Permit me to indulge in a quick aside and take you into a brief journey of discovery into the deep and devious mind of Lugard.
On September 8th 2015, in an essay titled ‘Lord Lugard’s Magic and Flora Shaw’s Spell’ (New Telegraph, Daily Post, Naij. com, Premium Times, Pointblanknews) I wrote the following:
“In 1916, Lord Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, the 1st Baron Lugard, the fourteenth Governor of Hong Kong and the first Governor-General of Nigeria, said the following:
“Lagos has for 20 years opposed every Governor and has fomented strife and bloodshed in the hinterland. I have spent the best part of my life in Africa; my aim has been the betterment of the natives for whom I have been ready to give my life.
But after some 29 years, and after nearly 12 years as Governor here, I am free to say that the people of Lagos and indeed the westerners are the lowest, the most seditious and disloyal, the most purely prompted by self-seeking money motives of any people I have met.”
As if that were not bad enough, two years later, on September 25th, 1918, in a letter to his colleague Walter H. Lang, Lugard wrote the following:
“The Hausa-Fulani has no ideals, no ambitions save such as sensual in character. He is a fatalist, spendthrift and a gambler. He is gravely immoral and is seriously diseased that he is a menace to any community to which he seeks to attach himself.”
Lugard didn’t stop there. In his book titled ‘The Dual Mandate’ (pg. 70) of 1926, he wrote the following:
“In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. LACKING IN SELF-CONTROL, DISCIPLINE, AND FORESIGHT.
Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewelry.
HIS THOUGHTS ARE CONCENTRATED ON THE EVENTS AND FEELINGS OF THE MOMENT, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached.
Through the ages THE AFRICAN APPEARS TO HAVE EVOLVED NO ORGANISED RELIGIOUS CREED, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural.
HE LACKS THE POWER OF ORGANISATION, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. HE LOVES THE DISPLAY OF POWER, but fails to realise its responsibility… he will work hard with a less incentive than most races.
He has the courage of the fighting animal, an instinct rather than a moral virtue… In brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy.
Perhaps the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are HIS LACK OF APPREHENSION AND HIS LACK OF ABILITY TO VISUALISE THE FUTURE.”
These were the views of the principal architect and great grandfather of our modern nation-state whose wife, Flora Shaw, gave us the name ‘Nigeria’. When translated from latin that name means “the area of darkness”.
To the both spouses we were nothing but that darkness and a convenient commercial venture which was to be milked dry for its mineral resources.
That was the mindset of the man who famously proclaimed that northern Nigeria was the “poor husband” whilst the south was the “rich wife” and that “their marriage must last forever”.
The fact that that “rich southern wife” has been held back, brutalised, traumatised, cheated, robbed, raped and sodomised over the last two hundred years by that “poor northern husband” is of no issue to evil-minded, greedy and calculating men like Lugard.
Theirs is to keep our people in perpetual bondage and to ensure that our internal colonial masters continue to destroy our destinies, smite our fortunes and blight our future.
And nothing seems to have changed. Two hundred and twelve years after Dan Fodio’s onslaught in what was to later become northern Nigeria and fifty six years after his great grandson, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the erstwhile Saurdana of Sokoto and the man that I have described as the ‘second Mahdi of Nigeria’, proclaimed that it was his intention to “dip the Koran in the Atlantic ocean” and thereby Islamise and conquer the people of the south, their descendants are attempting to do precisely the same thing under the leadership of Muhammadu Buhari.
Chief Solomon Asemota SAN captured the moment in a graphic and accurate manner in an excellent essay part of which reads as follows:
“Islamist Jihadists of the Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri Ethnic Nationalities, who are Negroid immigrants to Nigeria, are pushing the nation to an implosion. It is therefore imperative that the remaining 386 Ethnic Nationalities of Nigeria should, as a matter of priority, convene a Conference to demonstrate to the few Islamist Jihadists of the three Ethnic Nationalities the grave danger of Islamism as a system of governance.
Nigerians are reminded that the present distress in the nation is not an act of God but man-made. The brazen and audacious imposition of Islamist Jihadists into key positions in the country is not an expression of religious piety but a deliberate manipulation of religion for cultural and political domination by three Ethnic Groups.
This Agenda commenced in 1975 after the overthrow of General Gowon. The Islamist Jihadists are a violent and domineering strain of Islam rejected by mainstream Muslims”- (‘DISCRIMINATORY APPOINTMENTS AGAINST NON-MUSLIMS IN NIGERIA’, Naij. Com, Trent On Line, 10th August 2016).
Asemota has put it very well. This is the challenge that we face in Nigeria today. Buhari, who I have described as the ‘third Mahdi of Nigeria’ has perfected the script and he is executing the master plan and the not-so-hidden agenda with ruthless precision.
It is left for us to either continue to act as if all is well and continue to wallow in our ignorance, self-pity and shameful cowardice or to stand up, step up to the plate, confront the challenge, say it as it is, do what is necessary and resist it with every fibre of our being.
Those that believe in the agenda of the three Mahdi’s and that subscribe to their views are nothing short of modern-day terrorists and their intent is to kill, destroy, enslave and subjugate.
We must never succumb to them. We must resist their tyranny and oppression. We must shed the toga of political correctness and uproot them from our land.
We must remember who we are, where we came from, what we stand for and refuse to shy away from fighting for our rights.
The ‘gospel’ of Usman Dan Fodio and his legacy of blood, compulsion, death and destruction cannot be a lasting foundation for any civilised modern-nation state and we must rid ourselves of it. Such a foundation is not of God and therefore it cannot endure.
We must repent and make reparations for the oceans of innocent blood that was spilt in our nation by Usman Dan Fodio and his descendants over the last two hundred years and we must appease the affected souls.
We must pray to the Lord God of Hosts and to the God of Heaven for forgiveness for our cowardice and complicity and we must rededicate our nation to the Ancient of Days if we want to break the spell, break the curse, rid ourselves of the jinx and be free from His judgement.
Permit me to end this contribution with a word for those that have chosen to support and assist our collective oppressors and who consistently defend and rationalise their wickedness, tyranny and murderous ways.
I proclaim that the blood of all those that have been slaughtered over the last two hundred years in the name of ethnic domination, conquest and jihad shall haunt you and yours from generation to generation. The Prophet Obadiah said,
“all your allies will turn against you. They will help to chase you from your land. They will promise you peace while plotting to deceive and destroy you. Your trusted friends will set traps for you, and you won’t even know about it”-(Obadiah 1:7).
This shall be the portion of our collective enemies and those that stand with them to impose their faith, to terrorise our people, to kill our loved ones, to enslave our children, to take our land, to rubbish our heritage, to destroy our future and to bury the gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.