POLITICS & GOVERNANCE

Friday, 19 July 2019 23:56

222 New Fulani Settlements Across Nigeria: Why Muhammadu Buhari thinks the Almighty God – the God of Nigeria is a foolish God Featured

Written by JOHN ODEY ADUMA, PUBLISHER AND BRITISH CHEVENING SCHOLAR, UNITED KINGDOM
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PART 2

Series: Wailing and Loud Lamentation in the Land as the Original Next Level!

 

“My number one reason is that there is no reason for me not to defend Nigeria so passionately. My other answer for that love for Nigeria is that my umbilical cord was buried in Nigeria and nowhere in the world, and there is just no reason why I should not love Nigeria so very strongly until the Day of the Lord.”

 

HOW MUHAMMADU BUHARI HAS BEEN GAMBLING WITH THE DESTINY OF THE NIGERIAN NATION…A PRESIDENT NO NATION MUST EVER PRAY TO HAVE AND THE ORIGINAL VISION OF THE PASTORAL RESOLVE

In the original vision of The Pastoral Resolve (PARE), wherefrom Jihadi Muhammadu Buhari and his Islamist gang members are stealing our ideas, in our patriotic and laudable ideas in trying in our own little way and from our little corner to put an end to the unnecessary deaths arising from the clashes between the herders and the farmers, but which these agent provocateurs, saboteurs and arch Islamists have been putting in the service of Islamism, we also sought to discourage subsistence pastoralism and move the nomadic pastoralists therefrom to an economic pastoralism.

It was also our aim to bring our dream/vison of economic pastoralism – large scale livestock farming, developing that economy to international standards and international best practice, hence Mr Barberopoulos carried out extensive researches in the whole West, whenever he went on holidays, and what has now come to be regarded in Nigeria as Medical vacation in Greece, his original country of birth.

Whilst the idea of setting up a pastoralists NGO was at the incubation stage, RVB carried out extensive consultations with his friends and fellow members of the trustees of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) amongst whom were his bosom friend, Ahmed Joda, who succeeded former Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, now the President of FULBEGERIA/FULANIGERIA and the ring leader of the MIYETTI WAHALA KILLERS SQUAD as the President of the Pastoral Resolve (PARE); others he had consulted with were Mr A.P. Leventis, Phil Hall, an internationally renowned British ecologist, who is also this writer’s mentor, another bosom friend of his, Alhaji Alhaji, former Minister of Planning and Finance, Dr Mrs Mary Lar, Professor Jibril Aminu, former Education Minister, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, the pastoralists themselves and in one of our many journeys in and around the North we had stop overs at rugas, and of course, the formerly very peaceful and friendly Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), now turned into a very DEADLY-BLOODY MURDEROUS SQUAD (DBMS), with Atiku Abubakar as one of the pre-eminent financiers of MACBAN, etc, etc.

Because I had in previous writings mentioned some of the original 13 or (14?) members of the Board of Trustees of the Pastoral Resolve amongst whom were/are the late founder/financier himself, Mr Romeo V. Barberopoulos, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, Professor Jibril Aminu, Ahmed Joda, Alhaji Alhaji, etc, I would not go into details here again due to the exigency of the moment.

RVB equally embarked on a wide consultation amongst reputable international pastoralists NGOs.

And whilst in Europe, he would send me literatures of the various pastoralists NGOs to study, and ask me to come up with an authentic and distinct solutions to the nation’s pastoralists problems/conditions and experience as found out in the course of my investigations from 1992 – 2000, with the one of 1996 especially, taking me three months criss-crossing the Northern States of Nigeria. This three-month investigations round the North gulped N75, 000xx

The nation must be told the utmost truth that I personally designed the literature as contained in the little booklet known and called PARE booklet, but with inputs from my boss, Mr R.V. Barberopoulos, fondly called by all of us working with him as CHAIRMAN.

During the drafting stage, Mr RVB and I held a series of closed-door meetings to discuss the core concerns of the pastoralist nomads, including anything of national importance and magnitude.

 

In the course of such meetings, each of us would argue his points, and sometimes each of us would keep to his point unyielding – and whenever we got to this deadlock and generally speaking, whenever we got to this point, RVB would say to me: “John, I know you know more than me, let us go and sleep over the matter and meet in the house – his residence at the GRA, Ikeja.”

 

And once the name for the NGO THE PASTORAL RESOLVE was agreed upon, he said he would like to shorten it for easier pronunciation for the pastoralists, hence the acronym or short form for the NGO’s registered name became PARE.

After RVB had arrived on this he sent for me to test it on me and I pronounced the four-letter word

[pɛː] as in the word “pair” and when he sought to know why I had pronounced it like that I told him it would make for easier pronunciation for the pastoralist nomads who are largely illiterate, but his own version of how to pronounce PARE went thus: PAH-REH. His reason like mine too centred on easier pronunciation for the pastoralists and he added it was also due to the dominance of the “r” in their language.

