The Camp

The quagmire was not that his claim of being from Badaka State was constitutionally wrong. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria entitles anyone that has lived in a place for ten years to claim the origin of such a place. The challenge was that such individuals cannot really ever be integrated. This is how the notion of settlers as against indigenes was developed and how it festered on everyone. Several years after living the military, Badamasi had made friends at a club where he played tennis and socialized. The issue of settler-indigene, farmers-herders had become a dire security concern in Jos. Lives were being lost in their hundreds. He was surprised when one of his most educated peers argued that the Hausa settlers were the problem in Jos. He complained bitterly that these Hausa Muslims had only settled on the Plateau and where not an indigene population as such, they had no claim to political offices on the Plateau. Excuse me, that is a very touchy subject Badamasi countered. May I ask you how long ago they settled in Jos? some history said more than sixty years some even claim a hundred years long before independence he replied. And yet you feel they are settlers? Where do you tell the children to go back to as their home, if I may ask? Before he responded, Badamasi went on visibly agitated. I fall in this same category. Where or how do people like us find expression? Us that have been removed or displaced from what you now refer to as indigenous homes? I tell you, these divides were not created by chance. They are a direct consequence of citizen's dependence on state institutions as quick gateway to wealth and comfortable livelihood in a system deliberately fractured to make nonsense of individual struggle to attain the comforts of life. The political system has been mindlessly structured to gain access to government positions based mostly on an absurd system termed quota system; the quotas skewed in such a way that so much was required from a part and a lot less, by comparison to another. The argument supporting such absurdity being wanting all parts of the country to be represented at the center, the Federal Government. He stopped to catch his breath and before anyone else will break his line or argument continued. The contradiction of the quota system is, in reality, that in one breath, the government talks about indigene ship for any Nigerian who had lived in a certain part of the country for up to ten years, then in another breath, of the quota system to attaining certain government position, yet, being conscious that such indigenes will ultimately be dis-enfranchised. The lure to Federal or State government political positions are mostly not motivated by a need to serve. Can't you all see he said pain in his voice, his voice dropping as if he wanted to cry. Can't you see that these things only benefit some dodgy characters who set us against each other, causing us to fight and kill ourselves while they pillage our collective wealth. These mean fellows taking advantage of the quota system, sit in dusty, dark corners of their ghostly estates, in the middle of the night to nominate who to appoint to propagate their selfish interest at various government positions. The overall implication is that because government failed to provide the necessary environment for citizens to successfully attain their individual potentials and because the basic infrastructures to support individual aspirations are at best inadequate, citizens appeal to ethnic sensitivities to find expression to their individual pursuit. This system is designed for lazy people who hide under such guises to position themselves in governance not to add any value but to steal, kill and plunder. Some disagreed with Badamasi on his assessment, but the evidences are all over. In the military, as soon as promotion to Major General is made, governors of the States of Origin of the affected senior officers litter all the major print and electronic media with paid advertisements congratulating the beneficiaries and identifying with them as one of their own. These persons are literally accepted into the enviable class of elder statesmen and decision makers of their states of origin. Most times these cliques of advantaged Nigerians discuss their political, social or religious sentiments in their mother tongues. They trace their lineages and try to identify the nexus of their individual and collective successes. Beyond promotion, officers who feel shortchanged by the system, regardless of their ranks, run to people of influence from their states of origin to lay their grievances. People of influence like traditional leaders or members of the Senate or House of Representatives who then feel obliged to rise up to defend one of their own. “Sadly! Said Badamasi as he closed his argument, in truth, it is not so much because citizens really want to be seen as Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, or Ibibio, rather it is an economic definition that creates room for better positioning. It succeeds only in dividing us and limiting our potentials as a nation.