An Open Letter to Members of The Fourth Estate in Southwest Nigeria: Nigeria is Burning.

I have often wished myself a beast or a bird – anything rather than a slave. . . .Once awakened by the silver trump of knowledge, my spirit was roused to eternal wakefulness. Liberty! the inestimable birthright of every man, had, for me converted every subject into an asserter of this great right. It was heard on every sound, and beheld in every object. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. – Frederick Douglas

Dear illustrious Members of the Fourth Estate,

May I crave your indulgence to ask for a few moment of your time to peruse this heartfelt message from a concerned common Nigerian. 

The need to write this letter was dictated by the essay written by Mr Martins Oloja in The Guardian of 14th July 2019 titled, ‘RugaWatch: From Falae to Funke.’ My initial intention was to write a short comment but it turned out as an essay. On further reflection, I think it is worthwhile to address it as an open letter to the members of the Fourth Estate in Southwest Nigeria. 

In the essay, Mr Oloja wrote: 

“So, let no one claim anymore that there should be no Ruga Settlements in Yorubaland. The settlements are already there. They consolidated while men slept in deep ‘political correctness’.” 

It was this quoted statement that burst my bottled up frustration with the members of the Fourth Estate in Southwest Nigeria. 

It is very unfortunate that it has to take the tragic episode of the broad daylight murder by ‘unknown gunmen’ of a prominent person like Mrs Funke Olakunrin, daughter of Pa Reuben Fasoranti, the leader of Afenifere Sociocultural Organisation, to wake up one of our celebrated columnists from inebriated state of ‘political correctness’. 

In the essay, Mr Oloja correlated this tragic episode with the kidnapping of Olu Falae, a former Secretary to the Federal Government of Nigeria, four years ago and to several other murderous incidents linked to Fulani Herdsmen in the SouthWest of Nigeria.

Case Against The Fourth Estate in Southwest Nigeria

I have watched and wondered for a long time about the terrible and miserable state of human affairs in Nigeria. Oftentimes my mind would raise questions such as, how is it that journalists and writers in Southwest Nigeria who earn their daily bread through the reporting of daily news and the analysis of national events have failed to see, to monitor and to raise trenchant alarms about the gradual development and lately a full-blown state of anarchy that is pervading and paralysing societies up and down the country of Nigeria?

We read essays written by celebrated columnists that mainly focus attention on mundane events or nonevents of matters that pertain solely to the presidency in Abuja while palpable regional/local issues that are daily impoverishing, ruining and taking the lives of innocent citizens are woefully neglected or underreported. 

Just last week in my quiet moments while ruminating on the existential predicaments facing Nigeria, I came to a tentative and disturbing proposition that, it seems our newspaper editors, journalists and columnists have either unknowingly or deliberately become principal collaborators and/or chief enhancers of the ongoing macabre rape, murder, pogrom, and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people of Nigeria.

You are quite justified to wonder and to ask, How could anyone make such a serious allegation against our illustrious newspaper personalities?

Accusation based on Tenable Assumptions

I am of the opinion based on a strong and tenable assumption that everyone in Nigeria today and most particularly our newspaper personalities, must have been properly educated about the political history of Nigeria. It is therefore unthinkable that anyone conversant with the unfortunate history of how Nigeria came into colonial existence in 1914 would not have learnt that since the purported political independence in 1960 that Nigeria has been retained and maintained as a colony placed under the suzerainty of the Fulani Caliphate.

It will be too surprising if our newspaper men and women have not read any of the unvarnished history of Nigeria told by nonpartisan researchers and historians, which amply tells us that the former British Colony/Protectorate of Nigeria was transferred wholesale, like a commodity of slaves/subjects, and gifted to the Fulani Sultanate of Nigeria by the departing British colonial power. 

Hence, supported by this factual historical truth, one is led to draw logical inferences and to submit as follows:

