Ethnic profiling as Nigeria’s predicament – Newstrends
Connect with us

Opinion

Ethnic profiling as Nigeria’s predicament

Published

on

On January 9, 2021, operatives of Amotekun – the quasi-state police outfit of south-western Nigeria – went to Aiyete in Ibarapa LGA, Oyo state, on a mission to arrest suspected kidnappers based on “intelligence” from the local communities. At the end of the operation, Alhaji Usman Okebi and his two sons were killed and several houses burnt in Okebi settlement. There were reports of gunfire exchange. Now, I have tried to narrate this incident in the simplest form. However, what I have just written in one paragraph is very loaded. If I do not decode it, you may never understand the undercurrents and the implications. You would think it was a simple case of crime fighting.
Here we go. When the Aiyete incident was reported by the media, the pegs were noticeably different. A northern newspaper reported that “Amotekun has killed three Fulanis in Aiyete, Oyo state”. The Sarkin Fulani of Oyo state said: “Alhaji Usman has been living in that Fulani settlement for the past 45 years. He grew up there and I am surprised people said they were kidnappers.” But a southern newspaper reported that “Amotekun has combed the forests and killed three suspected kidnappers”. A local said: “The Amotekun corps burst the kidnappers’ cells today but the kidnappers resisted them. The kidnappers are Fulani.” Whom should we believe? Can you see our predicament?
In conflict situations, we usually take default positions, mostly in favour of our ethnic identities – no matter the facts. It is an emotional thing. Nothing is as simple as it appears. In the current Nigerian situation, if you are a typical northerner, you are likely to side with the Fulani herders. While you may readily blame certain crimes, such as drug-pushing and internet scams, on “southerners”, you would want kidnapping and rape attributed to “criminals” rather than “Fulani herders”. And if you are a typical southerner, you would want internet scams attributed to “criminals” and not “southerners” but want all kidnappings blamed on “Fulani herders”. Can you see our predicament?
Let me expand that. In the south, there is a deliberate narrative to pin all kidnappings and robberies on Fulani herders. In fact, it would appear no single southerner is involved in kidnapping. All kidnappers are Fulani herders. Or, to put it another way, kidnapping is only bad if it is done by Fulani herders. If it is by southerners, it is no news. Playing up the role of Fulani herders also helps the narrative that there is a Fulanisation and Islamisation agenda. In fact, there is a famous quote that Uthman Dan Fodio, the 19th century Islamic scholar and jihadi of the Fulani ethnic stock, said he would not rest until he had dipped the Quran in the Atlantic Ocean. Can you see our predicament?
Up north, of course, there is the tendency to be defensive over the activities of the herders. They are not kidnappers, many would say, but innocent pastoralists looking for pasture. They don’t carry guns. They don’t kidnap. They don’t rape. These are the regular defence lines. Gradually, some northerners are shifting ground and saying some of the herders may actually be criminals, but there is a new twist that they are not even Nigerians. Why then are we fighting each other over “foreigners”? Basically, we are dealing with ethnic profiling (which can lead to ethnic cleansing) and ethnic defensiveness (which can obfuscate the security issues). Can you see our predicament?
One popular proposal to curb the herders’ menace is to stop open grazing. I support this position. But my support wanes when the proponents say “with immediate effect”. Some states made laws to that effect. Unfortunately, you cannot stop open grazing immediately. The livestock will die. Just like humans, they need to eat and drink daily. If you stop open grazing “with immediate effect”, you are making a law that cannot be obeyed. And if you try to enforce it, there will be crisis. There will be pushbacks. The logical thing is to gradually transition to ranching. It will not happen overnight. Not even in one year. It will take time. It has to be planned. That is the intelligent way of doing things.
But there are issues with ranching as well, and I am not talking about the economic costs. The first is what I have already explained – the Fulanisation theory. While northerners predictably supported RUGA (the ranching initiative of the Buhari administration), southerners predictably said “God forbid”. Those are our default positions. The bigger problem, though, is the assumption that ranching can, or will, end kidnapping (and banditry). I’m sorry – these are two different things. There is the nuisance caused by cows and there is the criminality of kidnapping/banditry/rape. Ranching can tackle the cattle nuisance but only security can address the criminality. Let’s be clear about this.
If you ask me, I would say insecurity is the major driver of the current ethnic tensions in the land – but, sadly, things have been framed along sectional lines such that it has become practically impossible for us to have a meaningful conversation. The ethnic profiling – which, by the way, is not limited to only one side of the divide – has overshadowed the fact that the Nigerian security architecture is largely corrupt, inept and ill-equipped to cope with modern crimes. If our security ecosystem were professional, modern, proactive and apolitical, we would not be here arguing over the ethnic identities of criminals. We are certainly paying the price of this perennial inefficiency.
To be sure, we have been battling various manifestations of insecurity for decades. In the 1960s, our biggest issue was political violence as politicians tried to establish a hold on their domains in the post-colonial state. In 1970s, after the Civil War, armed robbery became our biggest challenge because of the influx of small arms. In the 1980s and 1990s, ethnic and religious conflicts provided the biggest challenge to the security forces, with frequent clashes and killings all over the country. The 2000s and 2010s witnessed the rise of violent religious extremism in the north and militancy in the south. That was the decade that birthed the devastating Boko Haram insurgency.
