Dr. Pogu Bitrus is the National President of the Middle Belt Forum. He is also a member of a group of eminent Nigerians called The Patriots. In this interview, he speaks on the future of Nigeria and democracy, the place of the Middle Belt in the North and other salient issues in the country. Excerpts:
There is a resurgence of kidnapping and other criminal activities in the Middle Belt. What do you think is responsible for this and how best can the government tackle it?
I am pretty sure that all these insurgency, criminal activities are perpetrated by people who don’t love this country. It started with Boko Haram and then spread to the North West and into the North Central, which is part of the Middle Belt.
When things were not running the way some people in the North wanted, I’m sorry to say this, they came up with the tempo of criminality, especially against our people.
Many of these people who carry out these attacks are not even Nigerians. Some of them are imported into this country. They don’t have cows. Someone will say, why are you saying they are Fulani? In nearly all cases, the majority of them are Fulanis. Some of them are Fulanis of foreign origin, together with our local Fulanis who have seen that such criminal activities pay.
Maybe because the sponsors find it difficult now to sponsor them, kidnapping has now become the source of sponsorship of criminality.
They kidnap people, extort money and use the money to survive and continue to kidnap. It is unfortunate that we are in this cycle, but the thing is, I do believe that our intelligence services have the capacity to know how the money moves.
People are kidnapped, ransoms are paid, and the beneficiaries should be able to be traced. That is the way to resolve it. But the unfortunate thing, as I said, is that people introduced criminality and deceived so many of the people in the bushes that they were fighting jihad, which is not true. They were just fighting to take over people’s ancestral lands, creating a false narrative that there is something called the ‘herder-farmer crisis’, which is even sold to the international community but it is untrue because farmers never organised themselves to attack others.
It is people of Fulani origin who attack innocent farmers on their farms, kill some of them, maim some and dispossess them of their lands. And, of course, Fulanis who are herders come in and occupy their lands while these people are in IDP camps.
The issue is our intelligence services. I believe some of them already have reports on who is doing whatever. Those reports should be implemented. We used to complain about a lack of political will. From what we have seen so far, this government has shown the political will to fight insurgency. Let the security forces come out fully and do their job. And we believe that if they do their jobs, everybody who is in an IDP camp or sent out of this country, like the people of Gwoza who have been in Cameroon for more than 10 years, can come back to their ancestral land.
“Let the people who want to destabilise this country stop so that we can make progress. We know things are tough. There is hunger, but let there be security in the Middle Belt so that everybody will have enough food to eat”
The recent protest over hardship in the country turned violent in the North. There are fears for the future of Nigeria and its democracy. Do you share these fears?
Of course I do. Recently, if you remember, one of the leaders in the North said we needed to revisit the amalgamation and let the components of this country go their separate ways.
The violence in the North was uncalled for because the protest was against hunger. But even people who had nothing to do with the government, like in Gombe State, went to where somebody was selling vehicles and they burned all the vehicles. What business did he have with the government? In some states, the protest was directed more at the governors than the Federal Government.
But all the same, the protest in the North took a different dimension. Maybe there were people behind it who wanted to pull the government down. Thank God their plan failed. You see, whatever it is, we have a democracy. I didn’t support Tinubu much. Many of our people didn’t support him in the election. But today, he is the president. We can replace him in 2027 if we feel he is not doing a good job. We can vote him out and get somebody else who we feel is good for Nigeria.
For now, the people who instigated those violent protests in the North should have a rethink. We are Nigerians, we want to be in this place that God has given to us, and we will guard it jealously.
Let the people who want to destabilise this country stop so that we can make progress. We know things are tough. There is hunger, but let there be security in the Middle Belt so that everybody will have enough food to eat.
Who do you think should be held responsible for the cost-of-living crisis in the country? Is it the governors or the president?
Everybody has a role to play, but the truth about it is that the government that left office for this government got us where we are today, and then the current government made mistakes in its policies.
Why do I say that? Before this government came in, the treasury was empty. We were so indebted that more than 90 percent of our revenue was going into servicing of debts. What did they do with the money? That is a question that people have tried to ask, but the answers are being suppressed for whatever reason.
Where did the money go? We have not seen any development, and yet we are so indebted. Then this government made mistakes because I believe if the president was well-guided, he wouldn’t have pronounced the removal of subsidies without putting in place safety measures.
For example, it is only recently that they discovered or understood that if the CNG policy had started, even six months into the government, we wouldn’t have felt it. He would have removed the subsidy, and there would be CNG and so many vehicles converted, especially commercial vehicles, and the ripple effects that resulted from the cost of fuel wouldn’t have been felt, and the pressure on the naira leading to more than 100 percent devaluation wouldn’t have occurred.
So, both the previous government and the current government have roles to play. But we believe that with time, this government has spent just one year and a few months in office, they will get it right.