1. If our newspaper columnists know about this crucial historical fact and have a clear understanding about its pernicious implication to handicap the evolution of political freedom and development of the indigenous people of Nigeria, then it ought to amaze all political observers of Nigeria’s contemporary history when they read the works of celebrated writers in Nigeria that seem to be totally ignorant or in self denial of this extraordinary fact of Nigeria’s history.
2. We have heard in umpteenth times the unhidden and boastful claims of various Fulani spokespersons from the 1940s until today of their insatiable desires to overrun and to conquer the country for the Fulani Caliphate, yet we find intelligent and educated writers in Southwest Nigeria who pretend to be deaf or hard of hearing and therefore are completely ignorant of this satanic design.
3. The none or lukewarm reaction of the well-heeled Nigerians to the goal of being subjugated, subdued, held-back, dominated and ruled permanently by one ethnic group in Nigeria is extremely worrisome and embarrassing. It is therefore difficult to contemplate that the array of celebrated, enlightened and well-educated men and women in the Fourth Estate of Southwest Nigeria would have completely missed this commonplace and important information. 
4. Since 1970 after the Nigeria Civil War, every Nigerian that has official dealings with the Federal Government of Nigeria must have noticed the swagger, the prominence, and the complete dominance of the higher echelons of the critical sectors of the civil service and of the economy by members of the Fulani indigene. Today, it is taking for granted that important political positions in all government agencies must be reserved for and manned exclusively by members and the chosen and trusted friends of the Fulani ethnic group.
5. Every Federal Civil/Public Servant in the country with functioning common sense, a brain above the shoulders and a working active mind must know by now that the Fulani establishment and their surrogates have been running the affairs of the federal government and the various departments like an inherited fiefdom since 1970. As at today, the experience of every federal public/civil servant from other ethnic groups in the country can be described as nothing short of that of a second class citizen in a country supposedly built on the foundation of freedom, equality and justice for all.
6. Everyone knows that the administration of Muhammadu Buhari has never hidden his nepotistic tendencies in all the affairs of governance. We have seen how Buhari’s next of kin from both Katsina and Borno States have completely taken over every important appointment and every prestigious and powerful position in the Presidency in Aso Rock. Yet, the members of the Fourth Estate are abysmally silent about the brazen impunity of nepotism and in-your-face tyranny of the Presidency that often sideline the laws of Nigeria as it pleases. 
7. Considering the resultant retrogressive impact that an established and thriving culture of nepotism that wittingly puts square pegs in round holes would have on the country, should anyone be surprised about the deplorable conditions of insecurity of life and property; about the suffering and hardship of the people caused by the mediocre economic management; and about the disturbing and raging state of anarchy because incapable minds are at the helms of governmental affairs in the fatherland?
8. It seems to me that the newspaper columnists, professional and nonprofessional writers, as well as the intelligentsia ought to have been more proactive in foreseeing and in helping the nations to see clearly the imminent implications of the self serving inimical political trends. And more importantly, because of the imperative role of your professional calling as the “people’s watchdog”, the members of the Fourth Estate ought to have made strenuous effort to intellectually connect the dots of all the nepotistic and tyrannical acts, which to all intents and purposes seem to bear the hallmarks of a brutal Colonialist power in action.
9. Methinks, members of the Fourth Estate having a vantage position to use every available scientific instrument and professional skill of investigation ought by now to have been duly convinced by facts and figures on the ground that Nigeria is under a political bondage. In consequence, the members of the Fourth Estate ought to have initiated and promoted a robust intellectual climate in the country where serious discussions on the sordid state of affairs in the country can be thoroughly put under the searchlight. 
10. Finally, it is my considered opinion that members of the Fourth Estate ought to have been at the vanguard of the political and legal processes of revolutionary actions aimed towards setting the indigenous people of Nigeria free from a local colonial bondage. And the Fourth Estate ought to have been championing the spirit and the organisation of a formidable struggle for political, economic and cultural independence of the indigenous ethnic nations. More so, since most of the members of the Fourth Estate belong to the forsaken indigenous nonFulani ethnic groups. 

Sadly, instead of doing the needful and the necessary, our public writers and commentators have been found at the forefront of those preaching all day long about the importance of ‘unity in diversity’ in the polity even though the country is built on a bedrock of glaring injustices;

• of those proclaiming the divine creation and the sacredness of indivisibility/indissolubility of Nigeria, when we have already learned that the grand intentions of the creators of Nigeria were neither based on good-natured altruism nor aimed at the economic development and social benefit of the indigenous people;
• of those saying Nigeria does not need any political restructuring, even though the present arrangement is practically unworkable and the indigenous people are merely subsisting under a great yoke of repression in the hands of the Fulani Colonial overlord;
• of those who are still upholding the infallibility of the clandestine, fudge, sharia-embedded, pro-Islamic Constitution of Nigeria that was imposed on a purported secular State by military fiat;
• of those arguing for a mere reformation of the political structure and to be conducted by the National Assembly composed of well-known shameless opportunists and incorrigible political gangsters thereby inadvertently keeping the colonial and hegemonic status quo of the caliphate intact albeit under a covertly written and illegally imposed constitution; and
• of those making excuses for all the glaring acts of injustices, inequalities and the sabotaging of political, cultural and economic freedom of other ethnic groups by the covert members and the ill-informed overt apologists of the Fulani Caliphate.  

The Consequences of ‘Political Correctness’

As a result of the culture of fear, cowardice and superstition that forbade members of the Fourth Estate from ‘speaking truth to power’, now the chicken have come home to roost. All the communities of the Yoruba ethnic nation and those of other nonFulani ethnic nations as well, have been completely surrounded by armed and weaponised Herdsmen and hungry, farm-devouring cattle.

Indigenous People of Nigeria have become like trapped and caged animals on their ancestral lands by a bloodthirsty armed militia Herdsmen who are always on the prowl baying for blood. Already, there are rumours and some evidence that a Governor in Southwestern State, who is forever in awe of the Fulani ethnic nation, has licensed a vigilante squad composed of Fulani ethnic nationalities to patrol the highways and roads in the Southwest of Nigeria.

