Maradi as Buhari’s 60th birthday present to Nigeria

MARADI, one of the three largest cities in Niger Republic, may yet be the metaphor of the fragility of the Nigerian State and an explainer of Nigeria’s 60 years post-independence wonky journey, in the most succinct manner. With the Muhammadu Buhari government’s announcement last week of its intention to construct a railway line from Kano, passing through Kazaure, Daura, Katsina, Jibia to Maradi in Niger Republic, some jigsaw puzzles of the last 60 years of independence and the fault lines of the 106 years of Nigeria’s togetherness may confront us in their irritating minuscule.

Anyway, this Thursday, Nigeria will be 60. The Buhari government is not leaving any stones unturned in celebrating this epochal birthday.

Responding to people’s bother that a country almost at its tethers like ours would still have space in its heart to fling cymbals, Minister of Information and Orientation, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had a response: “For a country that has gone through a bitter, internecine civil war, years of political crisis, daunting security challenges, including religious and ethnic crisis, etc, our unity and our resilience (which by the way is what diamond represents) are worth celebrating.” Mohamed even descended into the world of horoscope to justify the celebration.. If well configured, as Nigeria enters its post-60 existence, Nigerians may begin to use Maradi as a sharpener of their dud microscopic sense of appraisal of the calamity which the political elite constitutes to their survival.

As I will show presently, undoubtedly, Maradi explains Buhari’s six years rule of Nigeria, the psychology of his government, his governance and the worldview of the man at the govern- mental driver’s seat.

Since the government’s announcement of that railway project, which will gulp $1.96 billion, uproar has ensued. Not uproar interrogating how the project will cater for the trans- portation needs of Nigerian cities of Kano, Kazaure, Daura, Katsina and Jibia, but because Buhari had the temerity to construct a railway corridor right inside another sovereign nation’s territory. Not to worry, however, says the Bu- hari government. Nigerians are misinformed about the extent of the railway construction.

Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to Buhari, had said, “Nigeria isn’t building rail line into Niger, but only to the designated Border point. An agreement between Nigeria and Niger in 2015, coordinated by the Nigeria-Niger Joint Commission for Cooperation, has a plan for ‘Kano-Katsina-Maradi Corridor Master Plan, (K2M)’ as it is called.”

The first question to ask Buhari and his megaphones is, who initiated that international boundary agreement? Was it a third party State? If Niger and Nigeria’s governments are mutually persuaded on the need to funnel Nigeria’s wealth to Niger, what stopped such an agreement? So why flaunt it as a testament of goodwill on the part of the two Fulani presidents of Niger and Nigeria?

More importantly, information about Maradi’s geography runs contrary to the presidency’s submission above. An originally Katsina, Hausa state, Maradi was, until the early 19th century when it acquired its independence, another home of Hausa traditional rump states. Founded by Katsina rulers and nobles who escaped Uthman Dan Fodio’s Sokoto Caliphate expedition, Maradi has till now not ceased from being home to elements of Katsina ruling class who see it as a second home. This is so bearing in mind that Maradi was formed by their exiled rulers. Indeed, Maradi has since that 19th century expedition, been administered by monarchs called Sarkin Katsina Maradi. Bordered on the West by the powerful Gobir exilic state, on the east by the Damagaram Sultanate and Soko largest city in Niger and also the administrative centre of the Maradi region. Emerging from an 1899 setback which saw its bloody destruction by the French Voulet-Chanoine Mission, Maradi later recovered from this destruction to emerge as one of the strongest economic outposts of the 20th to 21st centuries. In fact, by the 1950s, it had become a major population success, with a dynamic and modest but doubled population, a demographics that jumped up from a 1950 count of 8,661 to 80,000 in 1983.

Maradi, however, shares so many similarities and linkages with Nigeria, in spite of its French colonial heritage. First is Niger’s 1960 independence day, shared with Nigeria, and its boast being a centre of Hausa culture, just like Kano’s merchant city renown which it shares with Maradi. Maradi is also a predominantly Fulani population and the Nigerian Naira is an acceptable currency in Maradi, just as the Niger official currency of CFA franc. During the 2015 elec- tions, reports alleged that thousands of people crossed the Nigerien border from Maradi to Nigeria to vote for Buhari.

I went into this long history to paint a symbiosis between Buhari’s Katsina and Maradi and why the recent decision to construct a $1.96 million railway into the Nigerien city is an extenNigeria’s resources in service of his prebendal sentiments.

