Boko Haram and Fulani: Ghana got the fat ‘taakeaway’ from Japan

Sir: See what a lopsided and emotionally-laden national security policy cost Nigeria in Japan? Now, the Japanese, out of due consideration for the safety of lives and investment, will invest in a Toyota factory in Ghana and, as expected, Nigerians will queue up to purchase their latest status symbols to show off before their wretched masses. How did we get here? Why did Muhammadu Buhari even bother to go to Japan and have a rented crowd welcome him at Yokohama if he has not bothered to put his house in order, so to say.

Of course, that “house” is Nigeria and the expected orderliness are strong and decisive actions against Boko Haram and Fulani terrorists; But, no, this Mr. Buhari who desires to “lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next ten years” does not know that that “lifting out” actually begins by encouraging Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) in-country.

Or, is it the prevailing notion up here that FDIs, because of their stringent manpower requirements stipulating good qualifications and commitments to working hard, will mainly benefit the educated and the gritty people of Southern Nigeria that becomes so overriding for national security-policy considerations? This wrong-footed overriding national security-policy considerations are such that the military of today is feeding fat on deceptive “victories” and “anti-banditry drones?” So long the sitting government of Nigeria views Fulani kidnapping activities as “re-distribution of national wealth” and Boko Haramism as “justice-seeking activism” FDIs will continue to dry up.

But does this fact even matter to the Northern Establishment that now has a firm grip over Nigeria’s collective national wealth in the shapes of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the sovereign wealth fund, just to name a few? The last thing on the mind of a religiously-focused North is economic growth that benefits the “unbelievers.” Does this sound kind of queer and odd? No, it does not because this is Nigeria, a veritable quintessential Muslim country in the making.

Sunday Adole Jonah wrote from the Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.