 |
| Brig. Gen. Idada Ikponmwen (rtd). |
•Wants govs, traditional rulers to
wake up
•Says mass migration of Fulani youths,
ominous
A former Provost Marshall of the
Nigeria Army, Brig. Gen. Idada Ikponmwen (rtd), has warned governors of the 17
states in Southern Nigeria of an imminent invasion and overrun of their states
by Fulani jihadists, if they failed to secure their states.
Ikponmwen, a lawyer and security
strategist, said the on-going mass movement of able bodied youths from the far
North to the South was an ominous sign that something sinister might be in the
offing.
In an exclusive chat with Sunday
Telegraph, he said that the influx of these people especially in recent weeks
of the lockdown, night curfew and nationwide ban on interstate travels, had
become worrisome and should not be treated with levity.
Ikponmwen observed that over the
years, people from the Northern part of Nigeria had had free access to the
Southern part of the country without anyone raising eyebrows but said that
things have changed with the sustained terrorism and banditry going on the
North and the recent threat by the Boko Haram to launch attacks in Southern
Nigeria.
According to him, before now, Fulani
herdsmen and Hausa traders have been part and parcel of many states in the
South as they conducted their trade in cattle and agricultural produces. He,
however, said that the current mass migration was different because it involved
mostly young men who have no identifiable businesses to transact or wares to
sell but were moving down to the South in a suspicious manner.
“These mass movements cannot be for
nothing. It must be preparatory to another jihad. In the first one (jihad) by
Usman Dan Fodio in 1804, they didn’t even prepare for it as much as this. This
one, they have been preparing for it. I
think that they are ready and that is why they have been bringing their men
down to the Southern region. Before you know it, a Sarkin Hausawa or Sarkin
Muslimi will take over your place. That is their plan. Nobody needs to tell you
that any more. It is the truth.
“They want to make Nigeria the home of
all Fulani’s from everywhere in Africa. It’s so evident that that is what they
want to do. It’s very unfortunate that our people are still sleeping while this
army of occupation has surrounded us wanting to take over our homeland,” he
said.
Ikponmwen acknowledged that under the
1999 Nigerian Constitution, every citizen has right to live and do business in
any part of Nigeria, but said that such a constitutional provision must not be
upheld to a ridiculous level where a group of citizens could claim right to
move into any part of Nigeria for ulterior motives. He said the right to free
movement and liberty to settle in any part of Nigeria must be predicated on
good conscience and desire to engage in legitimate business.
“It is a very worrisome issue, but
when you begin to talk about it some people will start telling you it is one
Nigeria, there is freedom of movement and you can reside anywhere. All that is
b…t because even my own grandfather lived and worked in the North but he didn’t
go there with the intent to seize the land of his hosts.
“He worked with the Colonial
Administration as a Chief Clerk and he and his colleagues were invited because
their services were needed in the region in those days. He worked in Yola,
Zaria, Maiduguri and so many other places in the Northern region.
“In the current movement of these
Fulani people down to the South, it is not on the invitation of anybody, there are no new factories opening
anywhere in the South where they are going to be employed and they are just
forcing it down the throat of the people.
“They are shipping them down in
trailers and we are made to understand many of them are trained fighters. There
are also reports of arms and ammunitions being smuggled into the region. So it
is not a question of you can live anywhere you want and you then force yourself
on other people,” he said.
Ikponmwen urged political leaders and
traditional rulers of Southern
extraction to shun political and ethnic differences among them in order to work
together to secure their people and their land from all forms of
aggression. He said that individual
interests have created an atmosphere of
silence and inaction among leaders in the South on many issues threatening the
existence of the country.
“Some of the governors were aided into
power by some Northerners, precisely Hausa/Fulani Muslims from that part of the
country. So how would you now expect such governors to talk about resisting the
invasion of the South by the youths from the North? Some of our governors
cannot even talk about stopping open grazing because if they do, it will touch
on the interests of their sponsors.
“For so many years, our people have
been complaining about the menace of the herdsmen and what they’ve done to our
farms and the livelihood of our communities. But you discover that some of our
political leaders cannot openly condemn it even when we all know that many lives have been lost to the
farmers/herders clashes in nearly every state,” he said.
Ikponmwen said that many people living
in Southern Nigeria want the country to stand as one, united entity but it must
be a Nigeria that will
serve the interest of everybody and not an entity where some groups appropriate
it as their personal estate and treat others as slaves of a conquered
territory.
He reiterated the demand by the
political elite in the South for the restructuring, reordering and
repositioning of Nigeria to make provision for a decentralised policing system
that would tackle security threats promptly and more effectively.
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