 

He later sent for Mr Louis Achi who was working with us at the time before leaving for ThisDay, and he pronounced the acronym PARE just like RVB – PAH-REH, so the two of them beat me to it in the pronunciation contest, and I had no choice, but to raise up my hands in surrender.

 

Also, during this time, in addition to being the Southern Coordinator/Public Affairs Manager of the Pastoral Resolve (PARE), I was also, the Executive Secretary Foundry Association of Nigeria (FAN), and I represented the nation’s foundry sub-sector in virtually all the national techno-industrial associations the nation could boast of at this period, including sitting on the national steel committee alongside Mr Romeo V. Barberopoulos, President, Foundry Association of Nigeria (FAN) and Engineer Adolphus Ojobo, the Vice President of the Foundry Association of Nigeria (FAN), all the three of us representing the foundry sub-sector on the National Steel Committee; and I was at this time too a member of the National Technology Summit’s Core Committee, heading its Publicity, and the Products and Exhibition sub-committees as Chairman, with Engineer Mrs Joanna Olu Maduka as our/the National Chairperson – The National Technology Summit.

On the National Technology Summit Core Committee with us also, was General Abdulsalami Abubakar, then Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), who later became the Military Head of State of Nigeria, but he was at this time, represented by two aides of his, a senior Army and Air Force officers, who were very close to me.

Lest I forget, the Northern office of the Pastoral Resolve was in Major-General Muhammadu Buhari’s office in Kaduna, from where a fellow whose name I have now forgotten was coming to Lagos office to collect his monthly salaries and whatever message/s the founder/financier of PARE, Mr Romeo Barberopoulos had for General Buhari.

In our commitment to Nigerianism, unalloyed patriotism and unparalleled willingness to give our all to our Nigeria, making every needed sacrifice for the cause of our Nigeria, peace and justice of/in Nigeria, national integration, cohesion and unity, RVB and I were soul mates and inseparable twins.

He was a naturalised Nigerian, and I’m a Nigerian inside out, and unapologetically so.

That love for Nigeria till date, is such that up till this day, my Western friends usually ask me: “What do you see in Nigeria that you always defend her so passionately?”

My number one reason is that there is no reason for me not to defend Nigeria so passionately. My other answer for that love for Nigeria is that my umbilical cord was buried in Nigeria and nowhere in the world, and there is just no reason why I should not love Nigeria so very strongly until the Day of the Lord.

As soul mates and twin brothers for the sake of Nigeria, both RVB and I gave our all, and he as a man of means, was ever ready to deny himself everything to finance any idea I conceived about the Nigerian environment, and I must confess he was very, very generous and favourably disposed towards the pastoralists, where again, he and I shared equal degree of interest, love and enthusiasm for the pastoralist nomads.

RVB and Mr A.P. Leventis, another great mentor of mine, were ever ready to commit their resources to enable me embark on any environmental investigations in the North, and in and around Nigeria, and ably supported by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, which I reported consistently for an unbroken period of nine years.

Nigerian journalists initially were not interested in environmental reporting as they then, especially in those pioneering days considered environmental beat as very ‘dry’, meaning – no egunje, no keske, I mean no BROWN - aaah gotcha – BROWN ENVELOPE!

Whenever RVB and I wanted to have a lengthy and important discussions, we would lock ourselves in his artefact-filled office to discuss anything serious, and both his only child/son, OYE VASSILY BARBEROPOULOS, now Managing Director, Nigerian Foundries Limited and his uncle, JOHN BARBEROPOULOS would always respect our privacy at such times.

And sometimes, Oye would come to my office and say: “John, your Baba wan see you.”

Oye Vassily Barberopolous was born and bred in Nigeria and speaks pidgin English as if like me, he grew up at the Military Cantonment, Ikeja, a stone throw from Nigerian Foundries Limited, Ilupeju – and it must be said that like his father, Oye is very, very enthusiastic in developing, and helping young Nigerians financially – and he is interested in their education too.

Oye’s unspoken philosophy as I could deduce watching his relationship with young Nigerian graduates under the NFL’s Graduate Trainee Scheme was, “Every person is a potential leader” and he so ably demonstrated this philosophy of his by always picking a trainee each week as a Team Leader.

The reality of this philosophy of his dawned on me when one day, I made a stop-over for a friendly visit to the trainees in the Sales and Marketing Department and asked for their leader/manager and they told me they was no leader, adding they were all leaders.

Shocked, they began to lecture me on how the then General Manager, Mr Oye Vassily organised the section – each week a Team Leader was chosen.

I was used to the traditional method of Nigerian offices having a Manager, who in most cases, is both a bloody tyrant and demi-god like one Sheikh Rugammadu Rugahari.