Today, we are dealing with our biggest security challenges ever. While political violence and armed robbery are still there, Boko Haram insurgency and terrorism as well as banditry and kidnapping have combined to expose the underbelly of the security architecture. The security agencies are overwhelmed – overwhelmed by chronic incompetence, overwhelmed by the fifth columnists in their ranks, overwhelmed by inadequate infrastructure, overwhelmed by the ethnic coloration of purely criminal activities. Political demagogues and ideologues are doing their best to set Nigeria on fire by politicising the insecurity and promoting ethnic cleansing. It gives them great joy.
Although, the current situation plays into the hands of ethnic champions who look for the slightest opportunity to milk our misfortunes and pursue their bitter balkanisation agenda, insecurity is not just in southern Nigeria. We are actually dealing with an aspect of state failure affecting hapless Nigerians – both north and south. I know for a fact that bandits, identified as Fulani, have been carrying out mass killing in Zamfara villages for years, dating back to not earlier than 2012. But it is Fulani killing Fulani, so it can’t be framed as Fulanisation, and it is, therefore, not sexy for the media. Yet, these are human beings like us being killed like rats. Politics has numbed our common humanity.
What is the solution? Insecurity in Nigeria is a multi-dimensional problem that can only be tackled with a multi-dimensional approach. The insecurity is the climax of many things that we have been discussing for years: poverty, unemployment and poor governance. We cannot address them “with immediate effect”. However, we must urgently secure lives. That is the irreducible minimum. We must concentrate on containing insecurity first while pursuing long-term measures. Those proposing state police should also know that some things cannot be implemented immediately: the constitution needs to change and police need to be trained and equipped. They need to be realistic.
Nigeria is clearly in a precarious predicament. We know insecurity affects everybody, but the only thing some people can see is “tribe and tongue”. We cannot solve our common problems by clinging to prejudices and biases – either through ethnic profiling or being defensive of our kith and kin. We need a middle road. We need solutions. Whether the kidnapping is in Sokoto or Saki, criminals are criminals and we need to drop our biases to confront the issues as dispassionately and as intelligently as possible. We need statesmen and women, problem solvers and peace builders, around the table. War mongers and ethnic champions should please give us a break.
Finally, while the Shasha killings – clearly a product of recent ethnic tensions in Oyo state – could have degenerated, we should be thankful that the real Nigerians still showed up. There were no reprisals in the north, which I can bet was the work of peace builders in the region. Reprisals are the easiest thing! Also, Premium Times, the online newspaper, reported how Yoruba protected Hausa and how Hausa protected Yoruba in the aftermath of the Shasha killings. I heard similar stories about the Nigerian Civil War. This is, indeed, who we are as Nigerians. It is only a few merchants of malice that are spreading hate. And they are doing it very well. That is exactly our predicament.
AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…
WELL DONE, WAZ
On Thursday, Mr Waziri Adio concluded his five-year, non-renewable tenure as the executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI). He helped re-position NEITI, adding policy work to its portfolio, producing analytical publications and organising dialogues. I particularly was educated by the regular analytical insights into extractive revenues. NEITI used to be known only for yearly audit reports – which were not even regular. Under his watch, backlogs were cleared and reports are now faster at a reduced cost. Nigeria also got the highest ranking in validation by EITI, the global body. Above all, he served his country very well and left with his integrity intact. We’ve been friends for over 30 years and I am ever so proud of him. Excellence.
CARELESS WHISPERS
Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi state first sought to justify the bearing of arms by herders and quickly retreated, saying it was “a figure of speech” – as if we were all born yesterday. Governor Bello Mutawalle of Zamfara state also ran his mouth, saying not all bandits are criminals. He later retreated, saying he didn’t mean it that way. Whatever. The chief of them all should be Brig-Gen Bashir Magashi (rtd), the minister of defence, who asked defenceless people being attacked by bandits to stop “running from minor things like that”. He said: “Is it the responsibility of the military alone? We shouldn’t be cowards.” Is this the quality of thinking among Nigerian leaders? Disastrous.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Apparently, the appointment of Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the DG of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – the first woman and first African in that position – did not go down well with the Swiss media. A number of them introduced her as “66-year-old Nigerian grandmother”. Linda Klare-Repnik of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, summarised it well: “If it had been a white man, the title would have been along the lines of ‘Harvard Economist, ex-World Bank Managing Director and ex-Minister of Finance’…” Well, we are also like that in Nigeria. The first thing we check is the ethnic and religious identities of appointees before we consider the résumé. Jaundiced.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The federal high court has scrapped all charges required to file cases on fundamental human rights. You are not likely to see that on the front page of newspapers, but it is a significant development. It is not enough for us to continue to demand a reform of the justice system. We must also seek to make things as simple as possible for the less privileged to engage with the system. Millions of people are shut out of getting justice because they do not have the means to seek redress in a court. Imagine how wonderful it would be if lawyers and journalists will work hand in hand, pro bono, to expose and combat the human rights abuses by the police and other government agencies. Progress.

