come to accept it and it is normal to them. In Kaduna, the southern half is predominantly Christian. They have always produced the deputy governor until Nasir El Rufai decided he wasn't going that way during his second tenure as governor.  I have heard someone from Nassarawa State saying that the state will never have a Christian governor. If Plateau State will never get a Muslim governor, why should they, in Nassarawa State, have a Christian governor?

Plateau State, which is predominantly a Christian state, has always had a Christian-Christian ticket. It isn't because someone has anything against Muslims. Rather, it is the political dynamics that make it so.

Plateau State has an ethnic population of more than forty tribes. Of these, there are five major ones, which include the Berom, Mwaghavul, Ngas, Taroh and Gomai. Though the Muslim community in the state is huge, it can never be compared with the population of any of these tribes. So, if an Ngas man becomes a gubernatorial candidate, he will want to run with a Berom man. This is because the Berom, spreading across four out of the seventeen local government areas, has a huge population. If it turns out that a Berom man is also contesting for the same seat, he would turn to any of Ngas, Taroh or Gomai for a running mate.  They wouldn't want to risk going for a Muslim, since the Muslims, though huge in number, can't be compared with the population of any of these tribes.

Someone may ask: if in Kaduna State, Christians have produced deputy governors, why is it not happening in Plateau. In Plateau State, if you decide you are going with a minority tribe and your opponent decides he is going with a major tribe, you risk the chance of losing.

A further reason why a Muslim hasn't become a sidekick to any governor in the more than two decades of democratic rule is because of the timidity of the Hausa population, particularly in Jos-North. They don't seem interested in Plateau politics as a whole. Rather, they are only interested in the politics of Jos-North. It is something that is within their grasp, enabling a Hausa or a Fulani man to become Chairman of the council.

 Since we are practising democracy, it will be unwise to have a bill that aims to stifle the freedom that democracy represents. Nigeria is a secular state, after all. That means that, though Nigerians are free to practice any religion of their liking, the government wouldn't allow religion to influence the decision it makes. It wouldn't use its resources to support the growth and development of any religions.

Famous Nigerian Footballers

The Extraordinary Festival of Zerechi

The biggest hero of Zerechi is not one who wins in the fight for the body of a killed animal, but the Nne Ruwu and the Nne Rigbe. The two men are chosen from the house of Nu’uwhye, one of the dozen houses that make up Irigwe land. In Irigwe folklore, you wake up to find the rigbe beside you, if the gods agree that you are most qualified to be the Nne Rigbe.

The prehistoric Irigwe man understood the year had come full cycle from stones he kept. There must have been about 365 of them. Every day, he took out one. By the time he sees five remaining from his starting heap, for instance, he knew there were five days left before Zerechi. It was declared, and the public would join the countdown.

In the few weeks before Zerechi, the elders at Nu’uwhye “speak with the gods.” There is an epiphany of the Nne Ruwu and Nne Rigbe. On Zerechi Day, the Nne Rigbe begins his journey with his rigbe (the horn.) He walks from Kwall, the ancestral home, descending the steep rocky slopes of the valley that separates Kwall in the south and Miango in the north. He crosses the river and climbs out of the valley, entering Miango. From time to time, he stops and blows his horn. The sound reverberates across the whole of Irigwe land. He is telling people that the year has come full cycle and it is Zerechi, the Christmas of Irigwe people. He continues his walk until he comes to a place called, Iyi-Shoko. At that point, the Nne Ruwu (the man of rites) takes over. Once the Nne Ruwu takes over, the walk ends, the marathon begins. There are crowds running after him in this marathon to Rotsu.
 
“You don’t dare pass the Nne Ruwu, you’ll die,” goes the belief. “You don’t cross the path on which he runs. If you do, you’ll die.” “You don’t dare cross the River Ruhwyevo, before he does: you don’t want to die young.” His bearing is the north, where Rotsu is located. There are villages to the left and right of the path on which he runs. Other villages are miles away from his path. The men from all these villages gather together at the River Ruhwyevo, waiting for the hero. The men, young and old, short and tall, big and frail, just sit at the bank of river, waiting and admiring his heroism. There is a cacophony from the jokes, the teasing and laughter. There is tension. It comes from the anticipation of his arrival. It comes from wondering whether one will make it in the fight to get close to the hero –the crowd is huge.
 
