From Giant of Africa to Give Me Oduduwa Or Let Me Die

From Giant of Africa to Give Me Oduduwa Or Let Me Die

There is a saying that goes thus: Nigeria is not a country but a continent.

Nigeria is a continent consisting of multiple and often times contrasting nations with conflicting national ideologies. It is a nation with over 250 ethnic groups, has the largest economy in Africa and is largely termed the Giant of Africa. As resounding and roaring as the title Giant of Africa sounds, it irrefutably is just that – a mere title. It is a title that sanitises the British Empire’s failed experiment. It is a title that exonerates the Native’s conscience from the indictment of genocide against the fellow Native. It is a conceited and fraudulent risible title that honours not indigenous identity thus can only proceed without honour for the self. Ancestral pride succumbs, that the shame of pretentious grandeur may prevail. Giant of Africa is a title that does not reflect the realities on ground for the present day common men or women, who live feed and walk like ants in a country allegedly inhabited by ‘giants’!

Nigeria is a country that never soul searches. Nigeria is a country with blood on its hands. Nigeria is a country that will continue to shed blood. It pretends to not understand why it sheds blood, thus is incapable of ascending to repentance. The whole world awoke recently, to what had for a long time, been a persistent problem in Nigeria – religious fundamentalism. Talibanesque Boko Haram kidnapped girls from a school where they were receiving secular education, then later on released a video in which its leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened to sell the girls into slavery (in keeping with the age old prophetic tradition of subjugating war captives with slave trade). What followed was the usual – mainstream media criticised the “Islamists”, Nigerians demanded that the Nigerian government or somebody, anybody, did something to effect justice; and then Muslims in the international public eye said Boko Haram were not representative of the ‘true Islam’.

The true Islam. Would that be the Islam termed “Islamism” by liberals who seek to politically correctly address a monstrous problem that causes its adherents to riot in the streets, maim and kill, the minute their slave trading Prophet who sold Jewish women into slavery, is faulted? Would that be the Islam that institutionalises through its anti-secular jurisprudence: child marriage, colonial plunder, sex slavery on a grand imperial scale, amputation for theft, subjugation of fellow country folk (the infidels), unparalleled misogyny, Dar al–Harb and offensive jihad? Would that be the Islam that despises infidels so much it kills its own fellow Muslims for apostasy (after a three days grace period warning them to stop being an infidel); then accuses anyone else who complains, of blasphemy, and then proceeds to kill them?

Only a piece of land in itself (i.e Nigeria) cannot be termed a people or a ‘nation’. A nation is created when people of one unifying (even if multifarious) culture, one thought and one tradition prosperously co-exist together. A people who have shared historical ties and are bonded by a shared ancestry. For the British patchwork experiment called Nigeria to work, the people would have to unanimously agree on a jurisprudential framework necessary for governance. The principles of democracy as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must be unequivocally upheld or unequivocally forfeited! Approximately half the population cannot be clamouring for an Islamic State founded on the principles and rulings of Islamic jurisprudence imported to the land from Arabia, while the other equally majority half clamours for an opposing jurisprudence. All the while, walking on egg shells around this friction, in the face of constant threats of riots. Nigeria is a polarised nation ideologically split in two major halves. This philosophy of chaos must be identified, tackled and done away with, permanently! The bloody Nigerian civil war of the ’60s occurred because a majority ethnic group of a majority South – the Igbos – wanted secession. They were an equal majority of the South alongside the Yorubas. The third major ethnic group, the (conquered and Islamised) Hausas, were concentrated in the North. The Igbos were a proud people with their own ancestral ties, ancestors who founded peculiar, democratic, progressive and highly artistic civilisations. Not the least being the Igbo-Ukwu and Nri Kingdom, whose magnificent excavated bronze artefact date back to the 9th century. The Igbos regrouped shortly after the British founding of Nigeria and founded their own nation: Biafra. They weren’t interested in remaining in the farcical unjust and already corrupt institution called Nigeria. Their leaders, foresaw a fragmented construction doomed to failure. Ojukwu’s views particularly on Igbo vulnerability to Arab conquest through Islam, mirrored Vinayak Savarkar’s views about Hindu-Islam relations on the Indian subcontinent and Atatürk’s views on Islamic colonialism of indigenous Turks.

