Ahmed Yahaya – Joe
A new battle for the soul of Nigeria is billed to commence on November 1, 2021 at a Federal high court in Abuja presided by Justice Inyang Eden Ekwo. The legal hostility is being initiated by “a group of Kano elders and politicians”, to compel the National Assembly to hasten the exit of the South-East from Nigeria.
The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami SAN, Senate President, Ahmed Lawan and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila are defendants in the suit filed by the Kanawa who, “averred in a supporting affidavit that their action was informed by the need to stem the tide of violence and destruction allegedly occasioned by the agitation for secession, championed by the Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).”
Simply put the aggrieved “Kano elders and politicians” want the South East constitutionally excised from Nigeria. The Hausa prayer for that demand is, “Araba”.
Professor Ayuba Y. Mshelia is a senior academic at City University of New York, the largest university system in the United States comprising 25 campuses that has produced 13 Nobel Prize winners since it was established in 1961. Mshelia, has been teaching and researching there since 1987.
His 2012 book, ‘Araba, Let’s Separate: The Story of the Nigerian Civil War’ is a must read, because as he puts it,
“Araba (separation) was a word first used by rioters at a Bauchi demonstration signaling the Northern peoples’ desire to break from Nigeria. Araba became a rallying cry for the North’s disaffection with the state of affairs after General Ironsi’s promulgation of the obnoxious “decree No 34″, making Nigeria a unitary state. The North’s disaffection with decree No 34 led to the overthrow of Iron’s regime by predominantly Northern officers.”
Ironically, the same Arewa officers that had championed “Araba” backtracked to institute a more centralized structure which eventually became not too fundamentally different from Ironsi’s “obnoxious” Decree No. 34!
Who are these “Kano elders and politicians”?
Ali Bin Alua arrived Kano in 1878 from Murzuk, in the Fezzan region of present-day Libya. Seen here in the front passenger seat of his 1923 Ford Model -T.
His business alliance with Alhassan Dantata, who arrived from Gonja, in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1910 and Saul Raccah, a Levantine Jew who arrived in 1914 culminated into the famous Groundnut Pyramids of Kano.
Kano has always been at international crossroads as a mega hub for diverse immigrants ever since the Wangara p of Mali Empire under Mansa Musa (1280-1337) settled there. The ancient metropolis would even become part of the Songhai Empire under Askia the Great (1443-1538) before the establishment of the Habe states by the Persian Christian, Ali-el-Baghadi (Bayajidda)
See details in ‘The Voice of Africa’ pp. 370, 371, 624-648 written by Leo Frobenius in 1913.
Recently in June 2021, Dr. Abdallah Gadon Kaya has raised concern over a highbrow residential area occupied exclusively by Igbos in Kano metropolis.
He went on, “they have their massive gates, security and other facilities that prevent other people, especially indigenes from accessing. Government should not allow such to be happening when we can’t go to Onitsha, Aba or Enugu and create an exclusive place for Northerners or Muslims like that.”
Interestingly, the part of Fagge local government area Dr. Gadon Kaya is grandstanding about is an extension of the Arab and Tuareg quarters where Ali Bin Alua lived and eventually died in Kano. The irony is that children of immigrants in Kano are trying to keep out other migrants.
In October 1945, a clash played out at the Jos Potato market in Naraguta. While the British colonial authorities described it as a “petty market squabble” the fundamental issue was an intense power struggle over the control of the affairs of the market between leading traders, Alhaji Inusa Mai Dankali and Mr. James Onyeama. Two died and many were injured.
On Thursday, May 14, 1953 a chieftain of the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), Mallam Inua Wada declared to a meeting of section heads of the Kano Native Authority, “Having abused us in the South, these very Southerners have decided to come over to the North to abuse us, but we are determined to retaliate treatment given to us in the South. We are prepared to face anything”.
By Saturday, May 16, 1953 according to the official figures by the Governor of the North, Sir Bryan Sharwood Smith, 36 died and 241 were injured.
On January 8, 1966, a week before the January 15 military coup, Northern worshippers were killed in a Lagos mosque. 11 died and 23 were in critical condition. These figures were provided by Dr. Ishaya Shaibu Audu then of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH)
See details in p. 219 of Report on West African Evangelism (Ibadan, 1968)
On April 7, 2015 the monarch of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu declared to a gathering of Eze Ndi-Igbos (Igbo traditional rulers) of all the local government areas in Lagos State,
“On Saturday, if anyone of you goes against the candidate I picked, that is your end. If it doesn’t happen within seven days, just know that I’m a bastard and it is not my father who born me.
By the grace of the almighty, I am the owner of Lagos and the owner of this throne for the time being. If you do what I want, Lagos will continue to be prosper for you. If you go against it, you will perish in the water. Finish.”
Reportedly,
“The audience responded with chants of ‘Kabiyesi o.’ Gordon Ojiako, the spokesperson of the Eze Ndi Igbos in Lagos, promised Akiolu that they would vote massively for the APC during Saturday’s gubernatorial election.”
Who will save Nigerians from themselves?
