18 February, 2011
Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan
President
Presidential Villa
Asokoro
Your Excellency,
Concerns of the Moment For the Middle Belt
The Middle Belt Dialogue is made up of professionals, public and private sector workers, and religious and communities leaders of ethnic minorities of
To date our communities have resisted and are still resisting overtures from Hausa-Fulani Muslims who insist that President Jonathan should not be elected. Our reasons for doing this, among others, include our belief in justice, equity and fairness; in the past our leaders worked for the unity of this nation; our young people laid down their lives for Nigeria to remain one indivisible nation; and largely because we are minorities as individual groups, even though together we are the majority we have been excluded from the major sectors of the economy and politics.
Emerging Trends
Our hope, Your Excellency, is that as a minority yourself, you will be able to appreciate our predicament, that our women, children, young and old, at home and abroad, are working hard for you to emerge as President and to expand the democratic space for all peoples of Nigeria.
However, the MBD has watched as Mr. President has gone out of his way to throw favour at people who don’t like him, are working against him and the Niger Delta and has not looked favourably at us and our cries for justice and incorporation into the politics and economy of
Mr. President, in our online discussion groups, facebook and other social networking platforms, our youth are beginning to ask us to explain our support for the Mr. President who has not categorically said anything about the over 18 attacks in the outskirts of Jos, far away from the scène of conflicts in which over 800 women and Children have been killed in the last 10 months.
As matter of fact, one of the persons indicted by previous commissions of enquiry for creating problems in Jos was promoted to the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police by your government.(see attached appendix 1)
Secondly, Mr. President, you have made overtures to the North and nothing promised to our people. Our people who live in the North-East zone are not represented in your new campaign structure which is made up of people from communities which have vowed not to vote for you. It is logical to presume, therefore, that after our people vote you to power the beneficiaries may be the people who will not give their votes to you. The North-East zone is as Middle Belt as the North-Central and the communities always work together as Middle Belt people. Strategically, it does not make sense for the communities that support you not have high visibility in the campaign.
Thirdly, Mr. President has decided to sponsor Quaranic education for Hausa Fulani Muslims called Almajiris, who are incidentally only found in the North. The best approach would have been to properly fund education and work towards integrating these kids into the Nigerian system as equal stakeholders as other Nigerian Children. Mr. President may wish to know that he is now sponsoring the expansion of these Islamic schools where impressionable children are being taught hate and intolerance, which is what exclusivity of such schools to Muslim Clerics and pupils would do now and will continue to do.
The argument that Almajiris are excluded from the school system is not very correct because millions of Middle Belt children are out in school because the school system has collapsed and the
Your Excellency may also wish to note that that Christian schools, both in the Middle Belt and the North , were seized by the Federal and state Governments. These
The action of Mr. President in this respect would amount to the violation of Section 10 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which reads: “The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion” unless, of course, Mr. President would commit the same amount of resources to the funding of Christian education
How to Redeem the situation
Your Excellency, the Middle Belt Dialogue would like you to consider the following urgent steps:
1. Immediate sack from security positions all those security men that have been indicted by Commissions of enquiry.
2. Immediate stop to the killing of women and children in the villages of Jos. Several security people have been indicted or even arrested on the scenes of such killings - ID cards of serving security people have been found in the scenes of such killings. These people are arrested and released back to cause mayhem.
3. Provision of funding for Christian education, especially of women and children in the same way that the Almajiri education is being funded. Our people need a public pronouncement to this effect.
4. There is need for more Middle Belt visibility in the campaign to assure our people that they will be fully involved in the government that will be formed
5. Empowerment: Patronage in terms of political appointments, Contracts among others.
6. Infrastructure: The roads in the Middle Belt areas were ignored by the PTF. General Olusegun Obasanjo helped to open up some roads. We need more bridges across River Benue at Ibi and Lau in
Conclusion
We want to assure your Excellency that our support is guaranteed but we need to ensure that.
Yours Faithfully,
Rima Shawulu Kwewum
Facilitator
CC:
Senate President, Distinguished David Bonaventure Mark
General T. Y. Danjuma, Chairman Presidential Advisory Committee.
Chief Solomon Daushep Lar, Former Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party.
Professor Jerry Gana
No comments:
Post a Comment