If or when the Fulani Sultanate/Caliphate of Nigeria gives the covert order for the implementation of the suspended Final Solution aimed at displacing and ethnically cleansing the indigenous people from their ancestral lands, the urgent questions before us, are:

Where shall the Yoruba indigenous nation and the other indigenous ethnic nations in Nigeria run to to seek refuge in the face of this impending carnage?

Who is going to save the nonFulani ethnic groups at this eleventh hour from total annihilation?

How are the indigenous ethnic nations, who have been officially disarmed and forbidden to own or carry arms, going to defend themselves? 

Let us not forget, there are already in position well-armed, well-kitted and battle-ready Fulani militiamen who were temporarily stood down in 2015. They were stood down from deadly and bloody actions because the former President Goodluck Jonathan wisely refused to contest the sham results of the 2015 General Election in order to avoid bringing into fruition the avowed promise earlier made by Mohammadu Buhari to instigate a pogrom of bloodshed and destruction in case he lost the election.

Jonathan therefore, quietly and peacefully relinquished the much coveted political crown of President of Nigeria to the clasping and grasping hands of Mohammadu Buhari, the man with no qualification whatsoever for the exalted job except the claim of Fulani ethnic entitlement. 

For many years, a barbaric horde of militia Herdsmen by sleight of an undercover marauder hiding behind herds of cattle with a special mission of invasion and conquest, have successfully transversed all the nooks and corners of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the naive, ever trusting and profoundly gullible indigenous people were and are still sleeping and dreaming serenely about ‘unity in diversity’, ‘love and peace’, ‘prosperity and progress’ that will be delivered to them, without anyone breaking sweat or offering any personal sacrifice, on a platter of gold.  

The foregoing analysis are my reasons for alleging that our columnists and political opinion leaders in the country, who should have been aware of the insidious development in the country, seem to be either in cahoots or in a deep slumber all these years from an overdose of ‘political correctness’.

Conclusion

Gentlemen and women of the Press, please forgive my impertinence for suggesting that the members of the Fourth Estate might have been unknowingly contributing to the socio-political problems of Nigeria because of your cultivated habit of undue indulgence at staying always on the safe side of any government in power and your overemphasis on ‘political correctness’.

However, at this perilous time when killer militia Herdsmen are knocking at the gates of all our communities and are confidently parading in our forests and on our highways, there is an urgent need for every concerned indigenous people of Nigeria to think the unthinkable and to say the bitter truth as one sees it.

I am convinced and I fervently think that the path of truth is the only honourable way we have left. It is by deliberately and intelligently choosing to thread the path of sacred truth that we can bring sanity to the country and freedom to our people.

Personally and because it appeals to the common sense, I have chosen this most convenient and assured path in order to draw the attention of the illustrious members of the Fourth Estate in Southwest Nigeria to the existential seriousness of the situation of Nigeria. 

Please dear columnists, journalists, thinkers, intelligentsia, and public writers of every pedigree in Nigeria, you need to WAKE UP NOW. Please rise up like a wounded lion whose cubs are under attack by a ferocious predator. Arise gentlemen and women of the Press from your careless slumber and raise the alarm that there are ongoing wars of attrition and raging cries of woes and lamentations in every home and community in the country. 

There is no longer any time left for anyone to continue to play the untruthful and unfruitful politics of business as usual when the lives of the indigenous people of Nigeria are perilously at stake.

Let us rally together NOW to stop the ongoing carnage of indiscriminate bloodletting, destruction and suffering in the fatherland.

Let us muster the courage to say the truth to the power-that-shouldn’t-have-been in the country. 

Let us begin the rigorous critical thinking outside the box of political correctness as we seek truthful solutions to the manmade political problems that were cruelly bestowed and forcefully foisted on the indigenous people of Nigeria since 1914.

Let us accept our shortcomings as a body of people that have been found sleeping on duty while the country we pledged allegiance to be her watchdogs is being burned down.

Let us own up and be genuinely remorseful enough to tender our profoundest apologies to the indigenous people of Nigeria whose interests we have failed to protect and safeguard.

Let us redeem ourselves in the light of truth and knowledge in order to be able to banish the spectres of fear, hate, ignorance and superstition that have bedevilled the fatherland.

Let us say it aloud, ‘Enough is Enough’ of the mindless collaboration with those who are bent on ethnically cleansing us out of this geographical space that we call our inheritance and home. 

Let us awaken in our people the spirit of truth that will consciously and wholeheartedly proclaim an unflinching love for truth and knowledge. And let us encourage and promote a more laudable understanding of the meaning of life that will be potent enough to make our people embrace a sincere desire to establish a new uplifting culture based on the noble principles of liberty, justice and equality in every nook and cranny of the country.

Let us write and popularise new redemption songs to uplift our spirit and to guide us on how to free ourselves from the self imposed chain of ‘political correctness’.

Let us proclaim and place on the lip and in the heart of every indigenous person in the land a new redemption song like that of Patrick Henry (1775) that says simply and forthrightly: “Give me liberty or give me death!”.

In The Spirit of Truth

SAM ABBD ISRAEL