Iliyasu Gadu ilgad2009@gmail.com
08035355706 (Texts only)
Reflecting the sensitivity of this issue, I received a deluge of responses through my phone and email. A lot of the responses were fiery and even vituperative in some cases.
Even though the topic has been generating a lot of traffic in the public space, I was prepared for the depth of feelings expressed by the responses I got.
Quite frankly I did not know that I had opened a pandorax box of pent up emotional feelings such that I was thankful that the case under appeal now had been shifted to October this year for hearing judgement.
This has somewhat doused down the tension that had gripped Plateau state for now. In a way too, this has provided an opportunity for and against the Federal High Court ruling on the case as well as well meaning stakeholders in Plateau and beyond to engage in root and branch conflict resolution on the issue with communities in Jos North and Plateau state in general.
In the meantime I hereby present samples of the responses i received for the reading public.
There is no land on earth that the inhabitants germinated from the ground or fell from the sky; people moved around discovering lands and establishing settlements.
Plateau is not an exception. Moreso is mere created word and doesn’t repesent the indigenous communities. I refer you to the same constitution you quoted from in your write up, read the section on fundamental rights of citizens and whether it also includes indigenous rights.
Nobody, not even the Judge who passed the judgement can change citizenship rights to mean indigenous rights as you people have been supporting and i can assure you that this judgement and any subsequent ones like it can never be implemented. Let us wait for the outcome of the Court of Appeal and may be Supreme Court. I assure you the judgement is dead on arrival.
Every Nigerian citizen can live and enjoy citizenship rights but NOT indigenous rights.
08036130733
I have gone through your write up on the Jos Indigeneship and the constitution.
This Plateau problem is not new. If you could remember, as someone brought up in Jos the issue started since the late sixties and seventies during the regime of late Governor Gomwalk. We hope Justice will prevail in the end because it is against the principle of both civil and natural justice to deny people whose forebears have been living in this place since before the coming of the colonialists, the right to indigeneship to the land they have lived and toiled for over a century.
The Hausa inhabitants of Jos North have been suffering this injustice and the judgement though belated and long overdue is the right thing.
08036375358
Please permit me to add to validate and reinforce your last paragraph in your article with the aim of neutralizing the false accusation on the Muslim North of Nigeria on the other tribes.
Our family house was established by a Yoruba man from Ogbomosho after the British conquest of Sokoto in March, 1903. My family house is today 123 years old and in its 7th generation. We have been occupying executive and political offices in the state all the while including turbanning and traditional titles.
The family house is popularly known as Gidan Mamman Tori, Kofar Atiku which is a stone throw from Hubbaren Shehu Usman Da Fodio (Tomb of Shehu Usman Dan Fodio) in the heart of Sokoto town.
Our patriarch’s name was Aliyu but nicknamed Alun Yawo. By Sokoto tradition the name Aliyu is domesticated as Alu, hence the name Alun Yawo.
This a testimony to a traction to your column
08036299966
When I first saw the topic of your discourse two things came to my mind.
- You did not give us the contextual meaning of indigeneship as reference to ancestral communities. Which coomunities are ancestral to Plateau to determine who are indigenous and which of these ancestral communities that Akawu family belongs to.
- During the Emergency rule of 2004, a peace conference was organized to deal with the issue of indigenous groups. Hausa was not found to be one of the Plateau indigenous groups. The white paper is available. Wht did they not challenge the outcome of the conference or were Akawus not in Jos? Hon. Suleiman Mohammed former Chairman Jos North LGC was one of the representatives of the Hausa community.
In my humble opinion, the Judge did not define what cnstitutes indigenous communities as enshrined in the constitution. If he had it would have helped us determined the Indigenous community Fatima Akawu belonged to in Plateau state for purposes of enjoying such indigenous community’s rights.
08036137033
I honestly do not see the reason for all the fuss about the issue. The learned Judge who incidentally is from Plateau state relied on the provisions of the constitution for his judgement.
In any case this sort of thing is happening in the Southwest and in parts of the Northwest. Late General Sani Abacha was by origin a Kanuri man but all his life he was accepted as a Kano indigene. Two former Governors of Kano state, Sabo Bakin Zuwo and Ibrahim Shekarau were by origin from Nupe and Babur, Niger and Borno respectively. So many prominent Lagos state personalities including President Bola Tinubu are known to have come from other states originally.
The Akawu case has been blown out of proportion because she happens to be a Muslim. In Plateau state everything is given religious colouration. The Hausa community has been in Jos for centuries. They have been there long before Nigeria became a colony of Britain and contributed immensely to the founding and development of Jos to what it is today. But because of religion they have been consistently denied their fundamental and constitutional rights under the flimsy excuse that they are not indigenes.
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