When Nigerians have enough rollout of CNG kits and all that, and then there are CNG stations all over the country, you will have to beg somebody to even take petrol, and nobody will care about it. We will not worry ourselves about the importation of petrol; we will sell crude and get the money to develop this country.
So, the issue is, yes, each government has a role to play. But the truth remains that the government that left should be held accountable for our economic situation and the current government for missing policy opportunities that they could have used or employed to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal and eventual devaluation of the naira.
Recently, a group of eminent Nigerians called The Patriots asked the president to give the country a new constitution. What is your take on this demand?
I am a member of The Patriots and I was on the team that visited Mr. President. The issue is that a lot of the problems we are facing are because of the constitution which the military foisted on us.
After the 1963 Constitution, in 1966, the military took over and everything was brought to the centre. So, we have two things for appropriation, the concurrent and exclusive list. And the running of the government was centralised by the military.
The constitution went through various changes after the military took over and this changed everything, jettisoning what we had. Of course, today, the federating units are no longer the regions; they are the states.
But as it is, we can go back to something that works. You know, we have all been depending on oil. See what Zamfara has been raking in in terms of gold. I don’t know what that amounts to, you know, in terms of contribution to the national economy. People are just taking it and going with it. There are other areas where we have such minerals.
Today, one of the richest sources of money or resources is lithium. There is a lot of it all over the place. We have our iron ore, it is just to resuscitate at Ajaokuta and this has taken how many decades? We are still battling. So, there is no part of this country that is left without mineral resources.
Even in Borno, there are lots of gas deposits that can sustain the place and even provide a lot of revenue to other parts of the country. So, the issue is we are so dependent on oil and all this is coming to Abuja at the end of the month or beginning of the month for handouts to go around our states. This is the deceptive thing that has ruined us. If every state is the federated unit, just like the regions, there will be improvement.
I mean, expand their revenue base and then a formula is generated to contribute to the centre. Nobody is saying all states will be equal. No, even in America, not all states are equal, but that would solve our problem.
What we are saying is that changing the current constitution is just next to impossible because some states could gang up and say they want things to remain the way they are and nothing would happen in the National Assembly because they are enjoying themselves.
They can also gang up and say this one wouldn’t pass because already, through the issues of constituency delineation some places have lots of local governments while others with high populations are devoid of such machinery, and they don’t have proper representation.
So, the way to go about it is, let’s go back to the people’s constitution, the people’s democratic constitution of 1963. Take that constitution and get the 2014 confab report, which is acceptable to the majority of Nigerians. Get a constituent assembly, and then look at this with constitutional lawyers to create for us a people’s democratic constitution that will address our plurality in this country.
Countries that refuse to do such things like Czechoslovakia and Sudan, which is close to us, have disintegrated.
The people’s democratic constitution can emerge through that process. With a referendum, we would finally adopt this constitution that will come out of the constituent assembly. We have over 300 nationalities, close to 400, in this country. Every nationality is important. And we can now say, yes, we have a people’s democratic constitution which will address the problems of Nigeria.
That was why The Patriots said let the 1963 Constitution be the place—that’s where we stopped. From there, we don’t need the National Assembly that emerged from the military book or booklet that they created, which is defective and which is creating lots of our problems, which we want to address using the proper people’s democratic constitution.
Is the Middle Belt still committed to the principle of one North as espoused by the late Sardauna of Sokoto?
Even at the time the Sardauna said one North, the Middle Belt was in existence. We were not a conquered people when the British came around 1902. There was a map that showed all the areas that were independent. My small tribe of Chibok was consulted just like the big tribes. The British came in 1902 to consult my people after they left Biu.
My people, I mean, of course, responded with bows and arrows, but all the same, we were brought in, and through indirect rule—that is what has created our problem, indirect rule.
All the minorities or the nationalities of the North, other than the majority, I mean, Kanuri and the Hausa, were placed under the supervision of the northern caliphate or the Sultanate of Borno, and that’s why we find ourselves up to this day under them, being manipulated by them.
But when you know you are not what you are supposed to be, you will always complain. And we are complaining. Just look at the civil war, people of the Middle Belt extraction worked assiduously with commitment for the North, protecting the interests of the North. But as time went on, when we got to 1999 and beyond, I remember when they were saying that the ministers from the North, including even T.Y. Danjuma, who sacrificed his life for so many things for the North, was not a Northerner. What makes one a Northerner?
You have to be a Fulani, Hausa or a Kanuri Muslim. And then, you have second-class minority Muslims, and minority Christians. This attitude, which has continued to manifest, has torn the North. And then they brought in insurgents deceiving poor boys into the bushes and taking people’s ancestral lands, destroying lives and property and impoverishing people for political reasons.
The North is no longer monolithic. We are Middle-Belters. The British brought us together, and we are true Nigerians.
The North is experiencing difficult times, poverty, hunger and insecurity. What is responsible for this?
The answer is simple; the British came and discovered that our structure was similar to that of India and foisted on the country what they called, indirect rule, giving opportunities to the caliphate and the Sultanate of Borno in the North, to rule over people who were before the colonisation, independent nationalities within the Middle Belt and other areas of the North. That is one of the reasons we are not progressing.
