The indignity of indigeneity
By
There are not many Nigerians, I'm sure, who can swear that they have heard the following names: Ahmed Garba, Hadiza Mohammed, Kabiru Miojinyawa and Hadiza Isa. They are Nigerians alright, or so they thought. Well, something happened recently, which questioned their citizenship. There are many Nigerians like the unfortunate four, whose citizenship is queried everyday. In fact every Nigerian is a victim of this self inflicted burden which vitiates and attenuates our citizenship once we move out of our mothers’ kitchens. Wars are being fought everyday in many corners of the country because of this albatross called indigeneity. Now back to the four.
The Guardian on Sunday 21 July 2002 reported that Ahmed Garba, Hadiza Mohammed, Kabiru Miojinyawa and Hadiza Isa went to court and obtained an injunction which restrained the Minister of Internal Affairs, Chief Sunday Afolabi and the Department of National Civil Registration of the ministry from continuing with the exercise of recruiting staff for the national identity card scheme in Jos.
What was their grouse? The four had responded to an advertisement in a national newspaper inviting applications from people to be engaged in the exercise of the national identity card scheme. When they submitted their applications, they were directed by the Internal Affairs Ministry to produce their indigene certificate. They dutifully went to the Jos North Local Government council for the certificates. But there, they were told that they were just residents of the council and not indigenes! It was at this juncture that they went to court.
Imagine the irony! The national identity card scheme was meant to know those who are real and those who are fictitious Nigerians. And the four litigants applied to help their country identify its citizens, only to be told that they don’t belong. This is not exactly how to nurture patriots. I have been wondering, if there was a war in Jos and Ahmed Garba and co lined up to be recruited into the army to fight the war for Jos, would they have been sent away as settlers? Because this matter is subjudice, I’ll refrain from commenting on the merits or demerits of their case.
This question of citizenship/indigeneity is one of the many fundamental flaws in the 1999 constitution of which the civil society groups have been crying about. But unfortunately, those who fortuitously found themselves in Abuja have chosen to sit tight, brooking no talk about a review of the constitution, not even knowing how to proceed about it and yet gadding about with arrogance and pomposity as if they are God’s greatest gift to Nigeria. All they are doing at Abuja is to protect their personal interests.
It is a shame that in three years, neither the Executive nor the Legislature has initiated any move to remove any of the many bumps in the 1999 constitution, some of which have cost lives in various parts of the country. Yet they object to a National Conference where a consensus could easily be reached on these critical issues to facilitate amendments. They tell us that since God, in his infinite mercy, has brought them to Abuja, they are therefore, His rightful heirs on earth, with the divine mandate to decide when Nigeria can be liberated from the shackles of the 1999 constitution. In three years, this country has lurched from one avoidable crisis to another like a professional drunk. Yet those whose responsibility it is to lead think that leadership is just about their being in power willy-nilly.
Nigeria is what it is today, not because the ordinary citizens are not trying or that they don’t love their country. Nigeria is the dreadful place it is because those who preach patriotism to the poor are the very people robbing the people of their patrimony, they are the ones forging electoral acts in order to perpetuate their knavery, they are the ones killing to forcefully entrench themselves even when the masses are weary of them. It takes little to set this country on the path of greatness. But that little, our rulers do not have.
I do not know what to make of a nation where the leadership has remained indifferent to the nagging question: who owns the land? From Jos to Jukun, from Zango-Kataf to Shagamu, and from Warn to Modakeke, the question posted on the nation’s psyche in gory graffitti is: who owns the land? When Jos erupted in September last year, one question being asked in Jos, which sent a chill down my spine was this: If the Igbos and Yorubas in Jos can accept their place as non-indigenes. why not the Hausa/Fulani? The question is a pointer to how irredeemably the nation is drifting apart while the so-called leaders busied themselves in lascivious looting. I made the point the other day to a friend in Port-Harcourt that, as it is, the Bayelsans in Port-Harcourt will now meet their Igbo counterparts whenever a meeting of non-indigenes is convened! Tomorrow those who sent Ahmed Garba and co away may find themselves as non-indigenes. All it takes is the creation of a new state!
June 2003