The new(ly appointed) head of The Northern Elders Forum, Prof Nazifi Abdullahi-Darma recently spoke to Maupe Ogun on ChannelsTv. He disclosed that he was an undergraduate in 1987 when ethno-religious conflict in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, took place. He recalled correctly that many (others say ONLY) non Hausa-Fulani on the other side of the ethnic divide were arrested and tried by the Ibrahim Babangida military administration. He mentioned specifically Gen Zamani Lekwot who was condemned to death but the sentence commuted. Let us follow him more extensively using this transcript that I made from the video:
"Every single citizen of this country that has been lost is a potential contributor to prosperity and development.
A loss is a loss.
And what has happened over the years is a complete failure of our governance structure at the Federal level, at the state level.
People are killed in this country.
Let me take you back memory lane.
A loss is a loss.
And what has happened over the years is a complete failure of our governance structure at the Federal level, at the state level.
People are killed in this country.
Let me take you back memory lane.
When the 1987 ethno-religious conflict happened in Kafanchan, in Kaduna State, I was just an undergraduate student in the university.
Perpetrators were caught, people like Zaman Lekwot.
They were brought to trial.
They were sentenced.
But unfortunately the government of General Ibrahim Babangida released them.
Perpetrators were caught, people like Zaman Lekwot.
They were brought to trial.
They were sentenced.
But unfortunately the government of General Ibrahim Babangida released them.
FROM THAT DAY (emphasis mine!), that marks the beginning of people to take other people's lives with impunity and go free.
It is unfortunate.
It is unacceptable.
It is a sad commentary on all of us including myself as elites that . . ."
It is unfortunate.
It is unacceptable.
It is a sad commentary on all of us including myself as elites that . . ."
By 1987, General Zamani Lekwot, arguably a hero of the Nigeria-Biafra War, must have been retired for about a decade from the Nigerian Army. It is possible that the mother of Prof Abdullahi-Darma was perhaps not even married while Lekwot was in the trenches sorting out matters with Gen Odumegwu Ojukwu and his rebel gang. It appears then that the memory lane to which our learned professor referred must have been a badly and hastily constructed one unworthy of even Boys Scouts. It couldn't go back beyond 1987. What then are we to make of it? Of course it doesn't go far back enough and hence automatically disqualifies the professor from the pseudo-intellectual excursion that he attempted. Did he or does he position the Akaluka beheading in this narrative? And many before and after? What does our short-memoried Prof know about impunity? 1945, 1953, etc? I would hope that some who are closer to him, as to be called his contemporaries, will take him on for this wicked abbreviation of our history as a nation where impunity reigns. I hereby call on Profs Moses Ochonu and Farooq Kperogi to deal with this. I am getting too old for this.
Is there anything to be gained by reminding Abdullahi-Darma of the millions of Ndigbo and other southerners killed in 1966 and 1967 as part of a state sponsored hunt and kill revenge mission, NOT even part of the ensuing civil(?) War? No. He is too far gone. This Prof is irredeemable. I pity his students.
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