Opinion

Tinubu’s Buharization of NNPC By Farooq Kperogi

Published

on

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former President Muhammadu Buhari

Tinubu’s Buharization of NNPC by Farooq Kperogi

After the sustained, unwarranted personal attacks I endured for eight years from northerners for unswervingly calling out what I called the “embarrassingly undisguised Arewacentricity of Buhari’s appointments” in a February 2, 2019, column titled “Even Ahmadu Bello Would Be Ashamed of Buhari’s Arewacentricity,” I promised that I would look the other way if a southern president returned the favor after Buhari’s tenure.

But promises made in the heat of disillusionment often crumble under the weight of principle.

Ironically, this column was inspired by a well-regarded Yoruba supporter of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is worried, in fact embarrassed, by the optics of what he says is Tinubu’s relentless Yorubacentric take-over of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).

His concern wasn’t just partisan discomfort; it was a profound unease about how this nepotistic approach undermines national cohesion.

I frankly hadn’t been paying attention to the internal dynamics at the NNPC, but the acquaintance pointed out that Yoruba people now occupy major positions at the NNPC and that a certain (person) is “being proposed as GMD after Mele Kyari’s term expires” early next year.

I haven’t independently confirmed the accuracy of this claim but given the closeness of the source of information to people in the circles of power, it’s probably best to not dismiss this with the wave of the hand.

His concern is that Tinubu, from the Southwest, is already the minister of petroleum. Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Petroleum and Chairman of the NNPC, is from the South-South. Chief Pius Akinyelure from the Southwest is NNPC’s Non-Executive Board Chairman.

READ ALSO:

The head of the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS), Mr. Bala Wunti, my acquaintance pointed out, has been replaced by one Seyi Omotowa. Gbenga Komolafe is the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), making him the highest-ranking upstream regulator.

“If a Yoruba man were to be the GMD, another Yoruba man is the Chairman, and yet another Yoruba man is the regulator, that’s extreme lopsidedness,” and other parts of Nigeria would be justified to feel uncomfortable, my acquaintance said.

As with issues of this nature, the reality may be more complex that the surface-level impressions that I have been presented with. Of the 12-member non-executive Board of Directors, I counted at least four names that I recognize as northern, and that includes Kyari, the outgoing GMD.

The 7-member Senior Management Team on NNPC’s website has three northerners (if Kyari is included). That seems fair. Plus, Buhari actually appointed many of the Yoruba people in high places at the NNPC. By these metrics, one might argue that there’s a semblance of balance.

However, Tinubu’s broader public image tells a different story. His administration is rapidly cementing a reputation for Yorubacentric provincialism. Like the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who governed Nigeria as if he were still a Katsina governor, Tinubu appears to be governing Nigeria as though he were still the governor of Lagos.

Just like Yar’adua was elected a Nigerian president but operated like a Katsina governor in Abuja, Tinubu is also, so far, a Nigerian president only in name. His mindset is still that of the governor of Lagos.

With a few notable (and in some cases unavoidable) exceptions, Tinubu’s government is largely the re-enactment of his time as the governor of Lagos. It is, for all practical purposes, an unabashed Lagos-centric Yorubacracy.

To be fair, though, with the possible exception of Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, all civilian regimes since 1999 have been insular ethnocracies.

