Nigeria: Twitter Ban and Kidnappings - The Official and Unofficial Faces of the Fulani Hegemon
Statement of the Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard (RSV), Nigerian section of the RCIT. 5th June, 2021. https://revolutionarysocialistvanguard.wordpress.com/
According to Al Jazeera over 700 school children have been abducted since December. Over 300 people were killed by armed bandits in the first three months of this year in Kaduna state alone! Benue and Taraba states have been literally turned into slaughter houses for armed Fulani herders even though skirmishes by these herders now spread almost throughout the length and breadth of the nation. The recent slaughter of no less than 50 villagers in communities along the Benue-Ebonyi border stands as a fresh confirmation.¹
Two mothers of the recently abducted over 148 school children in Tegina, Niger state gave up the ghost at the shocking news of the kidnap of their underage children. The insurgents perpetrating all these atrocities are Fulanis imported and armed by the northern (Fulani) pro-caliphate syndicate with the help of the Nigerian state from surrounding West African countries.² The same Nigerian state after converting the South Eastern or Igbo states into a potential war zone have through the newly appointed Inspector General of police given a shoot-on-sight order for suspected or confirmed Igbo nationalist militant.³
Just days ago, the president tweeted: “Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.”
The palpable hostility in the tweet led to thousands of Nigerians on the app reporting it, which in turn led to its subsequent deletion. Enraged by the deletion of his tweet which made explicit allusions to a second genocide of the Igbos president Muhammadu Buhari declared a ban on twitter in Nigeria.⁴
One does not need to be Sherlock Holmes to connect the dots within a ruling class that facilitates the influx of a certain nationality and the government that issues direct threats of war to another. Neither is the help of a talisman needed to know that the goal of the topmost section of this ruling class is war, ethnic cleansing and conquest.
If you admit that this is true then you must also admit that the conflict will to a considerable extent be along national lines. Since this is the case, you must call for the defeat of the Northern conquistadors in their war with the oppressed nationalities, a war which has started in earnest but is yet to take all-out dimensions.
True, high rates of youth unemployment; devaluation of the naira and inflation; poverty and hunger; climate change; etc., contribute to the escalation of armed insurgency in Nigeria yet this does not disprove the agenda to subjugate southern ethnic nationalities rather it gives it an economic bases which can be understood within the general concept of the collapse of global capitalism.
History and even current events shows us that chauvinist Bonapartism is one of the inner mechanisms of maintenance of power by the ruling class especially in a period of deep crises. The rise of anti-Semitism in the 1930’s leading up to the Holocaust is one example. The heightened aggression of the Netanyahu government against the Palestinians and Iran is another. The acceleration of chauvinist attacks of the US and other Western imperialists against China last year is a third. Even on the US mainland there has been a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes or an increase in attacks on the AAPI community.
As we speak, there are speculations of a hand-over to the military. Though he denies it, there are reports that the Attorney General has in a memorandum advised the president to suspend the constitution and declare martial law.⁵ All these happen as Boko Haram/ISWAP have regained more territory in the north where forced conversions to Islam take place and even pay stipends for those willing to join their ranks. Still the focus of the Nigerian Police Force and the Nigerian Army is to hunt down and kill secessionists. It becomes clear now that the barbaric treatment of many a civilian by military personnel is a reflection of the chauvinist orientation of the Fulani barons.
So we see that the progression of events is that of the official and unofficial faces of the Fulani hegemony.
In this light, acknowledging the war mongering posture of the Nigerian state goes hand in hand with recognizing the decades long marginalization of the southern and minority ethnic nationalities in the Middle Belt. All calls for the overthrow of the Buhari regime must include demands for reparations and justice for the victims of the genocide of 1967-70.
Bringing down the Buhari regime is impossible without the total disbandment of the Fulani oligarchy that represents its foundations unless only an affidavit change is required. The only way to do this remains destroying its imperialist sanctioned dominance on the southern and minority ethnic nationalities by supporting their calls for independence, autonomy and secession.
Putting a stop to the kidnappings and massacre impresses on the revolutionary forces to go further than destroying the official wing of this oligarchy, that is, to vanquish both ISWAP&Boko Haram. The former military general Buhari already stated that an attack on Boko Haram is synonymous to attacking the northern power structures.⁶
For this cause, as much as the historic responsibility lies on the Southern masses to begin this task, it cannot be led by the southern ruling class nor their stooges at the head of the southern nationalist movements as they have sold out and continue to sell or impede the national liberation struggles of the south for the expansion of their own capital. Only on a socialist bases can the ethnic nationalities in the south be truly free because what keeps them tied to northern oppression and imperialist super-exploitation is big business in the south.
The northern workers and masses must openly support the right of self determination and secession of the southern ethnic nationalities for in so doing they weaken their own ruling class and unite with their southern brothers and sisters to fight the bourgeoisie in all nooks and crannies of Nigeria.
At any rate, the only party capable of bringing this historic task to fruition is the working class which rallies around a Revolutionary Workers’ Party of International Socialism that combines the democratic demands with the fight for a workers and poor peasant government.
Only such a party can lead the working class and poor on an independent path to fight Fulani dominance; ensure national liberation of oppressed nationalities; resist imperialist attacks and overthrow capitalism! Join the Liaison Committee of the RCIT and CS to build this party!
Footnotes
1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/31/dozens-kidnapped-from-islamic-school-in-northern-nigeria
https://punchng.com/ebonyi-herdsmen-killings-rise-to-52/
2. https://thenationonlineng.net/foreign-fulanis-have-invaded-southwest-oyo-amotekun-boss/
4. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57336571