EC Ejiogu*****
ANYONE WHO presumes that there are no global and strategic dimensions to Muhammadu
Buhari’s re-advent to the control of state power in the Nigeria project and his
on-going determined pursuit of deadly parochial-Islamization policies viz-a-viz
the disruption of the peace, well-being and existence of the distinct peoples
that inhabit the enlarged Niger basin—especially the Igbo and their neighbors
in the lower southeast portion—should take a pause and reflect better.
The
role that dedicated Igbo scholars, public intellectuals, their allies, and
sympathizers everywhere must play by bringing their skills and knowledge to
bear on the contextualization of the issues and facts involved in Muhammadu
Buhari’s state polices, their adverse aims and implications this time and
beyond for the peace, well-being and existence of the Igbo and the other
threatened distinct inhabitants of the Niger basin cannot be downplayed.
When
Adolf Hitler and his militaristic Nazi regime were routed in 1945 by the efforts
of the heroic men and women—fellow Africans included—from every corner of the
globe, who volunteered for military and military support service in the World
War II, several of Hitler’s frontline and backroom operatives in the Nazi
establishment who played actionable roles in the mass genocidal extermination of
countless Jews and people of other despised races in the gas chambers,
concentration camps, etc. that they set up and operated in known parts of
Europe’s heartland, fled Germany and resettled in Argentina, other parts of
Latin America, and even the Middle East.
IT IS noteworthy here for full disclosure that my own dear father, who died in
2011 at the age of 97 was one of those brave African men who stepped forward to
be counted for military service in that Great War as soldiers in occupier
Britain’s Royal West African Frontier Force, (RWAFF). My father who enlisted in 1940 at the
enlistment depot in Enuugwu, was assigned to the Royal Signals Corps alongside
24 other young enlistees all of who were from the distinct nationalities in the
Niger basin’s lower southeast portion.
Their assignment to the Royal Signal Corps instead of the Regimental
Signal Corps was on account of their superior Western educational
qualification—all of them possessed the standard six certificates, which was
coveted at the time. Research revealed
that the need to recruit personnel with the requisite Western educational
qualification was in fact, the compelling rationale that trumped the
established stipulation made by Her Majesty’s military policy makers at
Whitehall to deviate from the established stipulations that guided the
recruitment of colonial military manpower in the colonies to favor men from the
so-called “martial tribes” alone in the upper Niger basin,
For
those Nazi operatives who fled to Argentina, their choice of refuge was aided
and abetted by their Argentine benefactors, some of whom are in or connected
with their country’s military establishment, who also received and provided
them with cover and sundry support upon arrival in Argentina. In the post WWII years after the founding of
the State of Israel in 1948, and it quickly evolved into a no-nonsense
veritable protector of universal Jewish rights with regard to the vow that
“never again” would the Jewish people fall victim to such violation of their
human rights as was the case in the hands of the Nazis, only a few of those
Nazi operatives have been located by the Israeli state, which in some cases, used
extraordinary means to bring them to Israel where they faced justice for their
crimes against humanity. The rest have
quietly lived out their lives and died natural deaths undetected, without being
made to account for the atrocities they inflicted on Jews and their other
victims.
Don’t
forget that Africans—Ovaherero and Nama peoples of South West Africa, in today’s
Namibia, were the initial victims of the Nazi genocidists. The torture techniques that the Nazis
subsequently applied wholesale against their victims during the Jewish Holocaust
were developed and perfected on the Ovaherero and the Nama by German colonial
administrators who operated in South West Africa in the early 1900s. An estimated 100,000 Ovaherero and Nama lost
their lives during the time. Noteworthy
is that in 2004, Germany accepted that those killings amount to genocide, but still
refuses to pay specific compensation to descendants of the victims. Descendants of the Ovaherero and Nama who
lost their lives in that genocide recently filed a law suit in New York in
which they demand compensation from the German government. That suit is on-going in New York.
IT WAS not by happenstance therefore, that the military establishment in Argentina
after its overthrow of President Isabel Peron’s government and usurpation of
state power in 1976 embarked on a systematic and horrific human rights
violations against all sections of society in Argentina throughout the duration
of the reign of terror called the Dirty War on civil society that it imposed in
the 1976 through 1983 after it lost the Falklands war and was ousted from power. Society in Argentina is yet to recover from
that horrific Dirty War in which 30,000 opponents of military rule were
systematically “disappeared”. Most of
those who were responsible have not been held accountable.
Although
the military establishment in Argentina is no longer in control of de facto state power since 1983, there
is no doubt that its strands and elements that were responsible for and
participated in those horrific gross human rights violations are still well and
kicking. They were the same strands and
elements that received, gave cover to, and protected fleeing Nazi genocidists
from Germany when they arrived Argentina after 1945.
THE HISTORY of land ownership and plantation agriculture in Argentina and the rest
of Latin America is the story of racial expropriation and exploitation
especially of indigenous peoples. Much
of the large scale commercial ranching in Argentina and other Latin American
countries are in the hands property-owning families that support and or are
involved in right-wing politics in society.
The military establishments in Latin America have direct links and
affiliation to those property-owning families who rely on their relationship to
the former to guarantee their economic and political privileges in
society. Also, during the period when
the military was in control of state power in Argentina, many of their
individual elements appropriated stupendous tracts of acreage of land that they
deployed for huge commercial ranching ventures that they still own and operate
all over Argentina.
The alarm, the worry…
DO YOU now see one of the worrisome and alarming linkage-implications of Muhammadu
Buhari’s policy that would send soldiers from a military, whose officer corps
and other ranks are overwhelmingly Hausa-Fulani men to Argentina to learn
ranching skills? In stark terms, the
policy will enable Muhammadu Buhari’s genocidist military to acquire up-to-date
skills to aid and abet the Islamization agenda in the Niger basin.
Military
forts in the name of cattle ranches scattered across the land will provide
outposts around which government supported Fulani settlements will
flourish. Also, as was the case in parts
of the world where settler colonialism prevailed, soldiers from such military
forts will be used to project pacification violence against indigenous
resistance to forced permanent Fulani settlements in the nooks and crannies of
the rural communities where they are located.
IGBO scholars, intellectuals and their friends everywhere must not be shy to
proclaim to the world that the Igbo and their neighbors in the lower southeast
Niger basin do not pose or constitute threat of any sort to peace in the regional
or global contexts. The non-militaristic
cultures and the inherent democratic social authority patterns that these
inhabitants of the lower southeast evolved and still rely on to direct
authority in their respective society are testimonies to that truthful
assertion.
For
civilized humanity to sit by and watch while Muhammadu Buhari and his
militaristic Hausa-Fulani kinsmen and women deploy militaristic policies that
engulf the peace-loving peoples of the lower southeast right in their
respective homeland using different ploys amounts to real and serious threats
to regional and world peace.
EVEN THOUGH nothing again has been heard about this policy since it was first
flouted in sections of the Press in Nigeria sometime last year, the big worry
is whether it indicates that the Hausa-Fulani ruling establishment under
Muhammadu Buhari has made contacts with elements of Hitler’s Nazi war criminals
and their Argentine benefactors. The
implications of that for the distinct peoples, especially the Igbo, that
inhabit the lower Niger basin is serious as they continue to face down Fulani
Islamization onslaught.
*****Professor EC Ejiogu is author of The Roots of Political Instability inNigeria : Political Evolution and Development in the Niger Basin, Farnham:
Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe
*****Professor EC Ejiogu is author of The Roots of Political Instability in
Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe
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