JOS, on a good day, is a joy to watch, from the Police College area to Murtala Muhammed. The sun is as intense as the cold, the food as warm as the people. The okada rider might look every inch a northerner but he is actually Yoruba, and your surprise is lavish. But you must move further down into the belly of Plateau. Should you choose to stop at Mararaban junction, a bus could sneak by heading to Mangu, from where you will surely get another heading towards Shendam, that noisy wing of a rather serene, unassuming state. Nature comes into full view as you traverse the road full of curves and twists. Just before Shendam is Dokan Tofa, where you must alight and head straight into Dokan Kasuwa.
For a solid year, and without going anywhere beyond Shendam, you serve your country, helping to build the nation, not in the style of the Permanent Secretary in the poem by the Ugandan poet Henry Barlow who suffers stomach ache like his driver (who has not had anything to eat for a full day), but it is due to surfeit after a menu that “reflected its importance.” Join me as we journey to Dokan Kasuwa, a village where, I surmised years ago, life revolves around burukutu, and where women dare not wear trousers visiting the house of the chief. There is masa, made on a cooker that looks like the Yoruba ayo olopon, and there is nearly everything you eat in Lagos, except that the gari isn’t Ijebu, and there isn’t any elubo.
Unfortunately, we cannot proceed with the poetry; the terrorists whose forefathers failed to conquer the land as their horses battled with the many massive mountains and hills, do not know a figure of speech; their language is bloodshed and broken bones. As I write Mangu, that fair land of a great people, lies prostrate, tamed by wicked men empowered by a Daura Deceiver. Away from Mangu, I do not know if the people I met at Qua’an Pan (Doemak, Dungnoegoen, Kurgwi, Dajiut, Kopgwam, etc), are still alive; my brain has not given my heart permission to risk a visit. But what shall we say of those paid to protect the people?
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, King Solomon the son of David wrote in his day, “the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” And that’s why instead of national mourning and a search for the killers of the over 130 souls (the counting is still on) who perished under the sword of Fulani terrorists in Plateau State last week, some people are staging carnivals over their impending national heist. I have been writing on the Plateau bloodshed since 2009 but nothing has changed; abiku has made the medicine man to look like a fraud.
This week, a presidential voice who once told people that it was better to lose their lands to terrorists than to die, claimed that the Southern Kaduna and Plateau killings are endemic, and so could not be cited as problems of his principal. He was on Channels TV to speak on the legacy of his boss ahead of the handing over of misery in Abuja. You see, he does not live in Plateau, and does not know the poetry of pain.
Here’s a report by the Daily Post of July 8, 2012: “The chilled and most admirable weather that characterizes Plateau State became scorching yesterday when the people witnessed yet another bloodbath after a senator, Gyang Dantong, and the Majority Leader of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Mr. Gyang Fulani, were killed while attending the mass burial of over 50 victims who died during the Saturday’s attack on villages in Barkin Ladi and Riyom local government areas of Plateau state. The lawmakers were killed after it was discovered that other 50 victims, mostly women and children, were burnt inside the house of a resident pastor where they ran to during the attack on the 14 villages by the Fulani gunmen.” There you have it: bury the dead and earn your own death.
God knows how to make the powerful powerless, rolling in the mud spewing false promises as death closes in, like the Syrian tyrant Antiochus Epiphanies on his way to a war. Plateau people have persevered enough. At a stage, Plateau elders even asked for UN intervention. These rivers of blood must dry up whether the sponsors think so or not.
Re: The Seun Kuti overkill
Mr Awolaja, thanks for this write up and of course all your articles. While nobody justifies Seun in this case, the fact that they went to search his house is real ikoja aye. He slapped a policeman on the road and you went to his house looking for what? My advice is that Seun’s Lawyer should take them up on that. Pls, tortoise is ajapa while igbin is snail. God bless you sir.
Rotimi Ashaolu, Ketu, Lagos (0803 379 6044)
Dear Mr. Awolaja,
Thanks for your incisive article in the Saturday Tribune edition of 20 May, 2023 as titled above. I want to draw your attention to one inadvertent mistake in the article to wit: Igbin is snail, not tortoise (ijapa). The folk story was very popular as you have told it, but it was the tortoise that was involved, not the snail (igbin). Truly, Seun Kuti is intentionally being humiliated and persecuted, not prosecuted by the Police Authorities. And unfortunately, they find an accomplice in a judge who is supposed to know better. Very sad. Please continue to do your advocacy for the poor lad through your writings. The media should consistently expose the excesses of the Nigeria Police as you did in this instance. Thank you for a job well done.
Yacoob Abiodun (Parkview Estate Ikoyi.)
Well done sir. It was uniformed men who threw his grandma from a story building at Kalakuta Republic shrine in the year 1978 and now they attempted to throw the ground son into the mainland ocean this time around. God dey o.
Rev Michael Olalekan Oladimeji: 08023852901)
NB: The mix-up highlighted is regretted.
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