Opinion: Northern Nigeria, stop holding us down

By Adewale Lawal

As events are turning out today globally, and especially in Nigeria, it is important to be realistic with ourselves.

Scholars and experts in strategic studies, security studies, intelligence gathering and military studies will agree with me that terrorism thrives anywhere it gets local supports and sympathies.

Unlike the conventional warfare where the warring parties assembled soldiers that openly confronted themselves, terrorists have no standing army to openly confront their adversaries. They engage in hit and run.

They have no defined base where they can be specifically found. They live and mix with the people. They are largely known by the locals.

They draw strengths from the supports they get from their local communities. They are known members of these communities.

They operate under the shield of these communities. They secure bases after they have successfully overrun the state forces.

The major aim of guerrilla warriors is to make government of the day unpopular. They are rebel groups.

They are enemies of the state (country) they operate in. They aim at bringing down the government in power.

They capitalise on the weaknesses of their chosen communities to gain popularity.

They manipulate what these locals hold in high esteem to win their sympathies.

For instance, the total submissiveness of Muslim faithfuls to their religion and the misinterpretation of some of the concepts in their holy books, such as, jihad, guerrilla warriors take advantage of these to wrongly conscientise some faithfuls.

They recruit them into their folds and incite them against established authority. In Nigeria, the failure of the colonial government and the successive national governments to neutralise and liberalise the strictly religious education in Northern Nigeria with liberal education has caused us more harms than good as a country.

This is another evidence of the colonial insensitivity to the marked differences and incompatibility of the merger of the Northern and Southern Protectorates.

Prior to the establishment of colonial rule in Nigeria, the colonial rulers met the embers of the civil wars that were ravaging from the north to the south of the Niger area known today as Nigeria.

The resistance of the forceful spread of Islam from the north to the coast and the Yoruba Civil War on the other hand were among several internal crises that were rocking these regions.

With the inability of the colonial ruler to break into the Northern religious circle with their (European) religious conviction (Christianity), the unification of the opposing Northern and Southern Protectorates portrayed that they cared less about the consequences of their actions and inactions on the peoples of Nigeria.

The failure of the nationalists to consolidate on the regional government bequeathed onto them, and the failure of the Northern ruling class to deradicalise their people, introduce and mandate liberal education and domesticate other progressive initiatives they were exposed to in the course of their gallivanting for independence across continents cannot be overemphasised.

The abysmal failures of successive national, states and local governments in Northern Nigeria, with the number of years the Northern extractions have ruled Nigeria, they cannot boast of befitting strides in the deradicalisation and liberal education of their people.

We have had enough of you in this country. We cannot continue to share in your selfafflicted predicaments.

You have made our vibrant armed forces and paramilitary forces look ordinary. We have lost gallant men and women in the course of cleaning your mess.

We have spent unaccounted amount, incurred generational debts, provided jobs for opportunists and derailed governance all in the name of attending to your joyful ventures.

We have extended enough carrot to you. Now, if you want peace, there are two options for you. You know these terrorists and their sponsors.

They are your brothers, sisters, neighbours, friends and family members. Identify them and deal with them decisively.

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Crush them completely in their numbers. Or, we mobilise battalions to go from house to house and crush every suspect of terrorism and banditry.

Or better still, we break the amalgam and go our obviously separate ways.

You can apply to the National Assembly for secession if you are not ready to identify and deal decisively with your kith and kin that are holding us to ransom nationally.