The year I witnessed Zerechi for the first time, we came from Renwhienku to the east of Rostu. We turned up at the river bank, tired from the long walk. Then we sat. There was a fairly long wait. Then, suddenly, there was a faint chant of a war song that made it through the distance. At our own end, everybody instinctively sprang up. “A rebe” (he is coming) chorused the voices. Then, the distant chant got closer and closer, until the Nne Ruwu came to view. Then the elders started warning the youths against the temptation of crossing the river before the hero does.

When he finally turned up, I was able to catch a glimpse of him. He was a dark young man of average height and built, and exuded heroism even in the way he ran. The waiting crowd barely let him cross the river. There were, perhaps, countless spots from where water splashed, as men jumped into the river behind the hero. It was as if millions of stones had been thrown from heaven with all falling within a span of two seconds.

The shrine at Rotsu is a place in a wild forest.  On a normal day, an ignorant passer-by would just walk through it, not observing something out of the ordinary. There is, however, a belief that though the shrine is like any other place is a forest, someone walking through will feel, in his head, that something is knocking him out of balance. It is a hint that the place isn’t ordinary.

At this shrine the ritual is performed, throwing grains, spilling the blood of an animal and praying for the rains to come and nourish the farms for good harvest as the farming season beckons. Then the crowd disperses. The hunting continues. In the hunting other heroes would be made.

 

Why Your Poor Husband Is Important

Image source: https://www.elitedaily.com

I have a neighbour, Rhoda, who got married to a young man. Her husband is self-employed and works hard to find a breakthrough.  Though he has not found his breakthrough, he brings something to the house. Rhoda, however, fails to understand the worth of her husband, and she’s always ashamed to talk about him. She is of the notion that a worthy husband is one that is “made.”

I think that Rhoda is suffering from profound ignorance, despite her education. It is important that she understands that a surprisingly high number of women are married to men of the economic strength of her spouse or even worse and, yet, talk proudly about him.

There is this widespread position of a lot of adult girls that they will wait for a wealthy man. The danger here is that if she waits too long, she will end up getting old without a husband. And, from that point, desperation could set in. The result is that she could end up without a husband or one worse than the one she feared. Grown women without spouses need to understand that:

• Most women married their husbands when the husbands had nothing. They, then, grew together.
• Such wealthy men are not many. If you continue waiting for one of them, you could end up without one or with the worst.
• A good number of women who married wealthy men also came from wealthy family backgrounds.
• If you find a wealthy man, there’s a good chance he already has a woman in his life.
• There are a lot of women who are married to wealthy men but are unhappy.  Some of these women wish the man gets poor, if his poverty will ensure they are happy.
• Your husband is what you have, what belongs to you. You should not be ashamed of talking about him. People will not despise you because you are proud of your husband.   

• I   If you stand with your husband in front of some women from wealthy marriages, some of them will admire your husband.

So, what do you need to look at in a man? The man you intend to marry should be a man you love, a man who also loves you. This is fundamental.

Poverty isn’t a virtue, but it is something you can get rid of, with hard work. So, check to see if the man has a prospect. A man with a prospect is a man who’s educated or has a skill he’s acquired and works hard. He shouldn’t be a man who lives the culture of spending every evening in a liquor bar. He shouldn’t be a womanizer. Drinking and womanizing eats up income and ensure you get stranded in poverty.

Sometimes, you get married to a man you are proud of because of his good qualities, but the man changes after sometime.  It is a challenge that has thrown itself along your path, and you have to fight it. Even in wealthy homes, there are challenges. It explains why some women in wealthy marriages are not happy. Life is never a walk in the park every time

NIGERIAN LEADERS IN HISTORY

Understanding France’s Social Character

French Flag

When I was a student, my French lecturer invited me to the field to answer, by practical demonstration, a question I had asked. I invited my closest friend. We had become riveted by the love of music.

We were still adolescents in our mindsets. Hence, the issue of music came in. My friend proposed to come along with a mobile cassette tape player. We would play Fela’s classical Afro Beat while in the field. Fela is the inventor of Afro Beat, which fuses Jazz and southwestern Nigerian music rhythms.  

When the French man heard it, he welcomed the idea, pointing out that Fela was very popular in Europe (he must have noticed Fela was not all that popular in Nigeria.)

While reading Time Magazine, an article referred to the highly social character of France. It was the statement that kept resonating in my mind, the picture still not getting clear to me, nevertheless.

I am an avid fan of international news. Radio France International is one news source I embraced. I noticed that each time there was an interlude, there was a good chance Afro Beat would be played.

