Identity crisis in Middle Belt

PEOPLE of the middle-belt shout ‘one north’ today and the next minute we hear them say, ‘we are not from the north but from the middle-belt.’ Who are the people of the middle-belt? I find it hard to recognize even though I am from the middle-belt. An Igala from dare I say north central? I look at the map of Nigeria and can’t see the north of the central or is it central to the north? We seem to be lost as we are neither from the north or the south and seem to not have great public figures to the types such as Solomon Lar and J.S Tarka. As things stand, we may never have those towering personalities any longer.

The people of Kwara State line up with the South West above all; they don’t see themselves as northerners but when it comes to national politics, they become northerners because the political bacon seems to be better for them in the north. What with the Fulani as Emir of Ilorin? No-where is a family dynasty in Nigeria so strong than in Kwara State. A family determines who becomes a governor and only in that state do you find sitting governors who can’t be autonomous to break rank with anointed godfathers. The places of interest for the Okun people of Kogi State are in Ife, Oyo and Kwara – only in some measure in Kogi. How can a state be built by people who aren’t pleased to be associated with the state?

I look at my friends from Igbira land. They don’t stop to amaze me. Scarcely do you see a present-day Igbira man bear an Igbira name? They are both Ayodele (the ones in the west) and love to speak the Yoruba language, to support the Yoruba and Shehu Idris (the ones in the north) to align with the Hausa-Fulani. But it isn’t different with the Igala. How can the Igala be known as Awwalu, Yahaya and Bello? The Muslim-Yoruba declines to be Shehu Idris but Babatunde Raji Fashola, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Babatunde Aliyu Fafunwa. They are proud of their ancestry but the Igala have traded off theirs even with a rich history.

The people of the middle-belt in our day lack direction for growth. This isn’t hard to understand; they do not have well-defined identities and without batting eyelids submit all of the interests of the region to people outside the region to direct and people without identity are lost.

Simon Abah, Abuja