Carry your cattle out of the land here,
people of the sword, AK-47
and of violence,
blood  and death.
Go away and let us have our peace.

You are strangers here,
You are not one of us,
so you are not part of this inheritance.
We know you, but you do not know us
and you cannot know us
because we are unknowable
and too complex for you
to understand us and our ways.

Your ancestors did not belong here
And their plancentae
were not buried here.
Their spirits are not in the land here;
Their graves and occult groves
cannot be found in the land here;
therefore, you are not one of us here,
nor are you a part of us here!
You cannot live in the land here with us
because our ways are not your ways.

You have been killing our people,
stealing from them, maiming and destroying them,
raping our women and disembowelling pregnant women,
to force out their infants prematurely
because as you have reckoned
we are not your people
and you are not our people.

Just as water and oil cannot mix;
just as water and petrol are never a good mix;
just as water and kerosine never do mix;
you and us can never, ever mix.

You are of the desert and from the far off East
and we are from the rainforest -
the land of the dark-skinned people -
people of the Great river, seas and the ocean,
where you do not fit and do not belong,
and here, you and your cattle cannot survive.
Therefore, go away to from where you 've come.
Go! Go, go away!
Go to where you belong and let us be.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Odey Aduma was formerly Executive Secretary, Foundry Association of Nigeria; Southern Coordinator of President Muhammadu Buhari's pastoralists NGO - THE PASTORAL RESOLVE; Chairman, Editorial Board of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc; member, National Committee for the Nigerian Youth Festival, 1993; member, Core Committee, the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF)/Ford Foundation, Kano Eastern Bypass Roadside Tree Planting Exercise, Kano State, 1997; member, core Committee of the National Technology Summit and was the Summit's chairman for two of its sub-committees - Publicity and Exhibition, 1998; member of the Administrative Panel of Inquiry set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo to investigate the illegal trade in and smuggling of endangered species of wild fauna and flora into and out of Nigeria, 2003.

He was the Chairman, Planning Committee of the General Murtala Muhammed Memorial Lecture for two consecutive years, 2001 and 2002 before it attained a Foundation status in 2002, having first been upgraded to that status in 2001. General Murtala Muhammed was one of Nigeria's former Heads of State and was killed in the abortive coup led by the then Colonel Buka Suka Dimka on February 13, 1976.

That same capacity saw Mr Aduma delivering huge succcesses during the Daily Times of Nigeria's 75th Anniversary (in which he raked in N6, 000, 000 into the coffers of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc) and also, playing a similar role in a similar capacity during Dr Isma'il Babatunde Jose's 75th Birth Day. Dr. Jose, doyen of Nigerian journalism was Mr Aduma's personal mentor. That relationship was so close and solid such that whilst Aduma was leaving the shores of Nigeria for Britain in 2003, Dr Jose gave him N10, 000.00.

In 1992, Mr Aduma's contributions to journalism was recognised with the awards of the Nigeria Media Merit Award as the Investigative Reporter of the Year and the Diamond Awards for Media Excellence as the Reporter of the Year, and also, the British Chevening Scholarship, which saw him studying International Journalism at City University of London in 2003-2004, with specialism in Environment.

Also, Mr Aduma is currently on the Professional Post Graduate Mentoring Team of the City University of London, his alma mater in England, United Kingdom.

Aduma is the author of the inspirational best-seller, THE DIAMONDS ARE HERE and the founder of Vigilance, the World's Leading Security Magazine and Scorpion News Corp, in addition to founding the Nationalists Unity Movement of Nigeria (NUMON).

God bless our Nigeria.

The Voice of One Crying from the Diaspora...

*Proudly leading the NATIONALISTS UNITY MOVEMENT OF NIGERIA (NUMON).

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