“The Biafran struggle is, on another plane, a resistance to the Arab-Muslim expansionism which has menaced and ravaged the African continent for twelve centuries. As early as the first quarter of the seventh century, the Arabs, a people from the neareast, evolved Islam not just as a religion but also as a cover for their insatiable territorial ambitions. By the tenth century they had overrun and occupied, among other places, Egypt and North Africa. Had they stopped there, we would not today be faced with the wicked and unholy collusion we are fighting against. On the contrary, they cast their hungry and envious eyes across the Sahara on to the land of the Negroes'” ~ Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu (From the Ahiara Declaration, 1969) .

Unfortunately for Biafrans, the Igbo indigenous lands in Nigeria, were where the majority of Nigeria’s oil wells were concentrated. The other majority group of the South, the infidel Yorubas, allied with the Muslim majority North. They were backed by Britain, Saudi Arabia and a host of other states. What followed was a most brutal, barbaric, inhumane and unnecessary execution by capitalist mafias. Clearly, when it comes to oil, everyone is of the same religion. The Biafran struggle to secede from Nigeria, nevertheless won popular support in Africa and overseas. As a matter of fact, most european states recognised the illegitimacy of the Nigerian military rule and banned all future supplies of arms, save for Britain who substantially increased its supplies and sent British Army and Royal Air Force advisors. For three years, this monstrous ‘giant’ backed by foreign allies unleashed unspeakable atrocities against an indigenous people who were peacefully seeking self-determination from a forced, farcical and diabolical union.

This oppressive self-styled ‘giant’ has not thought since then, to acknowledge any of the genocidal atrocities it committed, how much more apologise. Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, a book on the Nigeria-Biafra conflict was made into a film recently. Nigerian authorities delayed its release for alleged fear of “ethnic tensions”. For how long can and will the truth stay censored?

Of a truth, the giant is not a White face and the victims are neither Brown-faced Afghanis nor Iraqis. The giant is the most populous Black African nation there is! Was it not oil that Leftist academia said drove the West’s war in Iraq? Was it not the same oil that drove the Nigeria-British-Saudi allied led war on Biafra? This Black-induced genocidal charade reeks of hypocrisy and the stench is indeed nauseating:

Self-determination ceases to be right if the bearer of death is not White.

Astonishingly, the Yorubas have now began to see what Colonel Ojukwu foresaw 50 years ago! Alas, the infidel chickens are now coming home to roost. In the wake of mounting ineptitude and corruption from the Nigerian State, Muslim demands for child marriage and Boko Haram’s unstoppable rise which culminated in the abduction of over 200 school girls, Yorubas too are now asking for secession. Yorubas are demanding that regional autonomy with “own constitution and unfettered political and fiscal autonomy” is the minimum condition for remaining in Nigeria! Either that or secession, they say. Furthermore, their leaders are berating the Muslim leaders of the North for not doing enough to curb the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and radicalism. Initially, their elected regional leader half a century ago, Chief Awolowo, had agreed with the Igbos that the South East would break away as Biafra and that the South West where the Yorubas were, would follow thereafter to form an ancestral Oduduwa nation. In an act of ultimate betrayal, the Yorubas however recanted on their agreement and joined the Muslim-Hausa North. Allied with foreign hoodlums, they were fronted and led by an appointed Dhimmi, Yakubu Gowon. They killed the Biafrans in millions, bludgeoned them into submission, then confiscated their properties and the money in their bank accounts at the end of the war.

Oduduwa, Ancestral Father of the Yorubas.

In the piece below, Femi Fani-Kayode who served as Nigeria’s Culture and Tourism minister and later on Aviation minister, writes about his disenchantment with the doomed, farcical and oppressive institution called Nigeria. The chains of slavery bestowed by the Giant of Africa are heavy, he laments. His solution? Give him Oduduwa or let him die!

