ALHAJI SALEH BAYERI AGAIN

Alhaji Saleh Bayeri, leader of the Miyetti Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, claimed on live television about a week ago tht himself and others ("we" he said) masterminded the Jan. 17, 2010 Dogo Na-Hauwa wicked massacres of innocent women and children. Yet AP Jonathan has just included him on the Lar Committee investigating the crisis. Gov. Jang of Plateau State called for the arrest of Bayeri by the Police. Who is advising the Acting president on these issues? Nigeria should get serious and tow the path of sanity or it will continue to sink.

In my opinion, and I share this with Gen. Saleh maina, GOC. 3rd Armoured Div. Nigerian Army, no one in Government has addressed the real issues of contention in Jos yet. The members of the Lar Committee cannot achieve much. Their suggestion of dialogues between Jang and his neighbouring Governors and the Sultan of Sokoto make the crisis to look like some border clash and some minor religious misunderstanding. That a big joke.

The problem of Jos versus the Hausa/Fulani goes back 2oo years during the Dan Fodio jihads. The error of Lord Lugard in the days of Indirect Rule have a part to play. MNorthern Nigerian minories were sidelined by the Lord. The insistance of the descendants of the jihadists to subtly carry on the territorial expansion has to blame today. The Beroms are only defending their rights to inherited land just like the South-South militants. Self determination is a basic human right, but not to the neo-jihadists of Jos.

The Hausa/Fulanis should take a leaf from the Ogbomoshos, Igbos, Urhobos, Ijaws, Kanuris, Effiks and many other ethnic nationalities settled in Jos who have lived there in peace longer than them. The present Oba of Agbomosho, Chief Oyewumi, is the owner of the most prestigious structures at Terminus roundabout in Jos. Almost all the taxi drivers today at Hill Station Hotel are Jos-born Yorubas. Why don't they have a problem except the Hausa/Fulanis? The Hausa/Fulani also do not integrate into their host communities. Check Sagamu in OgunState, Idi Araba in Lagos State and the EPZ in Cross River State. The Hausas should say openly what they want when they settle on other people's soil.

Whose FRSC car number plate has the slogan, "BORN TO RULE"? Meaning what? FRSC and Nigerians, answer me!

The Hausas/Fulanis and the Beroms will live in peace as brothers and sisters again, I prophesy. Amen.

MOSOPP

The promoters of Movement for the Survival of Plateau People (MOSOPP) should please publish their office address, membership recruitment procedures and activities more. I can confidently assure you that there are many of us itching to join your (our) Movement. Please hurry. Get in touch with me via my email. 

Those who would like to be members should may send their names and email addresses to me for free onward transmission to MOSOPP headquarers. 

THAT SALE BAYERI PRESS CONFERENCE

Newspaper reports have it that one Sale Bayeri, a self-styled leader of the Plateau Fulanis, openly confessed at a press conference in Abuja to being party to the March 7th Dobon Na-Hauwa killings. I sincerely hope the Police have taken him in for questioning. If not, then the end of the Jos crisis is not yet in sight. 

Sale Bayeri also claimed during that press conference to being a descendant of Fulanis who have been residing in Plateau State for so long that he cannot trace which or when his forefathers first settled there. He, therefore, claims to be a Plateau State indigene. I want Bayeri to define an indigene by the Constitution of Nigeria and he will find that he does not qualify to be an indigene of Plateau State. He is, rather, a Nigerian citizen who was born and has settled in another part of the country other than his indigenous home. By the Nigerian Constitution, birth and length of stay in another part of Nigeria do not automatically confer indigeneship status.  

Bayeri's position now is that some of his privileges as a Nigerian citizen are inexerciseable. Such privileges can only be exercised when he returns to his indigenous home. Privileges such title to land by inheritance (his forefathers grazing land in Jos was bought), Federal appointments to represent  his home State, etc. Meanwhile, I sincerely hope he is cooling his heals in a Police cell.

FRESH ATTACK IN JOS

Yesterday, Sunday 7th march, 2010, we woke up to the news of yet another attack by Hausa/Fulani settlers on Dogo Na-Hawa village in the outskirt of Forum, Barakin Ladi LGA. Visitors to the scene of the massacre said grenades and heavy artillery were used leaving about 2oo persons dead. The State Governor was on hand by afternoon to supervise the mass burial of brutally murdered men, women ad even a 4 day old baby. The State Police Commissioner confirmed that some arrests have been made of likely culprits.

The perpetrators claim they are indigenous or would like to be considered indigenous to these areas. Do people normally go around vandalizing their own ancestral homes? Who is fighting a war of genocide and against who is the war? Would any right thinking person believe their story any more?
We are waiting for the reaction of settlers like Hon. Samaila Mohammed who has just proposed a bill on the floor of the House of Reps to the effect that all those born in Jos before 1960 should be considered indigenous stock of Plateau State.

By his submission, Hon. Samaila admitted that he is NOT currently indigenous to the constituency he represents in the House. How could he represent me fairly when he hates me by all his actions and utterances? Its only from Plateau State that such nonsense occurs. This nonsense was created deliberately by IBB's presidential fiat as his contribution to the the Hausa North's war of emasculation against all minority groups (tribal and religious) in the nineteen northern States of Nigeria.

