But we shall rise and Triumph Willy Nilly
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by FRANCIS OJO
The strategy is fool proof yet every project invites its own risks. The master strategist is a master risk evaluator but these people are not. It is clear that those who conceived this project, designed its key elements and planned its implementation somehow failed to design risk management into the mix. This is my evaluation of the Project design and plans to hand over Nigeria to Fulani Nations of Africa. To dominate a people, seize their wealth and enslave them, take full control of political power, get all arms under your control, deny all else of access to any form of weapons, take control of major income organs, deny all else of access to funds. Finally move in surreptitiously and take over physical space. This is what has been going on since 2015.
PHASE 1 FULANI TAKE OVER ALL 3 ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT: Today, all three arms of Government; Executive, Legislative and Judicial have been appropriated by the Fulani Nation. President, Chief of Staff, Senate president, Chief Justice of the Federation, Deputy Speaker House of representatives. It has always been said that he who controls political power controls everything in the Republic. That is what the Fulani have done.
PHASE 2 FULANI TAKES OVER ALL ARMS BEARING ORGANS OF SECURIT: Next, they moved to put all arms under Fulani control. Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Navy Staff, Inspector General of police, Director general of Department of State Security (DSS), National Security Adviser, (NSA), Minister of Defense, Commander of NSCDC, Chairman of NDLEA, all Intelligence services military and civilian. Director NIA, Director Military Intelligence, Director Naval Intelligence, Director Air Force Intelligence, Immigration, Prisons and so on. These are the organs licensed to bear arms. And just like Aristotle observed centuries ago: “Those who have command of the arms in a Country are masters of the State, and have it in their power to make what revolutions they please.”
PHASE 3 NIGERIANS EXCEPT FULANI HEERDSMEN ORDERED TO SURRENDER ARMS: Still not fully comfortable with the capacity of other Nigerians to offer resistance, in February 2018, Nigeria Police Force which feigned ignorance of the uAK47 bearing Fulani terrorists and would not challenge them suddenly announced, through Police spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, plans by the Inspector General of Police to order surrender of both licensed and unlicensed guns from the citizens of Nigeria within 21 days. This was targeted at Vigilante groups, Neighborhood watches and people who obtained licensed guns for personal protection. Evidently, the Fulani herdsmen were exempted from this order as they openly and brazenly carried AK47 weapons in full view of the Police unchallenged. Again, that Philosopher, Aristotle saw this before our time: “Both Oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people and therefore deprive them of their arms.”
PHASE 4 TAKE OVER ALL FUNDS AND DEPRIVE OTHERS OF ACCESS TO MONEY: The four highest revenue earners of Government were put in the hands of Fulani Muslims from the North. NNPC accounts for 76% of federal revenue, 40% of overall gross Domestic Product and 98% of export earnings is put under Mele Kyari, Fulani from Borno. Federal Inland Revenue Service which generated, at a time, 5.3 trillion Naira under Babatunde Fowler, a Yoruba, was taken and handed over to Mohammed Nami in 2019, also Muslim from the North. Government was patient enough for Fowler to introduce the template and blueprint of the successful Lagos tax initiative. In addition, Fowler brought all the Tax payer register, their key information, their business secrets and customers to the Federal umbrella, thinking perhaps he would be there in forever. The Nigeria Ports Authority whose revenue in 2017 was about 1 trillion Naira and one of the highest 4 is domesticated under a young lady, Hadiza Bala Usman, also Muslim Fulani. The Nigeria Customs Service, yielded a revenue of 1.5 trillion naira was also given to Rtd. Col. Hameed Ali, Muslim Fulani. But that is not all. The big spenders are also Fulani controlled: Defense, Finance, Education, Justice, FCT, Agriculture, Police Affairs, Aviation, Communication, Power, Water Resources, and Humanitarian Affairs. Following key federal agencies too: EFCC, ICPC, NFIU, NNPC, PTDF, DPR, PPRA, PEF, NPA, NIMASA, NDIC, SEC, NAICOM, FMBN, FHA, NHIS, NPHDA, UBEC, TETFUND, SMEDAN, NYSC, BOA, DBN, BPE, NTA, NEDC, FERMA, PENCOM, NITDA, NCC, NEMA, FAAN, NAMA, NIMET, NIRSAL, NIMC and Sovereign Wealth Fund.
PHASE 5: PHYSICAL OCCUPATION: OKADA LOCUSTS FROM THE NORTH: Importation of foreign Fulani into Southern and Middle Belt regions started rather surreptitiously. Thousands of Fulani youth, scrawny looking, scantily clothed invaded most State Capitals of the South and Middle belt, starting from Lagos. They came in trailers, loaded with brand new motorcycles called “Okada.” Some observant people wondered aloud, how they got these shiny brand-new motorbikes, who paid for them, who sent them down South and who received, camped, housed and fed them. They asked “Is this not be part of a grand Boko Haram agenda?” Not a few suspected them as injected sleeper cells in our urban areas, ready and programmed to press their weapons into action to cause pandemonium, injure and kill in order to dominate and take over local space. Our Governors went about their activities in politics and stealing without distraction, yet the number of these invading troops kept swelling.
