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The Middle Belt Forum (MBF) has warned against any move to merge the Middle Belters with the Fulani, Hausa and Kanuri ethnic nationalities.
This is as Nigeria faces the unresolved national question with calls for regionalism gaining momentum.
The MBF President, Dr Bitrus Pogu, stated this, adding that presently, the Middle Belt states are not opposed to regionalism but there is no way they are going to be grouped with the Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri in “One North” as it was at independence.
Pogu stated this at Ankpa in Kogi State in a paper titled “Politics in The Middle Belt, The Way Forward” at this year’s National Prayer Congress of the Kogi East Christian Elders Forum.
He said they insisted that the peoples and lands of the Middle Belt be given their own homelands in Western Middle Belt and Eastern Middle Belt which is the only way the concept of regionalism would fly with them.
The 2014 Constitutional Conference during Goodluck Jonathan administration had also recommended the creation of two geopolitical zones, Middle Belt West and Middle Belt East, but unfortunately, the Conference report, he said, was treated with supreme scorn and disdain by late President Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner.
Dr. Pogu also noted with dismay that the political geography of the Middle Belt was redefined by the British colonialists to give the Muslim Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri territorial rights for the whole Northern Nigeria.
He emphasised that the only group of Nigerians who has been subjected to a different understanding, interpretation and application of colonial ethnography and geography are the peoples of Middle Belt .
“Even in their own ancestral lands, the Christian – Muslim minorities in the Middle Belt are at best, second class citizens”, he laments.
Pogu also believes that imposition of the will of the powerful or the majority would only inflame crises and conflicts adding that the powerful can have their will or interests, enshrined in a contrived state policy or legislation, but doing so only deepens the seed of crises and conflicts.
He stated that the response of the North to rising agitation in the Middle Belt for independence from internal colonialism has been the incidence of genocide unleashed by Fulani militias euphemistically couched as herders/farmers conflict by officialdom.
Dr Pogu said Fulani militias since at least 2014 have traversed from one Middle Belt community to another in Taraba, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Niger and Kogi States unleashing blood, tears and sorrow.
On the emergence of regional groupings such as Afenifere, Ohaneze, Arewa Consultative Forum, Middle Belt Forum and PANDEV, the MBF President said their formations were direct response to national question.
He stated that the promoters of “One North, One Destiny,” came up with ACF exhibiting ignorance of the existence of a Middle Belt Forum, the natural successor to United Middle Belt Congress, UMBC formed in the First Republic.
The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF with all intents and purpose, he said, exists to advance the interest of Fulani and Kanuri Sultanate for perpetual Northern overlords.
Meanwhile, a stakeholders conference has been scheduled for December 9 to 11 by the MBF to ease out its stance over what Dr Pogu described as the “Arewa political establishment which he observed, has rather been quiet. The silence, more than anything else, tells us that, that establishment is cooking up some brew.
“Nigeria will be walking into a trap if it thinks that the North does not have an agenda which is not sharing with anyone at the moment”.
He stated that stakeholders from all the fifteen Middle Belt States would examine all the options available to them and determine which of the options best serve their interest as a people.
“After taking position at the Akwanga conference, it will be the responsibility of all Middle Belters to toe the line that would be spelt out”.
The Forum President observed that it was their inability as a people to toe the line since 2015 that opened them up to the great insecurity that they have lived in since then.