And arriving in the UK, this is the prevalent style I met - shift/team leaders in most cases, are chosen on daily basis – amongst these crop of leaders being developed, permanent team leaders are appointed after having been so groomed and developed, with some of them graduating to become managers later.

The general tendency amongst Nigerian industrialists/company and business owners is to make their children/wives/concubines/wards directors, even when they don’t know anything about the operations of such companies/businesses.

But not so with RVB and his son, Oye. His father made him to do any type of work any person working at NFL was doing – and in accordance with the culture of NFL, a staff is made to know everything about every Department, so also was Oye.

But guess what Nigerians at NFL were saying whenever Oye was inside the factory doing what they regarded as “dirty work” and every goddamned task alongside his co-staff whenever he was on holidays: “Why this Baba dey suffer him son like this. E dey treat am like no be him born am.”

I first saw this type of method of making a staff to work in all departments there are in a company whilst working at Exam Success Correspondence College in Lagos as introduce by our then D.G. (Director-General and founder). I was in the Correspondence Section, but made to work in every Department – Printing, Assembly, Marketing, Reception, etc. Did we all complain? O yes!

Did this writer complain. Trust! I had already been branded a rebel, confident, very fearless and very brainy – and marked down as the ringleader of the rebels, my friend Amanze Obi included.

I complained very loud about this method of making staff to work in all the departments and units that there were, instead of keeping to their original section/unit/department.

But the DG would always say to us, me in particular: “You can teach a goat to work. Yes, you can teach a goat to work. When I passed you by and did not say: “Ku se, kuse” (Well done, well done), it is because you are working for yourself.”

And looking back again, I want to thank God for making me to pass through such a great man like Dr. Thomas Okudolo, for it was through him that I met all the great inspirational philosophers, both modern and antiquity – such inspirational greats as Normal Vincent Peale, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Russell H. Conwell, James Allen, Sidney N. Bremer and his 4-Volume inspirational books titled: SUCCESSFUL ACHIEVEMENT, which I currently have in my library in the UK and a host of others. The list of the inspirational greats is by no means exhaustive.

Sometimes, apart from being regarded by Mr and Mrs Irene Barberopoulos as their other ‘son’ and a ‘member’ of their family at their GRA residence in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria, Mrs Irene Barberopoulos would respect our privacy whenever her husband and I wanted to have a special meeting discussing about Nigeria, and when we were both incubating on the idea of The Pastoral Resolve (PARE).

But generally speaking, when she wasn’t busy attending to other pressing matters or in the kitchen cooking for the three of us to eat, she would join us and offer very brilliant and very insightful and wisdom-loaded contributions to either national, continental or global discussions, depending on what the subject matter was, including particularly, the environment, history, archaeology and anthropology, where the three of us have equal measure of interest.

It must be said here that the three of us shared a lot in common about life generally, Nigeria, Africa, the world and about serving our community, the nation and humanity to the utmost of our abilities.

As a matter of fact, it was Mrs Irene Barberopoulos who first discovered me before the husband at the Leventis Guest House, GRA in Benin City in early 1993, where together with Mr Phil Hall and my late Eco-Warrior Brother and Comrade, Oronto Douglas, we were all Guests at the time.

Mr Douglas was to later become the Special Assistant to former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on Research and Documentation and held that post until his death.

Phil Hall and I came from the former Okomu Wildlife Sanctuary, now Okomu National Park, where we slept in the forest for weeks to join the Barberopouloses at the Leventis Guest House, with Douglas joining us there later.

In fact, Mr Phil Hall and I spent our Christmas of 1992 in the womb of the Okomu Wildlife Sanctuary alongside many other international researchers from INGOs, expeditioners and students from famous Western institutions – and amongst the galaxy of the international environmentalists/activists were Professor John Oates of the Hunter College of the City University, New York, internationally famed for his works on Cercopithecus erythrogaster (White-throated monkey – Akpugo Eze in Igbo), Sclater’s monkeys (Cercopithecus sclateri), and his research into the biodiversity of the Niger Delta, jointly carried out by him and Dr Pius Anadu, an equally renowned Primatologist/Mammalogist and formerly Executive Director, the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (www.hunter.cuny.edu/communications/news/top-featured-stories/john-oates-professor-emeritus-of-anthropology-wins-primatology-lifetime-achievement-award), http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/1200343/26055348/1426694330317/PC28_Oates_Obituary_Pius_Anadu.pdf?token=dj8736fD7xCV%2FLn5qg5lPdrMB04%; Laura Robinson, a research student and a colleague of hers whose name I have now forgotten, both students at the Hunter College of the City University of New York; Phil Hall, an internationally renowned British ecologist, a host of other researchers and international environmental experts, including this writer, the only African in the midst of that galaxy of international environmentalists that had converged at the Okomu Wildlife Sanctuary in Edo State, Nigeria.

