By Lazarus Mallan Sanda
June 2024
Nation rises and falls , paving way for the rise of New Nations from its ruins .
When a Nation is built on the foundation of Religion and Manipulation , the tendencies of the acceleration of it’s fall is higher and faster especially when Superior Consciousness emerges to challenge it .
This is true of Northern Nigeria .
Dr. Umar Ardo in his piece WE ARE BETTER TOGETHER aptly described Northern Nigeria as a Nation of two components ; The Caliphate North and Non – Caliphate North .
According to Dr. Ardo ;
“The North is basically divided into two groups – the Caliphate and the Non-caliphate North. The former, which has geographical contiguity, religion and lingua franca as unifying factors, is made up of the Sokoto Caliphate and the Sultanate of Borno. And the latter, which varyingly calls itself the Middle Belt, is made up of several distinct ethnic groups and religions. The Middle Belt is thoroughly segmented with no contiguous areas, no common language and culture, and no common bond other than to assert itself independent of the former”.
He went further to assert that the Caliphate North constitute eighty percent of the population and the Middle Belt twenty percent .
What this means is that the North is a Nation largely hinged on Religious Ideology .
The logic is that when a Nation hinged it’s foundation on Religion , the tendencies of Manipulation is higher in order to rule the People .
This Nation should prepare for a Breakaway , for a Revolt because Religion has its elasticity limit when the Laws of Diminishing Returns will set in , when the Subjects no longer feel the efficacy of the Opium to gag them into obedience .
The reality is that the Caliphate North has been existing base on manipulation , like a Rat that bites it’s sleeping victim and blows the wound to sent the victim to Dreamland Elderado .
There has been a marriage of inconvenience , a disjointed unity within the Caliphate .
A Serfdom glued together by religiion .
Recent event has shown that the Caliphate North is breaking up paving way for an Ethnic Consciousness devoid of Religious tendencies .
This Ethnic Consciousness is redefining and reconfiguring the North . A Rebirth is birthing .
The Hausa Renneisance and Agitation Movement
The Hausa Tsantsa Movement as it is often referred to is a Hausa Sociocultural Group that seeks to revolt against the Sokoto Caliphate and Hegemony and to reassert it’s sociocultural values that were disrupted by the introduction of Caliphatism by Usman Dan Fodio some Two hundred years ago .
Should this be , the North will comprise of three components ; The Hausa Land , The Middle Belt And the Kanuri Land .
On the Middle Belt ,the Non Caliphate North, Dr. Umar Ardo has this say;
“And the latter, which varyingly calls itself the Middle Belt, is made up of several distinct ethnic groups and religions. The Middle Belt is thoroughly segmented with no contiguous areas, no common language and culture, and no common bond other than to assert itself independent of the former”.
According to Dr Umar , the Middle Belt People are not United because they do not have the basis for Unity .
But historical antecedents revealed that the Sokoto Caliphate , a component of the North has been the cause of the Middle Belt’s lack of Unity .
To make sure the Middle Belt remains perpetually divided , the Caliphate made sure that their Hausa Ethnic neighbours see the Middle Beltans as their Arch enemies and vice versa using religious tendencies .
The Caliphate made sure that the Middle Belt Dream of Self Identification , Self Worth and the drive in actualizing the Unity of these large strands of Ethnic Groups that have Common historical antecedents whose Unity will make them the most populous community in Nigeria remains difficult .
However like the other Movement in the Caliphate North , The Middle Belt Indigenous Alliance is a Movement that seeks to Unite the Various Ethnic groups that made up the Middle Belt .
It is a Consciousness predicated on the emancipation of a People whose history has been a history of struggles against a Hegemony that sought to enslave them multidimentionally .
The emancipation of a People to Unite to secure themselves against common Aggressors and to form the strongest Bloc in Nigeria for the Socioeconomic benefits of the people .
The North therefore is an Irony of itself , A contradiction , A rancour within .
A North that is volatile , with a vicious cycle of miseries of Hunger , Poverty , Banditry , Terrorism , Rape and Social Displacements all in an attempt by a Hegemony to subdue it into subserviency .
This subsisting North must give way to the North of everyone:s Dream .
An Indigenous People’s North , the Ethnic North .
The New North will no longer be a Nation hinged on Religious Ideology any longer because the Opium has lost its efficacy . The fusion of Ethnic groups which has been a pseudo union on manipulation of unequal relationship will come to an end .
Manipulative normenclature(s) , the AREWA ORGANIZATIONS – Arewa Elders , Arewa Youths , Arewa Consultative Forum , Arewa this , Arewa that , will cease to exist because it is a slavish invention of unequal relationship .
The basis of Unity in the New North will no longer be on Religion but on mutual coexistence base on tolerance , socioeconomic and collective Political bargains of mutual benefits .
No longer will one be judged by his or her Faith or Race again but by what he or she can produce and offer , and the morality he or she exhibits .
This is very profound , the New North will no longer breed religious extremist again because it is the Caliphate tendencies of Dividing and Ruling the North .
The New North is an end to the vicious cycle of miseries that has made the North the world Capital of anything negative .
It is birthing.
Dr. Umar Ardo contested the Governorship of Adamawa State under the Platform of the People’s Democratic Party in 2010, 2012 and 2014.
