Mark It with a Red X and Return to Sender
Basking in the effusive praise he received from Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, who inadvertently revealed that presidential interest is the major obstacle to free and fair elections in Nigeria, President Buhari wasted no time in pushing his favorite pastime agenda.
It is an open secret that the annexation of indigenous ancestral lands for the resettlement of Nigerian and non-Nigerian Fulani is the cornerstone policy initiative of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency.
Provided this objective is realized, President Buhari does not give a hoot if all Nigerians slip below the poverty threshold. Even if the Nigerian Naira exchanges at a rate of 1000 to the dollar, he will not care. If all Nigerians are slaughtered by Fulani and Boko Haram terrorists, he would remain unconcerned.
Never has a Nigerian President been so obsessed with seizing and nationalizing indigenous lands for the benefit of his own ethnicity. Never has a Nigerian President been so parochial, insular and nepotistic in official conduct like Muhammadu Buhari.
Nigerians probably deserve to be enslaved if in spite of all his parochial and nepotistic failings they allow Buhari to get away with his Water Resources bill which seeks to nationalize waterways and watercourses in Nigeria including all resources found within, below, and adjacent to them.
Given the expansionist behavior of Buhari’s Fulani kinsmen who rank as one of the smaller ethnic minorities in Nigeria but who account for a predominant number of State Governors, the true intention belying Buhari’s and the Fulani obsession with land annexation is an open secret.
The Fulani who were nomadic, non-indigenous settlers in Nigeria, carry themselves about as the owners of Nigeria to the amazement if not amusement of indigenous Nigerians. Perpetually obsessed with violent, ‘jihadic’ conquest, many Fulani live with an 18th century mindset of might is right.
On the one hand they seize and grasp the rewards of Nigerian nationhood to the exclusion of non-Fulani Nigerians.
On the other hand they refuse to submit themselves to the explicit demands of nationhood on citizens particularly as it relates to the rule of law, sanctity of human lives, inalienability of property rights including ancestral property rights without consent, recourse to the law for the resolution of conflicts and many others.
To put it very simply and directly, the expansionist Fulani led by President Muhammadu Buhari are unpatriotic Nigerians who owe their allegiance not to Nigeria as an entity but to their Fulani ethnicity as an obligation.
They observe Nigerian laws only when it suits them and pursue their ethnic obsession with violent territorial conquest and feudal expansionism every other time.
They subjugate and subvert every Nigerian institution under their command and control to exclusively serve Fulani interests. They unabashedly practice nepotism at the expense of merit whenever they find themselves in positions of authority, without giving any thought to the damage they are doing to the nation.
But the Fulani have to man up and face the realities of life as citizens of a multi-ethnic country. If they must live by conquest, they should try their luck at conquering science, the arts, technology, industry, commerce, sports etc., as other Nigerians do.
For Nigerians here is a golden opportunity to teach Fulani expansionists an abiding lesson. Teach them that ever before Nigeria was poorly fabricated by the British as an unworkable contraption, we the people of Nigeria existed.
Can you imagine it? A hatemongering, Buhari Administration has the gumption to tell the people of Nigeria that there is no going back on the expansionist-driven water resources nationalization Bill.
Recall that Muhammadu Buhari's worthless administration drove Nigeria into penury, bloated our national debts profile, filled almost all political positions with Fulani or Northern Muslims, and refused to implement the agreements reached at the last National Conference convoked by President Jonathan.
Yet they have the temerity to tell us that there is no going back on a policy designed to alienate indigenous peoples from their God-given resources in favor of Sahelian Fulani terrorists, bandits and invaders. This is nonsense.
General Sani Abacha's supporters once said there was no going back on his plans to transmute from a Military to a Civilian Dictator. But when the time came, without a choice, General Abacha went back to render account to his Creator.
I know for sure that Nigerians don't like people dictating to them. More so when the dictators are acknowledged failures, nepotistic people and possible enablers of terrorism.
For Nigerians, now is the time to mandate your representatives in the National Assembly anew to throw out the Buhari Administration’s worthless Water Bill over which the indigenous people of Nigeria have no input.
Nigerians have a generational and historical duty to send expansionists back to their homesteads empty-handed, without other peoples’ ancestral lands or water resources. The billions their surrogates have amassed for their Fulani kinsmen to the detriment, penury and cost to others should suffice for them.
Enough is enough. Nigerians should reject that enslaving, retrogressive, water bill. For sure they will tell you that there are so many benefits associated with the bill. But remember that Satan never tempts people with ugly things. From the outside, Satan's gifts always appear glorious, beautiful and beneficial. Hidden inside them however is unimaginable ugliness and destruction.
It is said that the morning showeth the day. Since 2015, Buhari's reign of nepotism and hatred has shown nothing but evil intentions. Have Nigerians forgotten so soon how so many were deceived into believing Buhari’s 'Change-2015' and 'Next-Level-2019' electioneering slogans?
What has changed for the better in Nigeria since Buhari assumed power in 2015? Ask yourself as a Nigerian. Are you better-of today than you were back in 2015? Is your current level of life any better than the level you were at in 2019?
If not, are you not being daft to believe this will be any different given Buhari’s vindictively vicious track record? Now is a glorious opportunity to defeat expansionism and teach Mr. President the lesson that he cannot fool the people forever.
Just as the people of Edo State defeated Godfatherism, Nigerians should defeat expansionism decisively. This is the moment. Mobilize family, friends, colleagues, kinsmen and kinswomen to say no to Buhari's Water Bill.
This Water Bill is the master-key the expansionist Fulani will use to become Godfathers in perpetuity except the descendants of current day Nigerians manage to stage a bloody revolt sometime in the distant future.
Nigerians, why bequeath to your children’s children such an onerous burden just because you are too lazy to act decisively now before the evil plot takes root?
Act now and tell your representatives at the National Assembly that you vehemently and emphatically reject Buhari's Water Bill. If there are good benefits within it, let individual State Governments implement them as they deem fit.
We know that their hypocritical anti-corruption grandstanding notwithstanding, this Administration may be mobilizing right now to bribe the elected representatives of the people with millions of dollars to pass the wretched water bill.
We know for a certainty that when Nigerian Governments say there is no going back on an odious policy, they are using a short-hand code for conveying the message that they are ready to buy their way through fraudulently.
So, it is up to Nigerians to pile the pressure on their representatives to reject all under the table inducements to pass the wretched Water Bill. Therefore enjoin your representatives, using red ink, to mark Buhari’s Water Bill with an X and return it untreated back to sender.
Anthony Chuka Konwea, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, MNSE, FNIStructE, MNICE.