I once watched a video of Ara performing somewhere in France. She is a Nigerian female music artist who carved a niche as a woman that plays the talking drum. As a Nigerian, playing to the French music fans a genre one would have considered exotic and obscure, the fans danced vigorously as if it was their invention.

Finally, when Emmanuel Macron became French President, he visited Nigeria. In his itinerary, there was going to be a visit to Fela’s shrine in Nigeria. He lived up to his travel plans. That was when, at last, the total picture of France’s profound social character became clear to me.

While in secondary school, we had a skewed understating of the word, “social.” To us, one who was social was him with a profound love for western music. Imagine the depth and enormity of our ignorance. We were to understand that one who is social is he who can tolerate and live with exotic cultures, no matter how remote they must have come from. Along this line, it is not America, as our ignorance had made us believe. It is France.

Fantastic Corruption Made Manifest

 

David Cameron. Source:wikipedia.com

David Cameron, while serving as the Prime Minister of Britain, was once caught gossiping to Queen Elizabeth of England, telling her about two nations that are “fantastically corrupt.” These nations, according to Cameron, were Nigeria and Afghanistan.

The topic, as at now, is that of Afghanistan falling back to the Talaban that was ousted from power in Afghanistan in 2001, following 9/11.

Afghans may feel differently, but one may say that the most unfortunate nationals on the surface of the planet are them; all other events in the history of the country are dwarfed by the story of an unending battle between lines of democratic governments and holy Islamic warriors, the Mujahedeens. So, constant was the battle for power between these two civilizations that one could say that ordinary Afghans have never really enjoyed modern life for any reasonable length of time, as there has hardly been enough room for the nation to blossom fully under a democratic government.   

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has been supporting a socialist regime in that nation, a regime the Mujahedeens rightly referred to as a “puppet government.” The Mujahedeen fought that government fiercely, sabotaging whatever groundwork the Soviet Union built to support the regime. But when the Soviet Union collapsed in the late-nineties, the Mujahedeens under the name of the Talaban, once again, took over the rule of the nation. They run that nation until Osama Bin Ladin, hunted for 9/11, got them into trouble in 2001.

Twenty years on, the resilient Talaban returns to power, less than a week after the withdrawal of US troops by President Joe Biden. It happened so easily that I was left asking one question: how come a national army with all its resources was so “easily” crushed by Islamic fighters whose resources is nowhere close to government’s? Glued to the television by series of breaking news from Afghanistan as the Talaban inched closer and closer to Kabul, I found the answer: corruption.

Any corruption that so totally drains the military of its capacity is definitely the most fantastic. As it is now clear, the Afghan military would not have been able to stand an invading neighbour, should any be interested invading Afghanistan.  David Cameron is finally vindicated.

Cameron is also vindicated on Nigeria. On the security front, a lot of similarities can be drawn between Afghanistan and Nigeria. When Boko Haram (inspired by the Talaban) started, it was a group of unarmed boys. Within the early years of Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, while Boko Haram was taking over local governments, they were virtually unmatched by the Nigerian military. There were stories of Nigerian military men pulling their uniforms, throwing away their guns and varnishing into civilian populations to avoid getting captured by Boko Haram. It was the reason why the insurgents were able to capture large portions of Borno, Yobe and a few areas of Adamawa States.

Nigerian foot soldiers, many of whom were killed in their thousands, explained that the weapons of the insurgents were more sophisticated, that their allowances were stolen by senior officials. The involvement of senior military officers was just half of the story; a larger portion of the money voted for insecurity was actually been used by the Jonathan Administration to buy the voting conscience of voters, as the 2015 Election neared.

Despite the betrayal of giving away the lives and possessions of ordinary people, Jonathan still lost the election to Mohammadu Buhari. The probe of cabinet members of the Jonathan administration, showed how Sambo Dasuki, the Chief Security Adviser to Goodluck Jonathan, shared the security budget to influential politicians across the country. Their instruction was: use it to buy victory for the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in 2015.

The politicians never even used the money for the purpose Jonathan intended. Even if they had, the issue of the destruction in the northeast was grave, with everyone crying across the country. In the face of that, money was a frivolity. There would have been no point in taking money you would not live to spend. So, like Ashraf Ghani, Jonathan fell, running away to Etu-Eke in Bayelsa State.

It is still sad that corruption in the face of insecurity is still around. I do not want to believe that it is genetic, but Cameron must have scanned through the character of the Nigerian nation. 

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