You have to lose your memory, wrote Louis Bunnel, if only in bits and pieces, to realise that memory is what makes our life. Life without memory is not life at all. Our memories may be our coherence, reason, feeling, action and without it we are nothing.It is right to say, in line with theories of geography and memory, that we are, more or less, the making of our past practices in past places and spaces – products of complex interplay of present practices in present places and spaces and those of the past. Simply put, what we are, where we are, are guided by what we were and where we were.
There are many reasons why Nigeria is stuck where it is today.In July 2014, a member of the House of Representatives representing Fagge local government area (APC, Kano state), Aminu Sulaiman Goro, sponsored a motion in relation to the arrest of 486 traders of northern Nigeria extraction in Aba, a commercial city in Abia state. The motion died right on the spot. A resounding ‘nay’ by the majority of lawmakers from the southern part of the country gave it a coup de grace. Dead it was. The house could do nothing. In a democracy, majority rules even if it is tantamount to ‘tyranny’. The traders were arrested by the 144 Battalion of the Nigerian Army in Asa, near Aba, Abia state. The military said it was investigating the travelers/traders on alleged links with one of the deadliest insurgent groups in the world, Boko Haram. The arrested traders later turned out to be patriotic Nigerians engaged in various businesses to eke out a living, reports confirmed. In a post-plenary interview, Aminu Sulaiman told Daily Trust that he was not happy with the way the motion was fatally killed by his colleagues, believing that the move was capable of setting a dangerous precedence in the country as the house is the most appropriate place for debating such issues.‘You cannot use the security excuse of the insurgency to place a particular ethnic group, people or region on security spotlight. It is nonsensical and unacceptable,” he said.
That was not the starting point of the argument. It had started following a motion raised on Thursday, June 19, 2014 by one Sergeant Awuse drawing the attention of the then National Conference to the degenerating security situation, basing his argument on the arrested traders. The delegates of the National Conference exchanged strong words over the arrest of the traders by the Nigerian Army that very day.Despite unrelenting outcries, follow-up and appeal to former President Goodluck Jonathan by some northern governors and concerned citizens, it took northern leaders weeks to secure the release of their people. Stereotyping is doing a great disservice to this country. And if this persists, it will definitely start off the fire of ethnic violence.As if that is not enough lessons for us as a nation, in less than two weeks, two issues of national importance popped up: Governor Wike had demolished a Mosque in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, and Lagos state arrested 126 northerners on alleged illegal “mass movement”. On Tuesday, August 20, 2019, according to reports, the Rivers state government demolished the Trans-Amadi Central Mosque in Port Harcourt, Rivers state. Wike’s decision to demolish the mosque was informed by his belief that Rivers state is a Christian state and for that matter should be inhabited by Christian faithful only. Wike was either unmindful of religious diversity in this country before embarking upon this uncivilised misadventure or he was consciously trying to sow the seed of discord thereby truncating this nation’s democracy. For example, although Kano state is 99.9 per cent Muslim state, in Fagge local government area of Kano state alone there are hundreds of churches. For many reasons, Wike’s action is a gross violation of human rights and total disregard to constitutional provisions. One, Section 38 (1) and Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, state: “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”Two, there is no way Rivers state can operate a constitution of its own different from that of the Nigerian state. Wike swore to protect the interests of all. Three, by demolishing the mosque he is not only hurting a culture and religion he so much hates, but also insensible to the rights of other indigenous people of Rivers state, who are also Muslim faithful.
A capable leader is someone who carries everyone along, irrespective of their tribe or religion. In fact, this is what the constitution demands/enshrines.For another, at the very moment the ECOWAS passport – initiated to ease intra-regional movement of ECOWAS member states’ citizens – is gaining momentum, Lagos state government arrested northerners for alleged ‘mass movement’, as if northerners need visa to cross over to Lagos state.On Friday, August 30, 2019, a Lagos-ward truck, laden with 48 motorcycles and 123 petty traders from northern Nigeria, was intercepted, arrested by the Lagos state taskforce for environmental sanitation and special offences. After the arrest, the motorcycles were seized and the owners herded into the office of the taskforce in Oshodi for interrogation and later to a police station where a fact-finding panel was constituted to profile the innocent travelers.According to the chairman of Lagos state taskforce, Yinka Egbeyemi, the truck and its occupants were arrested at Agege Area of Lagos following a security alert from the public. On why the interception and arrest were carried out, Lagos state Commission of Police, Zubairu Muazu, said that the arrest was carried out as a preemptive security measure against the backdrop of the worsening security situation in the country.It is true, there is debilitating security situation in the country, especially in the North and the travelers are northerners. Additionally, every state, first and foremost, must put the security of the lives and property of its people before anything else. In fact, this is the primary responsibility of every governor. However, this should not be used as an avenue to profile and humiliate innocent travelers just because they belong to a particular region of the country.Lagos state could have done its so-called routine check, name it, without that media hype attached to the arrest. Routine check and arrest for profiling are not the same at all. Isn’t routine check done in the streets of Borno, Kano or Kaduna states?The arrest is insensitive and divisive, to say the least. Since nothing incriminating was found on them and the taskforce was judging the travelers by their looks, one cannot help calling it an ethnic profiling, which is a sheer violation of Nigerians’ right to movement.Chapter 4 (Section 41) of the 1999 constitution stipulates: “Every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout the country and reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereby or exit therefrom.” But Lagos state is working outside the constitution. Wike’s democratically uncivilised move and Lagos state’s insensitive and divisive ethnic profiling leave one with disquieting thoughts of whether some people are more Nigerians than others. Nigeria cannot go long on this slippery, one-lane street.
Abdulhamid writes via [email protected]08145901322
