By Aminu Aliyu Yantagwaye
I was riding a commercial Keke NAPEP going to PZ Zaria to see the Customer Service Manager of Zenith Bank about why I haven’t received any response since the last complaint I submitted about the Bank erroneous debit from my account and just by my right side, some middle-aged female friends were lamenting the gory derided video of 16 innocent Northerners that were ungodly murdered in the most gruesome and barbaric display.
Immediately, I felt my body metamorphosing into a boneless and motionless soul because of the disappointment by which my senses metted the news of this terrible culture and hostile propensities of the southern Nigerian ill-educated children. There and then, it re-occurred to me that, this wasn’t the first incident of its kind.
Recently, a neighbor of mine from the famous Galadima house in Zaria, was reported killed by the similar mob action, allegedly due to theft and the victim was a northerner. Somehow, this habit of finding solace in the blood of innocent Northerners has grown beyond the popular notion of hoodlums acting on their own, because this was in the same style mob instances such as this happened in various places.
The 2022 killing of Harira Jibril and her four children in Anambra state because they were wearing hijabs, the Alhaji Mahmud’s family killing in 2021 killed by mob action in Oyo state, the 2017 ile-ife clash that resulted in mob killing of several Hausa Fulani Muslims, the 2011 ibadan violence, during the post election crisis, a mob attacked and killed several Hausa Fulani Muslims, in 2016 in Port Harcourt a mob attacked and killed the same Hausa people during a dispute over a mosque.
I can go on because the list is long and we remember every day of it. I dislike sounding ethnic and regionalistic because it undermines the credibility my argument, but somehow, one has to take the risk of being interpreted with whatever scalding points that may come after. The truth remains the truth.
A disturbing aspect about this, is the seeming conspiracy of silence or ignorance among elites, traditional rulers and intellectuals on the prevalent ethnic mobbing culture among the southern Nigerian ill-educated children. As the behavior contradicts the historical and reciprocal warmness of the well-meaning Northern Nigerian people. There is no recorded history of travelers being mobbed in the same ethnic vituperation due to the concepts of mistaken identity or deliberate misidentification.
Insecurity and crime are universal phenomenon that happen everywhere, and has no particularistic regional and ethnic affiliation to any tribe and religion, but anytime you hear a mob action in southern parts of this country, is a Hausa man or northerner that is the victim of a mistaken concepts of identity, religion, and crime.
You don’t hear people of that region mobbed in the same way settlers, or passerbys are killed in the most satanic and ethnic manner. And if not because of the Northern profile of boko haram and banditry, these regions have been the highest cathedral of tugs, in fact our people are known for exiling to those places because of the free nature of the society.
I refuse to believe that this is a systemic failure of the state apparatus which signals the danger of this mistaken marriage called “Nigeria”. This is not a possible intellectual argument, as the constitution of the federal Republic of Nigeria advocates for peace, harmony and diversity, explicitly rejecting violence and ethnic cleansing.
This attitude of the southern Nigerian ill-educated children took donkey years to come to this heartless posture by the actions of its elites who believe that some people are more humans than others due to ethnic circumstances and disparities. It seems that one must belong to a specific region or state to be civilized and compulsorily, have this and that Western style of degree or education to distinguish yourself and earn the respect you deserve.
This is how stereotypes such as “mola”, “cows”, “akuya” and “omo Hausa” emerged and how individuals who reputed their nationalism in the wisdom of “one Nigeria” became the parent of this barbaric killing demeanor of the southern Nigerian ill-educated children.