PHASE 6: PHYSICAL OCCUPATION: INJECTION INTO FOREST RESERVES: Under the pretext of Cow herding, they started full scale occupation of forest reserves, importing their family from across all Fulani Nations of West Africa, building their signature straw huts all around and constructing their traditional organs of administration. They brought their wives, their children and their armory of AK47 and ammunition. Still Governors grumbled but wanted a second term and so, feigned ignorance.
GOOD STRATEGY, POOR TACTICS: Those who conceived and implemented this ‘Take-Over’ strategy failed to take risk management into their project plan. They injected these peasants, equipped them with guns and forgot to sustain them with regular allowances. So, prematurely and before full implementation of mass space occupation, these warriors poured into highways, started to rob passengers for survival before graduating to kidnapping. Now they found this more lucrative than any allowance thus transformed into autonomous agents. They had now acquired enormous power, been introduced to lucrative human trade and become blackmail entrepreneurs. Some with the power of their guns also moved to seize ancestral land and since ‘body no be wood,’ added raping of farmers wives and daughters.
Finally people came alive, started to pay attention and now complained. Abuja ignored them, local Political leaders including Governors and legislators stayed mute, traditional rulers cringed and froze up, but some socio-political leaders raised alarms.
The Presidency, finally, through a Yoruba minion, Femi Adesina warned: “Ancestral attachment? You can only have ancestral attachment when you are alive. If you are dead, how does the attachment matter?” He warned farmers to give up their homeland to stay alive. Vanguard of July 15 2018 reported this along with many other newspapers.
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. You have to admire Chinua Achebe for his creative metaphors even when you don’t, his sentiments. Achebe captured our carelessness thus: “People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that is the time to do something about it, not when it is around your neck.” Well, the water had gone up beyond our neck before some of our leaders woke up to do something, it had gone up to our nostrils. I don’t know where it is now as we appear to be drowning.
OF 1,123 FULANI CELLS INSERTED DEEP INTO YORUBA FORESTS On May 25 2019, Yoruba Council of Elders sounded a loud, disturbing and chilling beagle to the Yoruba Nation. 1,123 Fulani sleeper cells had been identified by a University of Ife investigation group commissioned sequel to the kidnap of Professor Yinka Adegbehingbe of the University of Ife by Fulani herdsmen. Security fault lines created by organized Fulani structures inserted into the Yoruba homeland by forces unidentified yet suspected to be highly structured, financed and organized at very high level. These Fulani cells are distributed in groups of at least 15 to 20 complete with women, arms, and other appurtenances of long-term occupation and are now strategically positioned in reserves created by Chief Obafemi Awolowo for Agricultural developments aka Western Nigeria Development Corporation (WNDC) now abandoned.
The report suggested options to begin preparations to strengthen the home base, evaluate scope, assess risks, design strategies and craft appropriate tactics to respond to this new security threat. Political leadership especially Governors of the South West States were given this report yet continued in their state of relaxed slumber in insulated dream of safety with security votes safe in their personal accounts in reliable Banks. In a statement by Retired Col. Agbede, key leader of this assignment on behalf of the Council: “As Yoruba elders and leaders in our own rights, we owe it a duty to speak up.
There are 1,123 cells belonging to armed herdsmen located across Yoruba Nation. The cells are well organized and they appear to network with each other as the cells may not be known except that there has been increase in their organizational skills.” When Governors ignored the peoples’ complaints and following consistent Fulani aggression, some communities consulted their age-old Pantheons and took local action. SEPTEMBER 20, sango 2018- THUNDER AT IJARE- THE SANGO OLUKOSO ACTION Within their limited capacity, and without support from the State or Local Governments, some communities tried to defend their territories. Thirty-six cows were reportedly struck dead late one Saturday by thunder bolt on top of a sacred hill at Ijare town in Ifedore Local Government Area of Ondo State. The dreadful hill known as ‘Oke Owa’ was located on the outskirts of the sleepy community. Speaking with reporters, the Olujare of Ijare, who spoke through his second in command, Chief Wemimo Olaniran, the Sapetu of Ijare, called it an act of God. The Sapetu said the herdsmen had been destroying their farmland for a very long time which had led to confrontation on many occasions. He told reporters it came as a surprise that the Gods came into the matter so suddenly. His words: ”We were there this morning and we saw about 36 cows dead apart from the one inside the bush. It has happened and there is nothing we can do, we regard it as the act of God which nobody can query.’ The Sapetu said triumphantly. The invaders ran away from Ijare, never to terrorise our community again.
All these were precursors to the establishment of AMOTEKUN, an outfit the Federal Government insisted must not operate without the Police and must never carry weapons. The question left to ask now is: Is AMOTEKUN up to this task? If not, what else? Surely the ijare model may not work universally across the huge landscape of Oduduwa especially against sophisticated weaponry. Or Will the ‘Igboho’ template hold for long? Think about it.
-FRANCIS OJO
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