Plateau State indigenous peoples and the Federal Government should quickly come and solve this problem by reversing President Ibrahim Babagida's so-called Jos North and Jos South LGAs. The indigenous peoples of these two LGAs never asked for their creation. The Hausa/Fulani settlers must have. Our request was for Jos East and Jos West LGAs with a boundary between them running along Bauchi Road from our border with Bauchi State down to the boundary of B/Ladi LGA. The old Jos LGA should be reverted to until the communities in it jointly append their signatures to the boundaries of the new LGAs they would like to have.

THAT LAR/KWANDE PANEL

On Monday week, the VP, Jonathan, set up and advisory panel on the Jan 17 Jos crisis. The obvious problem with it is its composition. It is made up Plateau indigenous Christians and Muslsims and a few settler Hausa-Fulanis. This creates the impression that the crises was religio-centric. It was not. It was not political either. So was its cause?



Hausa-Fulani jihadic expansionism. That's it. The Muslim Hausa-Fulanis are still at it. They are still trying to enlarge their coast, albeit subtely. I can assure them that the eyes of Nigerian are nnow opened. They will never win.



The Plateau Muslims and Christians, both indigenous and settler elements from all over Nigeria do not have a problem. The Hausa-Fulani Muslims have a clearly wrtitten agenda - to ensure that Nigeria falss to them politically, economically and religion-wise.



If they will not stop attempting to claim ownershi of Jos, stop demanding for an emirate or district, stop demanding for the removal of the Gbong Gwom, stop imagining that the Jos North local Government Council is theirs, then there is a lot more palaver for Nigeria and Nigerians.

I am aware that all Nigerians have taken sides on the Jos crises along ethno-religious lines.

Othe settler tribes in Plateau State MUST be included in Lar's panel for truth to be unravelled. Yorubas and Igbos and Urhobos have been in Jos loger than the Hausas. They will speak from an unbiased viewpoint, I believe. I hope the VP has heard me.

THAT LAR/KWANDE PANEL

The Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan, set up a 15-man panel on 1st Feb. 2010 to unravel the causes of the Jan 17, 2010 Jos crisis and profer solutions to them. The panel is to be co-chaired by Solomon Lar, a Christian, and Yahaya Kwande, a Muslim. The other members represent these two religions and they are made up of indigenous Plateau people and some Hausa-Fulani settlers.

I would like the VP to note the following interpretations of that panel as presently constituted.
1. The composition of the panel assumes that the crisis has a religions origin. Wrong. Yahaya Kwande, a Muslim' is happily married to a Christian woman. No problem with that. The series of Plateau crises are not religions but political in origin.
2. The Hausa-Fulani settlers in Plateau State are the problem. Get other settlers in Jos who are living peacefully and you will prove this. Oyo State, Kogi State, Nassarawa State Muslim settlers in Jos do not have a problem. Why not? Because the Hausa-Fulanis are Nigeria's trouble shooters.
3. Other settlers in Plateau State should have been included on the panel. The will proffer more honest solutions than a trouble shooter like Salleh Hassan. He has been championing the cause of the settler Hausa-Fulanis in Jos.
4. Yorubas, Igbos, Igalas, etc, are other settler tribes in Plateau State who also have problems with the Hausa-Fulanis. Why?
5. If the Hausa-Fulani incursionists are not curbed now, they will cause more trouble in Jos in the future. Watch our for their next move.
6. All the Hausa-Fulanis in Jos know their States and LGs of origin. Saleh Hassan, for example, is from Gombe State. He knows it and that's why he sent his son to go and complete his secondary school education there.
7. The panel, as constituted, cannot agree at the real problem in Jos. It will most likely issue two comflicting reports at he end of the day.

THAT BAUCHI STATE RESOLUTION

The Bauchi State House of Assembly has passed a motion to expel all Plateau State indigenous persons from their State. I think I got that right. I honestly wish it were not true. Unfortunately, it is. It's a big shame that adults who swore to uphold the Constitution of Nigeria would adopt such a resolution.

The Nigerian Constitution guarantees the freedom of sojourn to all Nigerians to live in any part of the country they so wish. Yet, the Bauchi people feel they can stop a group of Nigerians from enjoying this right. I hope they are not in the illusion that Plateau State expelled people from their State. No one has asked anyone to leave the Plateau. Those who have decided to leave have done so on their own volition and for reasons best known to them.

Did the Bauchi State legislators consider what the other States of Nigeria might do when Plateau indigenes begin to leave Bauchi? Didn't they guess that the other 34 States might just expel all non-indigenous persons from their States? Didn't they realize that they had unwittingly asked for the split of Nigeria into 36 new independent countries? Do they honestly believe that they can excise Plateau State from this country while they continue to live in peace? Shame on them.

The Bauchi legislators should tell their State indigenes residing in Plateau State to stop pretending to be Plateau indigenes. They should advice them to stop asking for a District, a Local Government, the position of Deputy Governor, etc, etc. They may continue enjoying the beautiful climate and hospitality of the Plateau people if they should stir clear of strictly Plateau affairs. The Igbos, Yorubas, Urhobos, Idomas, etc, are all living happily in Jos whether Christian or Muslim.

Plateau has Muslims and Christians in every Local Government Area living in peace. It's the Hausa-Fulani expansionist ambition that it fueling the Jos crises.