My source reminded me of a viral social media post I wrote on January 14, 2019, titled “New IGP: Why Progressive Northerners Should be Embarrassed” where I gave four reasons for being insistently censorious of Buhari’s Arewacentric appointments in response to southerners who asked why I was bothered since I was a northern Muslim who was “favored” by such appointments—“favored,” that is, on the emotional and symbolic plane.

READ ALSO:

I pointed out that I criticized similar such parochial appointments by previous presidents from the South and that it would be hypocritical to look the other way because I was now “favored” by such appointments.

I said people from my region and religion won’t always be in power, and I wanted to be able to stand on a firm moral pedestal when I criticize future presidents who replicate Buhari’s (and previous presidents’) provincialism.

Most importantly, I said, I was personally embarrassed by Buhari’s insularity and that every progressive northerner should be. I described it as the sort of embarrassment you feel when your best friend who thinks highly of your mother visits you in your home and your mother, during a family dinner, gives you a considerably bigger food portion size and choicer pieces of meat than your friend.

“You feel like screaming: ‘Mom, I know you love me, but you’re embarrassing me by showing overt preferential treatment to me in the presence of my friend’,” I wrote.

The Yoruba acquaintance of mine who alerted me to the creeping Yoruba-centric take-over of the NNPC said he was doing so out of a feeling of the same sense of embarrassment that inspired my rage against Buhari’s appointments that favored the North unfairly, especially in the areas of security.

Tinubu is doing in the economy sector what Buhari did in the security sector. The minister of finance, the governor of the central bank, and every other consequential agency in finance is headed by a Yoruba man. I am not sure Nigeria has ever seen this level of extreme, state-sanctioned ethnocentric domination of a critical segment of national life.

Appointing another Yoruba individual as the head of the NNPC would complete what many already perceive as the ethnic capture of Nigeria’s economic nerve center. It would not only cement Tinubu’s image as an insensitive ethnocrat but also exacerbate public discontent and foster deeper divisions in an already polarized nation.

If Tinubu is unaware of this burgeoning perception, he needs to awaken to its reality. Leadership is not just about policies and actions; it’s also about managing optics and inspiring confidence in a nation’s collective identity.

In a September 5, 2015, column titled “Buhari is Losing the Symbolic War,” where I railed against the exclusion of Igbo people in Buhari’s first appointments, I wrote:

“Symbolism isn’t the same thing as substance. Appointing people to governmental positions does nothing to improve anybody’s lot—except, perhaps, the people so appointed and their immediate families.

“Jonathan’s disastrous 5-year presidency couldn’t even bring basic infrastructure like boreholes to his hometown of Otueke, yet his people derive vicarious satisfaction from the fact of his being Nigeria’s former president.

“Human beings are animated by a multiplicity of impulses, including rational and emotional impulses, both of which are legitimate. When we turn on our rational impulses, we may ask: What would appointing an Igbo man as SGF, for instance, do to Igbo people? The answer is ‘nothing.’

“But we are more than rational beings: we are also emotional beings. That’s why people are invested in symbolism. Appointing someone from the southeast or the deep south is merely a symbolic gesture, but it inspires a sense of inclusion in the minds of many people from that region; it serves as a symbolic conduit through which people vicariously connect with the government.”

This cycle of ethnic favoritism must end if Nigeria is to realize its full potential as a nation. To grow and thrive, we need leaders who can transcend the narrow confines of ethnocracy.

We need leadership that embraces diversity and inclusion, not as buzzwords but as guiding principles for governance. Only then can we begin to heal the fractures that divide us and build a nation that serves all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity or region.

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Media Studies.

Tinubu’s Buharization of NNPC by Farooq Kperogi

Continue Reading

Opinion

Ademola Lookman showed Davido and Kemi Badenoch that wisdom is not by age – Omokri

Published

on

Reno Omokri, Ademola Lookman, Davido and Kemi Badenoch

Ademola Lookman showed Davido and Kemi Badenoch that wisdom is not by age – Omokri

Recently, the singer David Adeleke was given a global stage to do whatever he wanted and deliver any message.

Sadly, Mr. Adeleke used the opportunity to speak in an American accent. Not only that, he used that American accent to talk down on Nigeria and tell the world not to invest in Nigeria because, as he put it, Nigeria’s “economy is in shambles”.

Coincidentally, a month after his faux pas, Kemi Badenoch, probably inspired by Davido, used her British accent to talk down Nigeria, calling us “a very poor country” where the police rob citizens.

But the interesting thing about her own case is that the next day, the BBC featured a panel of Conservative Party big shots, and one of them, Albie Amankona, a party chieftain from Chiswick, who is also a celebrity broadcaster, said, and this is a direct quote:

“If you are a Brexiteer, and you are saying we need to be expanding our global trade beyond the European Union, we want to be looking at emerging markets for growth, don’t slag off one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.”

