These Are The Songs Of Hausa/Fulani ‘‘Solomons’’ That Eventually Broke Nigeria By Kelechi Abonuyo

Two unequally, unimaginable things happened within the past seven days in Nigeria. They were comic and tragic. The first – the comic – was that Sister Margaret (Manggi) eventually wed her long time heartthrob, Mr Chidi Imo. It happened after much ‘‘cussing and fussing’’, at Nworiempu, Ekwe, Imo State.

She wore a customised floral bridal gown, whereas the groom wore naturally thick black eyebrows and a grimaced face, like someone who inadvertently ate shit. His face replicated a wrinkled old pumpkin. Afterwards, the couple drove away in a hired motorbike. That was the last time Nigerians laughed, in the meantime.

The second – the tragic – was the ultimate call for genocide – Rwanda style – against the Igbos, by the Hausa/Fulani. Their Kanuri cousins stood by and watched. The call was made via a song – full of iambic ‘‘definitely something meter’’ – which was purportedly broadcast by Kaduna radio. The lyrics were laced with hate on top of their wickedness.

Nigerians took a strong note of the song and those who played it over Nigeria’s licenced airwaves. The inglorious Ozubulu Catholic church incident, where innocent six o’clock worshippers were made victims of other people’s greed, can’t have masked it – the call for genocide against the Igbos, the chosen race, the people set aside. The criminals of Ozubulu couldn’t sweep under, the wicked call with their dastardly act.  Nigerians took strong note. They will never be cowed.

The northern musicians borrowed a leaf, or in fact ‘‘many leaves’’, from Simon Bikindi, who sang a song titled ‘‘The Awakening’’ or Nanga Abahutu – I hate the Hutus. It was his song that incited the Rwandan genocide of April 7 to mid-July 1994. Within 100 days, an estimated 1,000,000 Rwandans (mainly Tutsis) were dead, with about 2,000,000 persons displaced.

The northern musicians must have used their song, waxed mainly with a lady’s voice, to firm the October 01, 2017 quit notice, which directs Igbos residing in northern Nigeria to relocated willy-nilly to ‘‘their eastern Nigeria’’. That quit notice was by the now infamous northern youths.

The music is claimed to have been broadcast by Kaduna radio. If this claim is entirely correct, then here are the some details of Kaduna radio. Kaduna radio is extensive. The station broadcasts its local programme in three main languages of Hausa, Nupe and Kanuri, so it could be heard throughout the entire north and worldwide on 6090 kHz shortwave. This excludes its English programme on 4770 kHz and Karama FM on 92.1MHz, etc.

Kaduna radio, known as Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, was founded in 1962. It has the largest listenership in sub-Sahara Africa. No doubt, Kaduna radio shaped the lives and manner of Hausa/Fulanis, to the extent that transistor radios are their daily companion. They have great power to co-ordinate and to muster to a point. They can move.

At any rate, the airwaves of Kaduna radio have extensive outreach in terms of language, radio modulation (amplitude and frequency) and listenership – which includes mainly the transistor-radio-carrying Hausa/Fulani ethnic group, scattered all over the Fouta Djallon regions of West Africa. Fouta Djallon has been the stronghold of Islam since the 17th century, if you must know.

Kaduna radio played important roles shortly before the 1966 genocide against the Igbos in the north. The station played action motivating lyrics, which set murderers against the Igbos and the other peoples of southern Nigeria. The massacres, which lasted between May to peak point in September 29, 1966, saw the killing of more than 50,000 Igbos in the North by Hausa/Fulani. Another song summons them again.

In 1966, northern grievance was that Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, who was everything Hausa/Fulani – including his first name – but tribe, led a group of disgruntled officers to oust a set of corrupt politicians from power. Casualties of that putsch were mainly from the north, and it still peppers the north in spite of the genocide and other atrocities meted out to the Igbos, between 1966 and 2016 – when an Igbo woman was beheaded on allegation of blasphemy.

Comparing Kaduna radio to Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) in Rwanda is very important. RTLM broadcast from July 8 1993 to July 31, 1994, when it played significant role between April and July, 1994, for the incitement of genocide.  RTLM was widely listened to by the general population. This was a factor RTLM cashed in on to project the racist propaganda against the Tutsis and probably moderate Hutus, etc. Many schools of thought strongly believe that RTLM played crucial role in creating the atmosphere of charged racial hostility, which eventually opened the doors for genocide.

The northern youths and their musician collaborators are not entirely stupid. They must

have understudied Gen Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida’s (IBB) life successes and templates. After studying the 1978 movie ‘‘Power Play’’, a fictional account based on the book ‘‘Coup d’état’’ by Edward Luttwak, IBB combined it to lessons drawn from Gen Abdel Nasser palace coup on April 17, 1954 against Gen Mohammed Neguib. IBB became a successful coup master of sort. Nigerians saw IBB’s expertise on August 26/27, 1985.

To this end, the northern youths are deriving their inspiration and tactics from Simon Bikindi and the Rwandan radio. Their song was a summary of their communique, with which they seek to excise Igbos out of northern states, in order to confiscate their massive estates scattered all over the north.

For instance, to determine their strongest will power to do evil, a stanza of the song transcribes into, ‘‘First, I want to appeal to Almighty Allah to help me in this song not to deviate, these useless children of thieves and unemployed. Igbos in Nigeria have no sun.’’

The above determination has a wicked chorus thus:

The rest of the stanzas is a bunch of carefully articulated hate words, so inciting that Radio Rwanda’s broadcast is a mere ‘‘apprentice’’.

If Nigeria were a monolithic nation, where life and property and citizen’s rights are important, the music artists, their backup singers, their song writers/‘‘waxers’’ and the radio station managers would languish in jail till the end of their lives. The song would be banned for ever.

Afterwards, Simon Bikindi was convicted for the fact that he urged Hutu people to exterminate the Tutsis, whom they he referred to as snakes. In December 2008, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison as a lesson to people like him, wherever they exist.  But such a lesson is impossible to learn in a country, such as Nigeria, which learns nothing from history. From such a country which actually banned history studies from its school curricula.

The impression of the hate song on the minds of those northern mobs (mainly Almajiri) – who are always handy for dastardly acts – is not made less effective by the condemnation from a prominent northerner, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s condemnation, titled ‘‘Nigeria Does Not Need a Rwandan Déjà vu’’, attracted support from former Kaduna State governor, Alhaji Balarabe Musa and a few others.

Nigerians have not heard from the Hausa/Fulani newfound prince, Alhaji Nasir el-Rufai, who is the incumbent governor of Kaduna State. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had asked all Nigerians, including the northern political and religious leaders, to condemn the song in the strongest terms, even before the Ozubulu debacle unfolded to distract us, lest northerners take it as an excuse.

We will never be silenced. We will never forget.

We will never keep silence, especially as the police has gone on sabbatical on the call made for the arrest and prosecution of the northern youths, who, on June 6, 2017, gave Igbos a damning quit notice, effective as from October 1, 2017.

Again, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar implored the security agencies to ‘‘fish out and bring to trail those responsible for the song’’. Up to this moment, that appeal has been like ‘‘water poured on a rocky surface’’. It had no effect, as it didn’t penetrate one bit in the mind of the Nigerian police.

As the latest song is one of the final steps to actualise the massacre of mainly Igbo southerners living in the north, Nigerians will continue to hammer on it, until Nigeria either bends or breaks for peace.

To this statement, two things are involved. It is either Nigeria restructures or, ‘‘whatever is your guess’’ is as good as mine.

But for that Ozubulu incident, the Assassins and their Creed did us one. We will never forget.