By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.

                  4-4-2025.

Friday the 28th of March, 2025, would remain another dark day for the North, as some young Northern Muslims hunters travelling in trucks to Kano, with their Dane guns and other local hunting equipment, when 16 among them were hacked and burnt to death by so called vigilantes in Uromi, Edo state, Southern Nigeria. 

Over the past years of the present Fourth Republic, Northerners, or those derogatorily referred to as ‘Malams’ in the Southern part of the country have become fair game, to be MURDERED with IMPUNITY (especially in the South East and the South South geo political zones) at the slightest opportunity, without any or serious action taken by the federal government and those charged with maintaining law and order. 

But in a demonstration of remorse and regret, the Edo State Governor, Senator Monday Okpebho visited his Kano State counterpart  Engineer Abba Kabir to condole with him, the people of the state and the families of the deceased, where he also promised to ‘compensate’ the families of the victims. 

It is said that some of the culprits have been arrested and detained by the federal government, leaving the whole world to watch for what punishment the government intends for them different from the usual ‘soft landing’ extended to Southerners. But ‘offending’ Northerners are always visited by the full weight of the Nigerian law. A Hausa youth who is better addressed as ‘Yellow’, was sent to jail in the Southern part of the country, for marrying a 14-year old girl who voluntarily consented to the union. But the Southern media made sure that ‘Yellow’ was sent to jail in the South despite his protestations of innocence.

Shortly after the gruesome murder of the 16, it is reported that some Southerners in Abuja were allegedly killed by the traditional and ubiquitous ‘Fulani herdsmen’. As the  issue was reported in the X page of someone from the South, and latched upon by some people from the same area, it is likely to be a case of false alarm, in order to show that the Northerners have ‘started their retaliation’ on Southerners.

If however, it was indeed a killing, it is most likely that Northerners have no hand in it, because if it was retaliatory, it should have taken place in Kano state (where most of the victims hailed from) or Katsina state or Jigawa state. But it was in none of those places. It has therefore become like a case of ‘giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it’. The recent kidnapping and murder of a Pastor in his own Church was arranged and coordinated by a keyboard player in the same Church. If the case has not been unraveled by the Police, the ubiquitous ‘Fulani herdsmen’ would have been blamed with relish and exaggeration by the Southern media for the unfortunate incident.

A similar incident happened in Taraba state, where someone called Sunday masterminded the kidnapping of his elder brother (later killed) for the payment of a ransom of N200,000 (N200k). In the process of the kidnap, Sunday’s mother and younger sister were murdered, and he still showed no guilt or regret, even though his share was said to be a mare N60,000 (N60k). If the Police had not immediately cracked open the case, Fulani herdsmen would have been blamed for the killings and kidnapping.

Now, the Uromi massacre has attracted the attention of one organisation that goes by the name of ‘Concerned Northerners’, which recently issued a statement headlined ‘One Murder Too Many’. 

In the statement signed by the sextepulate of Dr. Bugaje, Professor Usman, Naja'atu Muhammad, former Minister Dalung, Gen. A.M.Jalingo and Chief Ameh, the organisation declared that, 

“This cruel and senseless massacre is one too many and therefore raises a lot of pertinent issues with respect to the rights and privileges of northerners irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, gender or creed in Nigeria. It appears that northerners are not entitled to same rights as other Nigerians especially from the south. 

“The Edo incident is not an isolated case but is a repetition of an all familiar pattern of unleashing senseless, unprovoked violence, destruction of property and the killings of northerners at will in the southern part of the country. Since the inception of the 4th republic, we have witnessed the OPC killings in the south west, IPOB and the so called unknown gunmen in the south east and the recent Edo killings of 16 hunters in the south south in addition to the isolated destruction of goods and properties, maimings and killings of innocent northerners pursuing their legitimate interests in the south. 

“This pattern is making it abundantly clear that northerners are persona non grata in the south, while southerners are freely welcome to pursue their interests and even permanently settle in the north in peace and security unhindered. 

“Northerners have all along been restrained and placated by their elders against retaliation in the face of all these provocations. But, the situation has now reached a stage whereby our dignity and integrity as a people is being severely compromised and questioned by our people in the circumstances of our inability to defend them.

“We can no longer appeal or restrain our people to continue remaining peaceful and accommodating due to the obvious negligence of their interests or even lives all for the sake of a non existent national unity. This is the last time that the north will be pacified on any infringement on its legitimate right to freely move and pursue its interests in any part of the country without any molestations, intimidations, harassments or violence. 

“Any maltreatment of northerners will henceforth be considered as deliberate and not accidental and will make us to be indifferent as in calling our law abiding people for any restraint in whatsoever way they decide to do in defence of their lives and human dignity! 

“We unequivocally reject and will resist the continuing attempt to profile people of the north as terrorists, bandits and cattle rustlers in order to criminalise and systematically exterminate them by using the instrumentality of the law as a cover. We are therefore urging the federal government to as a matter of urgency, address the national question immediately in order to determine viability and possibility of our continued existence as a single corporate entity with equal rights and privileges as citizens of Nigeria. 