Is it not strange that it took the BBC and a British politician to promote Nigeria as one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa?

And just when we thought it was all bad news, God gave us a breath of fresh air in the youthful Ademola Lookman, who used the global podium granted to him by his winning the 2024 African Footballer of the Year award to promote and project Nigeria and the Lukumi Yoruba language to the world.

READ ALSO:

Wisdom is not by age. If not, Ademola Lookman, who is just twenty-seven, will not have displayed greater wisdom than David Adeleke, who is thirty-two, and Kemi Badenoch, at forty-four.

Mr. Lookman proved that the age of Methuselah has nothing to do with the wisdom of Solomon.

And it is not as though other ethnicities with global icons do not also project Nigeria. They do.

Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala spoke Igbo on the podium of the WTO in Geneva. In terms of prestige, she is FAR above Lookman.

My campaign is not for the Lukumi Yoruba alone. It is for all sub-Saharan Black Africans to learn to speak their language and not use ability to speak English or another colonial language as a measure of intelligence.

Besides Lukumi Yoruba and Hausa, every other Nigerian language, including Fulfulde, is gradually dying out.

General Buhari is half Fulani and half Kanuri. Yet, he cannot speak either Fuifulde or Kanuri. But he speaks Hausa and English.

Fact-check me: In 2012, UNESCO declared Igbo an endangered language.

However, the Lukumi Yoruba are to be commended for their affirmative actions to advance their language and culture.

Let me give you an example. All six Governors of the Southwest bear full Lukumi names: Jide Sanwa-Olu, Seyi Makinde, Dapo Abiodun, Ademola Adeleke, Abiodun Oyebanji, and Orighomisan Aiyedatiwa.

No other zone in Nigeria has all its governors bearing ethnic Nigerian names as first and second names. They either bear Arabic or European names as first names or even first and second names.

If we truly want to be the Giant of Africa, we must take affirmative steps to preserve our language and culture so we can have children like Ademola Lookman.

Teach your language to your children before you teach them English. They will learn English at school. Being multilingual is scientifically proven to boost intelligence.

Fact-check me: In the U.S., Latino kids do not speak English until they start school. They learn Spanish as a first language.

Even if you relocate to the UK, the best you can be is British. You can never be English. And if your choice of Japa is the U.S., the highest you can be is an American citizen. You will never become a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant WASP.

Your power lies in balancing ancient and modern, Western and African, English (or other colonial languages) and your native tongue.

That is the way to reverse language erosion, like the Lukumi Yoruba.

Ademola Lookman showed Davido and Kemi Badenoch that wisdom is not by age – Omokri

Continue Reading

Opinion

Kemi Badenoch’s Hate for Nigeria – Femi Fani-Kayode

Published

on

Femi Fani-Kayode

Kemi Badenoch’s Hate for Nigeria – Femi Fani-Kayode

“I find it interesting that everyone defines me as a Nigerian. I identify less with the country than with my specific ethnic group. I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, the Boko Haram, where Islamism is. Being Yoruba is my true identity and I refuse to be lumped with the northern people of Nigeria who were our ethnic enemies, all in the name of being called a Nigerian”- @KemiBadenoch.

Dangerous rhetoric

Kemi Badenoch, MP, the leader of the British Conservative Party and Opposition in the @UKParliament, has refused to stop at just denigrating our country but has gone a step further by seeking to divide us on ethnic lines.

She claims that she never regarded herself as being a Nigerian but rather a Yoruba and that she never identified with the people from the Northern part of our country who she collectively describes as being “Boko Haram Islamists” and “terrorists”.

This is dangerous rhetoric coming from an impudent and ignorant foreign leader who knows nothing about our country, who does not know her place and who insists on stirring up a storm that she cannot contain and that may eventually consume her.

It is rather like saying that she identifies more with the English than she does with the Scots and the Welsh whom she regards as nothing more than homicidal and murderous barbarians that once waged war against her ethnic English compatriots!

All this coming from a young lady of colour that is a political leader in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural country that lays claim to being the epitome of decency and civilisation! What a strange and inexplicable contradiction this is.

READ ALSO:

Her intentions are malevolent and insidious and her objective, outside of ridiculing and mocking us, is to divide us and bring us to our knees.

I am constrained to ask, what on earth happened to this creature in her youth and why does she hate Nigeria with such passion?

Did something happen to her when she lived here which she has kept secret?

Kemi Badenoch’s Hate for Nigeria – Femi Fani-Kayode

Continue Reading

Trending