From fake Arewa youths to Mozambican headhunters
If you ask most Canadians, red and white is the colour of the rainbow while the Maple leaf is its form. Anything to the contrary is skating on freezing rain in flip-flops. On July 1, Canada or a good part of it would be raising the flag in celebration of 150 years as a nation. To those spatially distanced from Ottawa, there is only one country - Canada. Not so, if you ask other Canadians. Like Theresa May’s Conservative Party, the Canadian French have had their secession nose bloodied each time they attempt to push it. However you scratch a Quebecois (e), what you find is French and the French, have been here for about 200 years.
Canada’s indigenous population is laughing at the ‘settlers’ on both sides of the Ottawa River. They have been here before the colonial marauders who claimed to have discovered the Americas. And they are vehemently raising their voices to say so, except that the cacophony of celebration drowns their voices of protest.
Whichever anniversary you choose to celebrate, on July 1, there is only one way to salute a Canadian - Happy Canada Day! Truth is, most nations in the democratic hemisphere have internal axes to grind with the government at the centre. There are those who swear that such crises in the United Kingdom subtracted the ’Great’ from Britain. If Theresa May were bloodied in weekend’s poll, part of the jab would definitely have been internal politics.
Every time the indigenous people of Canada speak, I eavesdrop; because we were properly trained that strangers must never abuse the generosity of their hosts to their faces. Canadian internal politics interests me for more reasons than one. We have lessons to learn from their loose federation. We are only 56 years old by the Lugardian calendar and some say our crisis is not far from the educational and perhaps even social disequilibrium that characterized the politics of our flag independence. By the history we have stopped teaching our children, we have cemented the lintel level of our nationality with the blood of martyrs following a 30-month civil war in which we declared no victor no vanquished.
Yes, that declaration may have become a mere horse on paper with nothing concrete to make it workable, making a part of our federation feel left behind, our marriage of convenience is better than a cantankerous divorce. We daily mull over these things when we lament the inequality of our federating units, the bias of policies and the lopsidedness of projects aimed at building the desired strong and united nation. It is no reason for any group to constantly undermine the integrity of our federation as was purportedly done last week by the so-called northern youth which issued an ultimatum to the Igbos to leave the entire north within a month.
Hope was rekindled when Governor Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai ordered law enforcement agents to fish out the miscreants and get them arrested. One hopes that it wouldn’t take a governor’s order for that to be done in future. Anything short of that would have jeopardized the peace and security of our nation further. It was equally reassuring to hear acting President Yemi Osinbajo weigh-in on the matter.
The fragile nation we have and the democracy we celebrate were bought with sweat, blood and tears. Nobody should be allowed to hide under the screen of their gadgets to compromise it further. It’s time for government to hit hard at any group from anywhere threatening the cohesiveness of this nation. It is a constitutional fact that nobody has the right to evict any tribe or nationality from any part of our nation. That fact must be established, if need be by force of law.
Headhunters & the Black race
When I first heard that India has launched the heaviest satellite yet into orbit, I thought I’d one day need to wear a helmet and keep glancing up whenever I am walking. The rate at which people are taking things above my head, anything drop at anytime. Head injuries usually come with irreparable problems.
How was I to know that I may not get to that level, no thanks to Mozambican jujumen who say they have discovered gold in baldheads. According to the news, three baldheaded Mozambicans were killed last week by ritualists who believe that using their heads would grant them not just sudden wealth but immunity from the hardship of global recession.
This is one area where we need to have the heads of jujumen (and women) examined. Life is already too fraught with danger to start adding alopecia to the number of things that could lead to sudden death. What’s wrong with us in Africa in 2017? The Mozambican authorities would need more than just issuing travel advisory to baldheads to stay out of danger - they would need to make scapegoats of those in detention to serve as deterrence. First it was albinos, now its baldheads at a time when I was beginning to check who to sue for scraping the back of my own head. This is very bad news!