Geographical information belie the presidency’s claim that Maradi is a border town of Niger Republic. Indeed, it is said that the city is 51 kilometers from the Nigerian/Niger border. This means that if the border was the bother of the Buhari government, it ought to have stopped the railway project 51 kilometers before Maradi. Extending this argument further and stoking it with the known chronic cronyism of the Buhari government, it then goes with- out saying that economic consideration was secondary to this government in this consider- ation but the urge to make good as son of the soil and the proclamation of Fulani hegemony.

This hegemony has been at the core of the various crises between the North and South since Buhari came into office and are at the core of this railway project. Buhari’s intention in the Maradi project would not have become a subject of intense debate as it has if his pedigree was not tainted with selfish cronyism, first to his Fulani stock and palpably to the Northern part of Nigeria where he hails from. His blatant blindness to the spirit of equitable distribution of wealth and positions as one of the indices of wedging together Nigeria. This is a reflection of the 60 years of inequity that has marked the post-independence relationship between the three regions of Nigeria.

It was why, when Buhari called for a celebration of Nigeria’s 60th, this call was met with stiff disdain. Yes, Nigeria’s numerical age addition is worthy of celebration, affirming Lai Mohammed’s submission. However, in terms of mileages, prospects and achievements of that 60-year old Nigeria, any call for celebration would amount to a blind and unrealistic self under-score.

In the hands of Buhari, Nigeria is like a country which has learnt nil lessons from its divisive civil war and is a kilometer away from its own ethnic war of Kigali. A country in Africa that can effectively answer to Lai Mohammed’s celebratory narrative is, undoubtedly, Rwanda. This is a country which emerged from an ethnic internecine and which, less than three decades after, has not only become stronger but is made stronger by its clear departure from the route of its ruins. Nigeria under Buhari, on the reverse, is at the brinks of an ethnic explosion, stoked by incendiary governmental actions like the Maradi railway project.

The truth is, a Nigeria at 60 gives little or no cause for cheers. It can only be meaningful in the sight of those who are profiting from its meaningless chaos and inexplicable stasis. Or in the sight of the contractors of the Nigeria@60 project who would smile to bank with loots therefrom. Let us tell ourselves the truth: the country envisaged by our forefathers at pre-independence, which many lost their lives fighting for its actualisation, isn’t what we have now.

Nigeria has become one of the most unexampled cases of politico-economic retardation, not only on the African continent but in the world at large. The above, as grippingly sad and lamentable as it is, isn’t even the cause for despondency at 60. The major reason to be downcast is that, other than the unscientific spiritual, metaphysical realm where emotions and unseen hope are bandied, the scientific Nigerian horizon does not call for cheers in the foreseeable future. Nigeria is today a country that would make any pools-staker, betting on the possibility of her renewal within a specified period of time, to lose their deposits. This is because characters like Buhari are systemically wired to continue to administer Nigeria for a very long time to come.

 

NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

Lagos Govt To Close Ojota Interchange To Second Bridge For Three Months

The Lagos State government on Friday announced that it will close the popular Ojota interchange up to the second bridge in the area for three months beginning from Monday, September 21, for some repairs…

Mixed Reactions Over Gbajabiamila’s Engagement With African Speakers To Loose Africa From Stranglehold Of Foreign Debts

Hundreds of followers of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila have continued to react to the twitter message on his official twitter handle: @femigbaja, on his engagement with his counterparts from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa on the planned collaboration in the joint task of loosening the stranglehold of foreign debt on our economies, ahead of the 2021 conference of African Speakers, scheduled to hold in Abuja…

Nigeria To Sell Petrol Less Than N100 Per Litre ― Buhari’s Aide

The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Ita Enang has said that plans were on the way for Nigeria to sell petrol less than N100 per litre. Senator Enang said as soon as local refineries begin operation…

Ondo 2020: PDP not divided over Jegede ― Campaign organisation

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has won 14 out of the 18 chairmanship seats in the just-concluded Ondo State local government elections conducted in the state last Saturday…

Stop harassing Mailafia, Secondus tells DSS

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, has admonished the Directorate of State Security Service (DSS), to refrain from further harassment of former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr Obadiah Mailafia…

Baba Suwe debunks death rumour, says those wishing him dead ‘ll go before him

Veteran actor, Babatunde Omidina, famously known as Babasuwe has debunked the rumour of his death, describing the development as sad and uncalled for…

After Two Years, Daddy Freeze Apologises To Bishop Oyedepo

Daddy Freeze whose real name is Ifedayo Olarinde has apologised to Bishop Oyedepo who is the presiding bishop and founder of Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel…