Wase and his Fulani door against diasporans

“Did you say Tiv in America?”  He asked, with his eyes dilating dangerously. The affirmative answer from the mover of the motion drew snide  responses again from the first interlocutor: “If they are in America, could they really be an interested party here? Do they really know what is exactly going on? When reminded that the petitioners have family members who are under constant attacks of herdsmen, the presiding officer intoned: “If this petition is coming from those who are within the country, I believe it has a very block standard. But those living in America, then come to lodge complaint.” He went on to ask if the petitioners registered their group with the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, and when reminded of the provision of the constitution as it relates to freedom of association, he responded: “I am not stopping that, but I am saying if they are Nigerians and living in Nigeria and bringing issues, I agree. But somebody in America who is far away from this country. I am not convinced that somebody from America can come here and then  be laying issues on Nigeria. I am not convinced. I am not convinced that we need to take that petition”. He rejected the petition and  refused to refer it to the relevant committee of the house. His simple reason those Nigerians living outside Nigeria have no business commenting on issues happening in Nigeria, their fatherland. In essence, according to him, their citizenship  expired the moment they ventured out of the country in search of pastures new! Chikena!

The above happened on Thursday, March 11, 2021, in the Nigerian House of Representatives. The altercation was between Ahmed Idris Wase, the Deputy Speaker of the House, who presided in the absence of the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila. The second interlocutor was Mark Terseer Gbillah, representing Benue Gwer East and West Federal Constituency of Benue State. Gbillah had brought a petition, written by the “Mutual Union of the Tiv in America”. The Union, a pressure group, had written to accuse the Federal Government of not resettling the Tiv people who were displaced from their ancestral land in the course of the various attacks by herdsmen. You remember that in one single day, over 100 of Tiv people were buried as victims of herders’ attacks on their native farmlands and homes. “I have a petition from the Mutual Union of the Tiv in America against the Federal Government of Nigeria and the issue has to do with the ancestral land of the TIV people that seems to have been possessed in recent times through various attacks and the fact that they are languishing in IDP camps till date without any intervention”, Gbillah had introduced his motion. Then the responses recorded here came from Wase, the presiding officer.

I watched the video of the encounter in utter consternation a second time before I got the full gist. My initial reaction was that Wase was probably too illiterate or ignorant to know what the petition was all about. But when I listened again, followed his gesticulations; heard words like “attacks”, “ancestral land of the Tiv people that seems to have been possessed in recent times through various attacks”, and played back in my mind how Fulani herdsmen had attacked the Tiv people of Benue, killing them in their hundreds; maiming them in their thousands; raping their wives and daughters in their scores and pillaging their farmlands endlessly with reckless abandon, I knew that rather than ignorance, Wase was out for pure tribalism, ethnic bigotry and undiluted mischief – all rolled into one! Once you mention dry bone in a proverb, the old woman thinks you are talking about her. Wase reacted the way he did to the motion because the whole thing was about his brother Fulani herdsmen who have become the nightmare of the nation, Nigeria.

I was angry within me watching the video clip. I was also greatly  alarmed and became terribly worried. Alarmed because the man at the centre of the whole saga is no other person than the number six personage in the political set up of Nigeria. I became worried because, if, may God forbid, we record multiple losses of  leaders from the presidency to the leadership of the National Assembly in a single fling, and fortune spares Wase, by our constitutional provisions and conventional order of succession, he stands to become our president, though temporarily, till we hold another election to fill the vacancies. May God forbid, again!

Honestly, the first thing I did was to check out Wase and his pedigree. I wanted to know if he has ever had any training in cognitive reasoning. I wanted to know what has been his administrative acumen and how long he has been in the management of  human and material resources. I found nothing enchanting in his profile. His academics, administrative and what have you, are as prosaic as the session he presided over last Thursday. And this is where our problem lies as a nation; the inability of the leadership class to think outside the box. Wase is not a newcomer in the House of Representatives. As a matter of fact, he has been in that chamber since 2007, the fourth term, representing the Wase Federal Constituency of Plateau State. He was at a time the Deputy House Leader from 2015-2019.

He is also the chairman, House Committee on Federal Character, such a sensitive organ of the assembly. But today, in the year 2021, he does not see any reason why Nigerians living abroad should have a say in the affairs of their fatherland. As far as Wase is concerned, once you live outside the shores of Nigeria, your citizenship expires or is determined. Wase, in his attempt to protect the killer herdsmen, failed to realise that after crude oil, Nigeria’s greatest income comes from remittances from Nigerians in the diaspora.

He is not aware that in the yar 2021 projection, remittances from Nigerians in the diaspora were projected to be $29.9 billion US Dollar. As a principal officer of the House of Representatives and with a monthly salary of well above N13 million, Wase is not aware that those Nigerians living abroad are the ones sustaining his abnormal salary and those of his fellow members of the assembly. Like Jeshurun in the Bible, who ate fat, grew thick; covered with fatness and forsook God who made him, Wase, in his comfort can now determine the citizenship and rights of those who provide the revenue for his financial indulgences. In his entire political career, he has never come across the term, “pressure group”.

As a legislator of many years, he cannot fathom how someone who left Nigeria to live in America, should be talking about what is happening in Nigeria! “I am not convinced that somebody from America can come here and then be laying issues in Nigeria”, he submitted with magisterial authority. In his reasoning, it does not matter to him if those Tiv in America, the petitioners, have their family members butchered in Benue. He cares less if the relations of the members of the “Mutual Union of the Tiv in America” have their elderly mothers, sisters and nieces raped everyday; if their uncles watch as herdsmen rape their wives and if their cousins and other members of their communities are massacred in their thousands while  the Federal Government which controls all the apparatuses of security in the country appears taciturn and reticent about their plight.

As far as Wase is concerned, since they are not living in Nigeria, they have no business commenting on what happens here at home. How do you expect the country to move forward? How do you make progress in a nation where the number six citizen does not know that the world is a global village in the 21st century? How will Nigeria be able to compete with her counterparts all over the world when her Chief Justice does not know that it is not a “driver’” that flies an aeroplane? What do you call a country where, when the Chief Justice of the Federation was asked what would be his attitude to “technicalities” in the nation’s justice system and he responded, talking about the technical components of an aeroplane and how to “drive” an aircraft? Yet, he was confirmed as the Chief Justice! How do you describe a country, where in the past six years, our president has not been able to make live broadcast and hold live interview sessions but would rather hide under  pre-recorded and choreographed broadcasts?

Someone said after Boko Haram, the next liability Nigeria has is the National Assembly. I cannot agree less.  Never have we seen a bland National Assembly like we have now! How a country which has an Okonjo-Iweala as a donation to the World Trade Organisation, ended with certainb persons of our time as leaders beats my imagination. Truth be told, we will all be building castles in the air if we think that with leaders like these, Nigeria can make any headway.

There is no way this country will be able to rise above the intelligence of her leadership. Wase has been in the House of Representatives for 14 years now. He has been “winning” elections in his constituency consistently. He is likely to win again if he contests. The present political structure is too skewed in favour of mediocrity. It has a penchant for giving room for the dregs of humanity to pilot or if you like, drive, our affairs. That is the tragedy of our contemporary history!

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