Of a truth, what the great selfless Generals of Biafra saw half a century ago, even when perched on the floor, mere commoners standing on rooftops could not see. What men saw then, myopic misled and greedy boys could not comprehend. Alas, men are now springing up, out from the soil of the seeds of destitution sowed by time. The soul of a beast is being laid to rest and that of true humankind is being birthed.

The truth can’t be hidden forever. To quote Churchill: it is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it; but in the end, there it is. 

©2014. Secular African Society. All Rights Reserved.

 

Give Me Oduduwa Or Let Me Die

By Femi Fani-Kayode

“If they ever tell my story let them say I walked with giants. Men rise and fall like the Winter wheat but these names will never die… let them say I lived in the time of Hector, tamer of horses…let them say I lived in the time of Achilles”- the Iliad, Homer.

The words of Odysseus in Homer’s epic and ancient poem titled ”The Iliyad” have always moved me. Those words are deep and profound: they stir my soul and rekindle my spirit.

They speak of and reflect the essence of Ancient Greece with its rich and exciting history, its extraordinary heroes and heroines and its all-powerful and all-knowing gods, titans and immortals. How I wish that I could conjure up such great and powerful words about the history of my nation Nigeria and her heroes past. How I wish that the Nigerian people had their own Odysseus’ , Achilles’, Agamemnons and Hectors.

How I wish they had their own ancient poets and great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Homer who could remind generations to come about our past exploits with their inspiring, compelling and historic prose.

Yet I look at the Nigeria of today and I am not encouraged or inspired. As a matter of fact I am deeply saddened. I see no heroes on the horizon but only questionable pretenders and fallen caricatures that have sold their heritage and destiny for a mess of pottage and that couldn’t give a fig about what history or posterity will say about them or their country. Many have asked why I should say such things. Permit me to answer that pertinent question by posing a few of my own.

I start by asking: is this the Nigeria of Murtala Mohammed and Theophilius Danjuma? Is this the nation that helped to liberate Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa?

Is this the nation that restored sanity and stability to Sierra Leonne, that brought an end to a civil war in Liberia, that fought so gallantly in Burma and Somalia and that quelled a military coup in Sao Tome and Principe?

Is this the nation whose wealth once knew no bounds and whose middle class once owned the finest cars and properties in London, Paris and New York? Is this the nation whose beautiful people once graced the streets of Belgravia, Chelsea, Hampstead and Knitsbridge?

Is this the country that once nationalized BP and that gave Margaret Thatcher sleepless nights over apartheid South Africa ? Is this the nation that once stood up to the mighty Boers and whose ancestors studied at Oxford and Cambridge as far back as the 1800’s?

Is this the nation whose inhabitants and various ethnic nationalities once ruled vast empires and whose progenitors contributed so much to the traditions, religion and culture of Ancient Egypt?

Is this the country that once fought a bitter and brutal civil war, yet declared ”no victor, no vanquished” and, in the spirit of love, came back as one? Is this the country which has been through thick and thin and yet whose people remained ever so resilient and always put a smile on their faces?

Is this the country where giants once held court and where the greats of old once presided? Where did we go wrong? What has happened to our people and what has afflicted our country? When did our leaders become spineless cowards and deceivers? When did the green white green of our nation’s flag become soiled with human faeces and when was it torn to shreds?

When did we shy away from fighting our own battles and prosecuting our own wars? When did we start bowing our heads in shame as events unfold in our country? When did we start sitting down silently as international newscasters speak about our nation in painful, disdainful, hushed and condescending tones?

What has happened to the ever courageous, ever smiling, ever confident and ever dependable Nigerian who shook the world with his arrogance and confidence and who spoke of his nation with pride and joy?

What has happened to our great army that was once the pride of Africa and that once made us so proud? What has happened to our great intellectuals and our men and women of courage and vision who once, like a collosus, bestrode the world?

What has happened to the stubborn and proud yet warm, friendly and profoundly good people that Nigerians once were? What has happened to the people that were once regarded as the hope of Africa and the pride of every black man on the planet?