These people who were predominately Fulani and Kanuri at the other end ensured that keeping the dominance and ruling over other parts of the country was of more importance to them than developing the country to the extent that whether it was creation of states when military leaders were in office, creation of local government, development and whatever; they always did it just to favour that domination, rather than building a North that is all inclusive and cohesive.
And because of that, over the years, people became conscious of what was happening and as people got more conscious, they continued to introduce other means of this domineering force. As long as these two groups continue to manipulate, using whatever means to dominate, rather than to develop, the North will never grow.
Now, it is falling apart. I remember in 1999, they started saying those people in the Middle Belt, who are Christians, appointed, were not Northerners, Northerners were saying that. So, that is what has destroyed the North, and as long as this manipulation continues and they depend on some archaic teachings of dominance, it is going to explode or implode as time goes on.
So the main problem is the legacy of the colonial masters; ensuring that some people dominate others through indirect rule; this brought us to where we are today.
You blame the colonial masters, but can you say the political leadership in the North has done enough to address the challenges over the years?
You see, when a mindset has been established, whoever comes into governance status or level, carries that mindset along and promotes and propagates it.
So, many people around the country have been saying, ‘let’s forget about this local government system because it is full of imbalances’. Who did it? Leaders from the North; favouring some areas where they feel they, you know, are their people and forgetting about other areas where they feel those people don’t matter, giving lopsided vantage points to people and to areas and to tribal groups that continue to dominate others. So, the caliphate thinks, yes, we still have to maintain dominance over a territory they didn’t conquer even before the British came.
That is the commonality in the Middle Belt, because there are some maps in the early part of the colonisation showing areas that neither the caliphate, nor the Sultanate of Borno, had influence over. These are the people now calling themselves Middle Belters and the issue is, the Middle Belt struggle will continue. It is part of the geographical North, but psychologically, these people are saying, no.
Do you mean that one of the reasons the North is in turmoil is because the minorities are not carried along in the scheme of things?
Of course, yes. If people are carried along, will they complain? Right from the onset, the proponents of the Middle Belt struggle, they felt, yes, we are this thing, but we are different. We have been lumped together for political purposes by the British, because the Northern, the caliphate then, didn’t have the population to be able to contest favourably with the South West and the South East. And of course, the Middle Belt had to be used to buffer the North.
But along the line, as time went on, though the Middle Belters accepted fully and served for the North, right before and after independence, the far North continued to create that segregation. And gradually, the Middle Belters, the minorities of the North, that is the non-Fulani, Kanuri minorities of the North, then said, hey! wait a minute, we have to have our own portion of the cake. It’s an uphill task, but gradually, the Middle Belt is coming up.
“Everybody has a role to play, but the truth about it is that the government that left office for this government got us where we are today, and then the current government made mistakes in its policies”
How do we end poverty, hunger, insecurity and other challenges in the North?
People are greedy. Just imagine all of the economy of this country has been on oil. Gold was discovered in Zamfara, people have been mining, landlords, the big shots have been taking this. We don’t know what that gold is making as a contribution to national development or the development of the North. They forget about developing the people, developing their communities, lifting people out of poverty because governance is not about just staying in office. That’s the unfortunate thing that is happening.
Let me just give you an example. Jonathan came in and started the Almajiri schools in the North. This man is not a Muslim, but he felt we need to address this problem. Go to these Almajiri schools today. Who is there? Are there students there to add value to the teeming youths that are being produced in numbers? So, we are our problems because people are greedy and selfish, including the ruling class.
The National Assembly, as we are talking, we are debating the reality or the truthfulness or otherwise of what they collect at the end of the month. Some senators, members of the National Assembly have come out to say, yes, this is what comes to my account every month. And then the collectivity of the leadership is saying, no, it’s not true.
So, our problem is; we have a leadership that is full of greedy people, selfish people, who only care about themselves. The problem is that we have gotten it wrong. It started with the wrong foundation. We have to get back to where we got it wrong, correct the wrongs, and then the North can be a better place.
Is it possible for the North to still have the political unity that existed in the days of Sardauna?
The North can do whatever, can achieve whatever it wants to, as long as we sit down as equal partners and project ourselves as people who can, together make it happen. But the issue of, he comes from this nationality or from that nationality is a big problem.
So it is up to those people who have been riding their high horses to come down. And, you know, it has to be through sincerity of purpose. There are some people, whatever you tell me, or they tell me, I will say, my friend, be where you are. The issue is, when you start feeling you are the one who determines what should happen, there is trouble.
All countries that remained the way we are now have fallen apart. Look at Yugoslavia, they are also having some plurality like ours. They refused to say, hey, let’s address plurality. Where are they? They have fallen apart. So many countries have fallen apart. But there are countries that addressed their plurality, like India, like Canada, today, they are still standing and they are progressing.
