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Some things never change

By Afam Nkemdiche
20 July 2016   |   3:05 am
It is seldom remembered that had the January 15, 1966 coup succeeded, its mastermind and leader, the mercurial Major Chukwuemeka Ifeajuna, was scheduled to broadcast to the world at dawn from Lagos.
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Every now and then, especially when religious issues threaten the peace of our dear country, Nigeria, l instinctively call to mind that “post-coup-broadcast that never was.”

It is seldom remembered that had the January 15, 1966 coup succeeded, its mastermind and leader, the mercurial Major Chukwuemeka Ifeajuna, was scheduled to broadcast to the world at dawn from Lagos, the justification for the coup d’etat. However, when the coup failed in Lagos, the would-be military broadcaster quickly fled to neighbouring Ghana with his original script. A Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu had to make an improvised broadcast from Kaduna.

An accomplished Nigerian journalist, Peter Enahoro, had openly admitted that the fugitive coup leader handed him the original broadcast script, but later firmly instructed him to destroy it (?). Apparently, there were more damning reasons for the putsch; the so-called “ten per centers and takers of bribes…” as suggested by Major Nzeogwu’s broadcast were certainly not the principal reason why the Majors struck. Fully seized of the decisive factor of grassroots support for their partially successful coup in the religiously-sensitive northern region, the presumed coup leader’s broadcast had discreetly omitted the more compelling, but politically volatile reason for that first military intervention in Nigerian government: The secret plan to convert Nigeria into an Islamic State. (This should provide answers to many a lingering puzzle touching upon the victims and actors of Nigeria’s watershed coup).

Of course, it is not a secret that the late premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, as the Deputy Head of Islam in Africa, had regularly received huge funds from the Middle East for the propagation of Islam on the continent. It is also not a secret either, that the illustrious descendant of that iconic eighteenth-century Islamic scholar and conqueror, Uthman dan Fodio, had openly boasted about his grand plan to conquer Southern Nigeria; following which he would dip the Quran into the Atlantic Ocean. A certain military administration did symbolically dip the Quran into the Atlantic Ocean on behalf of the late premier, by re-naming the road on the Lagos shores of the Atlantic, “Sir Ahmadu Bello Way.” Another military administration had clandestinely enlisted Nigeria a bona fide member of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC). And before that, the self-effacing Second Republic President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari had, without due consultations as enjoined by democratic procedures, made deft secret moves through one of his more powerful cabinet ministers to enlist Nigeria in selfsame global Islamic organisation.

Today, as though re-enacting President Shagari’s undemocratic act back in the Second Republic, a democratically elected president has unilaterally enlisted Nigeria as a member of the Saudi Arabia-led Anti-Terror Islamic Coalition. Again, as though taking a lead from President Muhammadu Buhari, Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, with whom Christians there domiciled are having a no-love-lost relationship, has elected to propose a bill banning religious preaching in public in the state.

The controversial governor has merely lived up to his perceived reputation. It would be recalled that Malam el-Rufai was about the only public commentator who copiously condemned the killing of the monstrous Osama Bin Ladin; he would rather that the self-confessed mass-murderer be arraigned before an International Court(!) Curiously, the supposed great defender of human dignity has barely spoken above his breath in condemnation of the alarming demonic activities of the Boko Haram Islamic terrorists.

The reason for this blatant hypocrisy is not far to seek. Only recently in Osun State, some Islamic clerics are pushing the idea of superimposing (for that is the appropriate reading of the proposal) the hijab (veil) on school uniforms. Do these religious fundamentalists need to be educated that such an imposition would shield the character of school uniforms; much in the manner the proponents of the hijab desire to “hide” the person adorning it. Proponents of the hijab seem not to have imbibed a vital lesson that has been learnt about human beings over the ages: the mind, not the body, is the personality.

Indeed, some things never change. That secret plan to convert Nigeria into an Islamic State is a heightening work-in-progress and Nigeria’s contemporary self-seeking political culture is apparently indulgent of it. Selfsame clandestine, but powerfully backed-up agenda is the one factor stunting Nigeria’s economic and democratic development. Since independence in 1960, that secret plan has constituted an assault on Nigeria’s Constitutions, which all democratically elected officials routinely swear under oath to uphold. Today in 2016, Nigerian masses have become physically and psychologically bruised by that unrelenting assault; they are now wondering whether Nigeria is still a union. The collective bad conscience of the leadership has inflicted a deep wound on the Nigerian masses. As this newspaper’s motto espouses, conscience is nurtured only by truth. Truth for Nigeria is, though some things never change, nonetheless Nigeria, as presently constituted, cannot become an Islamic State
Nkemdiche, consulting engineer, lives in Abuja.

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