“We are aware and watching the Tinubu’s government attempt to introduce regionalism through the back door. We welcome the quest for self determination but we insist that all parts of Nigeria must come together to discuss and agree on the way forward. 

It is indeed time the larger North woke up from its self induced slumber and demands for its people their proper due in the Nigerian state, presently seen as a place where some people from another region are more important.

A  Pastor (Northerner) on his hospital bed (with drip equipments attached to both hands) urges Northern Christian not to be happy with the fate of the 16 Northern hunters in Edo state. He told his fellow Christians that as far as the Southern urchins were concerned, all Northerners are Hausa/Fulani Muslims who are better dead than alive.

But some of the leading members of the Northern Establishment should really take the blame for the situation, as most of the ordinary people from the region found themselves living in a country where they are considered second class citizens who are not qualified to exist with other Nigerians.

Because of the unfortunate attitude of these members of the North, their ordinary counterparts are often killed with impunity in another region, and the only thing they do is to appeal to the youths of the offended side ‘not to take the law into their hands’. By this, they mean NOTHING untoward should be visited on non Northerners living in the North. 

That is all right, except that the victims of the not infrequent senseless BARBARISM in the Southern region (notably South East, and South South), are commoners, not members of their exclusive class (status, if you like). Their children and wards fly to the Southern part of the country and stay in expensive houses or hotels owned by their parents or friends of their parents.

Besides, they are only concerned with advancing their own interests not the ordinary persons’s. The common people’s ‘importance’ comes only when they are required to vote for a certain candidate, or snatch a ballot box and run to a prearranged place, where the box would be stuffed to the brim with stamped ballot papers.  

But in the South, the Establishment even COMPENSATES the URCHINS who do the dastardly work of KILLING Northerners. When the Oduduwa Peoples Congress (OPC) massacred tens of Northerners in the South, their leader was COMPENSATED with a very important chieftaincy tittle of ‘the protector of the Yoruba race’.

Some ranking members of the Northern Establishment even proudly proclaim that there is no segregation between the natives and those from the Southern part of the  country, and that the two peoples live together peacefully. And that the visitors are also allowed to practice their chosen religion, and build their places of worship wherever they so choose.

This is very true in many places in the North, but the gesture is not reciprocated in the South, particularly in the aforementioned Geo political areas, where it is almost impossible for Northern Muslims to identify themselves freely, or find a free place to perform their religious obligations. A state in the area even declare that it is ‘a Christian State’, and it is never called to order. The then governor of that state, is now a very influential minister in the present government.

Unfortunately for the Northern area, many of its children, who have worked, or are still working in the government, prepare to invest in the Southern part of the country, particularly in Lagos, Ogun and Port Harcourt. The manufacturing companies in Ogun state is more than the manufacturing companies in the entire Northern region. Most of the confectionery, pharmaceutical products and chocolates sold in supermarkets, stores and markets in the North are produced in the state.

Outside of Kano state, few Northerners invest in the region, they would rather invest in the Southern part of the country, or hoard the money or bank it in the Western World, than do any of the three in the Northern region.

Moreover, things do not appear to be good at the moment  for the North under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The federal government keeps the region almost constantly in darkness, providing it, minus Abuja, an insignificant 160MW of power, while the South West geo political area gets as much as 2,200MW. And in the 2025 ‘National’ budget, the whole Northern region was allocated a scandalous sum of N19 billion for road projects, while the Southern area was allocated a mind boggling  N14.6 trillion for the same road projects. But for the protest of Senator Danjuma Goje on the floor of the Senate, the budget would have passed like that.

Last year, the president singlehandedly awarded the company of his front, Hitech Group run by Paris based Lebanese, Mr. Chagoury, the Lagos to Calabar Coastal Higway contract at N15.6 trillion ($13 billion). This was done by the president without the approval, or even the knowledge of the Nigerian Senate, and the approval is a necessary Constitutional requirement before the government could spend one naira from the treasury. The coastal road traverses seven (7) Southern Nigeria states. 

Conversely, the Abuja to Kano road project in the Northern region, which was being handled by Julius Berger Nigeria Ltd, was cancelled by the Tinubu regime on the pretext that it was over priced. It was a project being undertaken by the immediate past administration of Muhammadu Buhari, which Tinubu’s ‘boy’, Babatunde Fashola, awarded as the then Minister of works and Housing.

The Southern people have discovered that many members of the Northern Establishment (religious, political and traditional) have a price, which is mostly paid to them in gold and silver. Having ‘bought’ the right to do as they please in the country, the Southerners often take their pound of flesh on the common Northerner who ‘strays’ to their side of the country in search of legitimate means of survival. And the Establishment does nothing but to placate the Northerners until the next time some of their commoners are cold bloodedly murdered in the South again.

This is, among many reasons, why the writer of this article has on several occasions suggested for the separation of the North from the Nigerian nation, so that the South could go it alone to suit the desire of the present president, and his Southern supporters who would rather like to see no more of the North as part of the Nigerian project.

May God give us the opportunity to defend what serves His interests all the time. There are a lot of ungodly things that are happening in Nigeria at the moment, and the country needs His intervention to save the situation.

Malumfash wrote from Katsina.