Where and when did we go astray? How and when did it all go wrong? When did we lose our strength, our wealth, our honour and our power? When did we lose our excellence, our confidence, our dignity and our self-respect? When did we become so weak and so helpless? When did we turn into killers, savages and barbarians?

When did we become so pitiful that the whole world mocks us and heaps insults on us so easily? When did they start saying that we have ”no serious government”, that we have ”lost control of large portions of our nation” and that we can’t even protect our own children? When did we become incapable of defending our borders and protecting our people?

When did we turn into a laughing stock and a reference point for incompetence, stupidity, cowardice, ignorance, evil, cluelessness and all that is bad to the rest of the world?

When did other nations start giving us lessons on how to fight insurgency and how to prosecute our wars? When did our people start clamouring for foreign armies to enter our land, violate our sovereignty and march on our sacred soil?

When did we start having to ask others to come and solve our local problems? O Nigeria, how are the mighty fallen. Truly ours is a nation afflicted. She is finished and there is little hope of any form of redemption or resurrection.

The Statue of Oduduwa at the base of the Oduduwa Hall inside the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife.

The honeymoon is over and the glory has departed. One hundred years of a forced and failed marriage has ended in a bitter yet undeniable divorce. We have lost it all and there is no going back. Those that wish to break up our nation for sport and bring our people to their knees have had their way.

Those that wish to watch us slaughter one another in an orgy of mindless violence and that wish to establish their AFRICOM in our shores will soon be here and we shall be occupied forever.

O Nigeria, how are the mighty fallen. I loved Nigeria but now I have stopped believing in her. She is saddled with many different sub- nations that were simply incompatible right from the start.

She is plagued and cursed with one particular sub-nation whose ruling elite are dangerous and unyielding, whose guile and deceit is second to none, who treat their own people with contempt and derision, who believe that they were born to rule, who think that power belongs to them, who suppress the religious and ethnic minorities within their ranks and who were taught from an early age that there was none besides them. Those people have killed Nigeria. They and those who have consistently bowed and trembled before them and who have always allowed them to have their way.

Our nation has become a cruel joke- she is a maliciously contrived contraption that has shattered many dreams and frustrated many ambitions and aspirations. This was a country that was created for the benefit of just a few at the cost of the misery and pain of so many.

I will never accept the idea of living in a nation side by side with religious extreemists who slit the throats of children, who habitually slaughter the innocents and who abduct and fornicate with small girls. Animals have no place in the homes of men.

It is time for us to stop pretending: let the terrorists and their friends in high places break away and establish their own country where they can marry as many young girls as they please and chop off as many limbs as they want. Let them form a nation where they can stone adulterers and turn women into chattels that are not even worthy of life.

Let those of us from the west establish Oduduwa and let us celebrate and enjoy our freedom from the bondage and ineptitude of a cruel failed state that has no soul and that lacks humanity and compassion.

Let us be liberated from the deceit that is known as Nigeria: a nation that once was but that is no more. Let us be free of Nigeria: a nation where injustice, evil, persecution, insensitivity, impunity, terror, graft and wickedness reign supreme.

Let us be rid of Nigeria: a country where those of us that had the misfortune of being born on the ”wrong” side of the regional divide or who are adherents of the ”wrong” religious faith are butchered for our heritage and can never be treated as equals. Give us Oduduwa or let us die.

Yet we will eventually take our freedom by force if it is not freely given to us. We shall take it by fire: by the shedding of blood and by our own bleeding if necessary. We will take it by fire and by sacrificing our lives if that is what we are forced to do.

What we will never do is continue to live in perpetual slavery in a nation called Nigeria that is afflicted with feeble rulers and peopled by religious bigots, sexual deviants and bloodthirsty terrorists.

We shall not allow ourselves to be consumed by the weakness and ineptitude of our present-day rulers and the sheer incompetence of those that do not have the courage or the moral authority to crush the beasts that have abducted and enslaved our girls.

I have had enough. I say goodbye Nigeria: give us Oduduwa or let us die.

©2014. Secular African Society. All Rights Reserved.