I was at this time investigating the activities of the multi-national loggers in and around the forest, the Special Report and findings which generated international outcry after it had been published in The Guardian on Sunday of January 17, 1993 entitled: LOGGING OUT THE RESERVES.

BELOW ARE MY PERSONAL EFFORTS IN TRYING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OF THE EVER-WORSENING CONDITIONS OF THE NORTHERN NIGERIAN ECOLOGY AS SHOWN IN MY SELECTED SPECIAL REPORTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE ECOLOGY OF NORTHERN NIGERIA, 1991- 1998

  • Imminence of Ecological Apocalypse The Guardian on Sunday, 29/11/1992 (This Special Investigation of mine did not only generate international outcry, but won me the Diamond Awards for Media Excellence as the Reporter of the Year, 1992);
  • The Forgotten People of the Savanna (A personal eye-witness account on the plight of the Fulani Bororos. Date of Publication as above;
  • Advancing Desertification’s Fires Raze Ecology of Northern Nigerian Communities The Guardian (Daily) 26/04/1998;
  • Herdsmen Farewell Symphony For Nigeria, The Guardian, 26/04/1998;
  • Mega Dams, Massive Irrigation Projects Threaten Traditional Agriculture in Northern Nigeria;
  • Requiem For the Drying Rivers;
  • Living on the Threshold of Disaster The Guardian on Sunday, 28/06/1992;
  • Environmental Degradation Blamed on Population Pressure The Punch 10/04/1996;
  • Fluty Songs of Nightingale The Guardian on Sunday, 24/03/1991;
  • African Crowned Cranes Face Extinction The Guardian on Sunday, 12/04/1992;
  • Rufus Owl in Hunter’s Belly The Punch 10/04/1996;
  • Swallows Chosen as Target Species for Euring Project The Punch 03/07/1996;
  • Chirping For Conservation The Independent Weekly 10/07/1993;
  • Italian Wildlife Institute Commits N.318 Million to Swallow Survey in Nigeria The Punch 13/03/1996;
  • Ringers Call for Swallow Conservation The Punch 10/07/1996;
  • Last Chimps for the Highest Bidder The Punch November 8, 1995;
  • Gashaka Chimps Live in Safe Haven The Punch May 22, 1996;
  • NCF call for a Re-appraisal of Kafin Zakin Dam Project Independent Weekly 25 April-1 May 1993;
  • Adam-Hollis Report Faults Water Resources Planning in Nigeria The Punch July 19, 1994;
  • The Challenge of Keeping Nigeria’s Wetland Wet The Punch July 12, 1994;
  • The Nigerian Environment: From Rio Onward The Punch June 5, 1996;
  • Population Growth, Commercialization Dwindle Savanna Resources The Punch December 6, 1995;
  • Save the Bororos, Save Nigeria’s livestock, an opinion article in both the Punch and The Daily Times, July 10, 2000.
  • Coal Goes up   Guardian on Sunday, September 20, 1992;
  • Dust Bowl: Desertification, A Special Report and Analysis on the ecology of the Northern States of Nigeria, published in the NCF’s Tortoise Magazine, in my capacity then as Editorial Consultant/Researcher with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, 1995;

 

INTERVIEWS WITH PROMINENT INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS ABOUT THE STATE OF THE NIGERIAN ENVIRONMENT

  • A.P. Leventis Speaks on Major Environmental Issues The Guardian on Sunday, October 18, 19992. “AP” as he is fondly called by all his admirers is a Trustee of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation. Another worthy mentor of mine, his kind advice, support and insight were very useful to all my environmental investigations in and around Nigeria;
  • NCF: The Twelve years of Conserving Nigeria’s Wildlife – An interview with Chief S.L. Edu, Founder/President of Nigeria’s premier environmental NGO, the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) at his residence on Victoria Island, The Punch, February 12, 1994.

 

  • Phil Hall: Helping Nigeria’s Wildlife The Independent Weekly 4-10 April, 1993.
  1. To be continued

 

God bless our Nigeria.

Johnny Boy

ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM.

 

** *The Voice of One crying in the Diaspora…proudly leading the NATIONALISTS UNITY MOVEMENT OF NIGERIA (NUMON).

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Odey Aduma was formerly Executive Secretary, Foundry Association of Nigeria; Southern Coordinator and the Public Affairs Manager 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; Core Committee, the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF)/Ford Foundation, Kano Eastern Bypass Roadside Tree Planting Exercise, 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 successes 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 the British Chevening Scholarship, which saw him studying International Journalism with Specialism in Environment at City, University of London in 2003-2004.

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).

He is also, involved in professional mentoring at Post Graduate level on the City, University of London’s Post Graduate Professional Mentoring Strand.

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