By Abdullah Dan’azumi Mohammed Golkos
There is no location anywhere that is neither bound by Geography nor defined by it. Likewise, there is no individual anywhere whose location cannot be precisely described through geographical position systems using the latitude and the longitude zones which in turn govern space and time.
Like location to Geography, so also are numbers as qualifying and quantifying objects to groups or objects.
While the former is definitive of space intertwined with time, the latter is a subjective term based on prevailing circumstances which, unlike Geography, are subject to changes in which the minority elsewhere, somewhere and sometimes, becomes the majority, and vice versa.
But in between them, like racism and other antisocial ideologies and philosophies, there is no qualifying moral factor which bestows on either Geograhy or Mathematics any superiority in the interpretation of political and historical development.
Every society develops in reaction and response to both internal and external contradictions, bearing in mind that the state evolves first from the family and the clan before…
No where has the minority question been subjected to political interpretation than in central Nigeria.
The term minority has now been politicised to refer to all ethnic groups except the Hausa/Fulani domiciled in the defunct Sokoto Caliphate and Kanuri groups both within and outside central Nigeria, and who based their claims on being acephalous societies in pre-colonial Nigeria with loose claims to a defunct Kwararraffa Empire –an empire which is a subject of contention among historians.
But history will indicate that while centralised societies were reactions to developments necessitating a strong leadership to confront existing challenges, the existence of acephalous societies simply serves as transitional stages where internal and external contradictions which would have necessitated a strong leadership, were not yet in existence.
The acephalous societies of Nigeria were mostly products of arrested development.
To therefore view being an acephalous community at certain stage in history as a superior factor to others is not only funny, but to consider history as being dormant, forgetting the fact that despite the boisterous claim of the sense of superiority, the same communities have erected the same symbols of centralisation as reflected in the existence of traditional rulers as symbols of ethnic representation.
Infact, creating more is now being seen as development. But is it?
The political definition of the term “minority” in central Nigeria has given rise to associations whose membership and leadership are predominantly Christian, giving it an ethno-religious colouration.
The question then is: what happens to people who are ethnically minorities and religiously Muslims? Are they disqualified by virtue of the religion they profess? What happens to Christians within that region who are ethnically Hausa or Fulani? Are they inclusive because they are Christians?
The interpretation of Geography and Mathematics along ethno-religious line in central Nigeria is not only a mockery but a retrogressive development.
Have religion and ethnicity now become the determining factor of being a progressive or otherwise?
We condemn those who addressed themselves as either majority or minority and associate themselves with positive values to the exclusion of others based on ethno-religious considerations.
Virtue, moral values and justice have never been an exclusive value of any ethnic group or religion, talk less of a region.
I am ethnically a minority and I profess Islam. I neither consider myself inferior to those who claim superiority based on numerical strength nor do I reject my minority ethnic brother because of what religion he professed.
I affirm my ethnicity but at the same time look positively upon my Muslim brothers. Progress is neither defined by ethnicity nor faith.
As a Muslim, I refuse to be manipulated and pitched against my ethnic minority Christian brothers. Likewise as an ethnic minority, I refused to be manipulated and pitched against my Musim brothers.
As a group, people are free to associate based on the Constitutional provisions of the freedom of association, but to promote the membership of an association based on ethno-religious grounds is to assume too much.
As a minority, we reject the interpretation of our political interest along ethno-religious considerations and strongly believe that the Nigerian society comprises of only two contradictory classes: the oppressed and the oppressor.
And in between the two, there is no neutrality. As Franz Fanon said, “You are either a traitor or a coward.”
*Golkos is an accomplished journalist, politician and public affairs analyst.
