Last Wednesday, the President of Nigeria’s Senate, David Mark described Muammar Gaddafi, the dictator of Libya, as “a mad man who should not be taken seriously by any right thinking man”, as reported by Daily Trust of Thursday, March18, 2010. David Mark had made the comment during a debate at a plenary session of Nigeria’s Senate. The reported went further that “Mark berated the Libyan leader over his recent comment that Nigeria should be divided into two to avoid the incessant ethno-religious crisis which has claimed thousands of lives in the country”.

Nigerian newspapers of Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 had all reported Muammar Gaddafi as suggesting that Nigeria be divided into two to avoid further bloodshed between Muslims and Christians. The Libyan dictator canvassed the model of the Indo-Pakistan division of 1947, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah. “The only thing that could put an end to the bloodshed…is the appearance of another Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who established a state for the Muslims and another for the Christians”, according to Gaddafi. Furthermore, the Libyan maverick suggested that Obasanjo should lead the effort to achieve a Christian state in the south, with Lagos as capital, while Abuja should be the capital of a Muslim nation in the north.

The suggestion angered David Mark and it outraged many quarters in Nigeria. Nigerian recalled its ambassador from Libya, to express its disgust. It is clear that Gaddafi’s suggestion is very absurd and simplistic, because it does not understand the complex dynamics which underline Nigeria’s history and the various ways that Nigerian people are inter-related, despite the killings harvested in recent years, and most tragically on the Plateau, in recent months. A neat line of division cannot be drawn through the fault lines of Nigerian political, economic, cultural or even religious life. There are huge populations of Muslims and Christians in the North and South. But far more importantly, is that these various areas of life have welded us together, despite some absurd readings of history which try to reduce Nigeria to just a colonial geographic expression. If Nigeria is convulsing and tearing at the seams today, it is not because the peoples of our country are aliens but because the political economy choices of the ruling class have made the life Hobbesian for the people and the entire project of leadership, starting from recruitment to governance, has not been responsible or responsive to the people.

The Libyan dictator is looking from the outside and in his typically confused and muddled manner, prescribes a simplistic division of Nigeria along confessional lines as the panacea to the problems of a complex country trying to grapple with nation building. Given the huge upheaval and crisis which followed the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent, and the unending problems of Pakistan, which is the “Muslim” model he asked for Nigeria, it is clear that Gaddafi’s suggestion is the typical ranting of a muddle headed maverick and of a dictator that has over stayed his shelf life. Gaddafi is as confused today as he has always been, and if you think I am exaggerating, please go and read the eclectic “Green Book” that is supposed to be the distillation of his world view (or weltanschauung). For too long, progressive forces over-rated Gaddafi, but his record of support for reactionary causes around the continent, tell the real story of the Libyan dictator.

But the fundamental lesson of his suggestion must not be missed. Nigeria is in very deep crisis and Nigeria’s ruling class must take the responsibility for the deep rot we are inside today. If we needed a very urgent reminder that we are in a country whose present has been stolen and the future compromised, it came in the shape of the 2009 November National Examinations Council (NECO) examinations. The registrar of NECO, Professor Promise Okpala, revealed that only 1.80 percent of the candidates (4,223 of the 236,613) “passed with five credits including English and Mathematics”. There was a failure rate of 98.2 percent. This was not too far from the results during the May-June, WAEC results. There was a failure rate of 84%, with only 25.99 percent of the candidates passing with five credits, including English and Mathematics. This is a very serious situation indeed, never mind that it does not seem to be cutting ice with the people who rule us.

The ruling mantra is “Visioning”; but how can we take any national vision forward, when the educational basis is none existent? Where is the platform to produce the Engineers, Scientists, Philosophers, Sociologists and Doctors of the future? Certainly not on a platform of a failure rate of 98.2 percent! The educational system, especially the public school system, is in despair. Even the most advanced capitalist country, the USA, valorises the public school system as an essential foundation to produce the children who will be the builders of the future. This is increasingly slipping through the hands of Nigeria and the quality that gets out of the schools is so poor, it is not good enough for the world of work. In any case, the jobs are not even there! So when Gaddafi or any other maverick for that matter, asks for Nigeria’s dismemberment, it is not enough to call them “mad” as “super patriots” like David Mark did; we should work to remove the tensions which lead to tragic killings in the body politic!

Profiling, the filbe and the tragic killings on the Plateau

Last week, I sent lengthy text messages to some of our colleagues in the Lagos media, about the systematic profiling of Fulbe nomads (and Muslims), in the wake of the latest tragic killings on the Plateau. The Fulbe suffers multiple jeopardizes in the hands of profilers. On the one hand is the disdain that people from settled agricultural backgrounds have for Nomads. Then there is the response to history, especially the Jihad of Shehu Usmanu Dan Fodiyo, which has been a source of a peculiar hatred amongst sections of the political and media elite of the Southwest. Sam Omatseye, last Monday described the Fulbe nomad as “rootless”; he “did not go to school”; “he therefore acts as though he has a right to wherever he is”; and he extends the narrative to “the Southwest where the Bororo Fulani have inaugurated orgies of murder and rape”. Finally, “the issue in Jos is the caveman versus the city man”. Felix Oguejiofor-Abugu, wrote in The Guardian of Saturday, March 13, 2010, “On the Barbarians’ Invasion of Jos South”. The killings, in his words, were “another clear instance of the barbaric inclinations of these inferior, cavemen… who continue to assault our decency…” Femi Orebe in The Nation of Sunday, March 14th, quoted an “internet rebuttal” of the Human Rights Watch report of Killings of Hausa and Fulbe people in January at Kuru Karama, “where it was alleged 150 people were thrown into wells….How many wells and why was the evacuation not shown on the now ‘popular’ Aljazeera which made a hatch [SIC] of Boko Haram people being killed by Nigerian soldiers…” These are just a few of the incredible examples of profiling that I am talking about.