My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 184

19

http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/seyiolu-awofeso/23rds-of-19-states-awolowov-shagari.html

In response to what they perceived as
the Obasanjo “menace”, the Caliphate
emirs met on March 28, 2005 in
Kaduna under the auspices of the
Nigerian Supreme Council of Islamic
Affairs (nscia), of which the Sultan
of Sokoto is the traditional Chairman.
At that meeting Major Mustapha
Jokolo (rtd), the then Emir of Gwandu,
traditionally the second-in-command
to the Sultan, complained bitterly that
northern Muslims had been marginalized
by President Obasanjo: complaining
that today they have no banks, and
construction companies; that their
soldiers were compulsorily retired from
the army shortly after Obasanjo came
to power; and that their children are
being denied recruitment in the army.
“We must decide what to do now…Let
our people withdraw from the confab…
Muslims are not afraid and they will
come out to say the truth.”
— (“Emir’s Jihad Threat”, Insider Weekly,
May 2, 2005, p.17.)

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

As it saw its hold on the Nigerian
military being systematically destroyed
by a vengeful obj, it had to find some
alternative weapons for returning to
power. obj was on a personal vendetta
because his Caliphate masters had
humiliated him by imprisoning him for
allegedly being party to a coup against
their man Gen. Sani Abacha, and for
torturing him in prison. A Caliphate
that had survived the challenges of
rotation, the Orkar coup and June 12,
suddenly found itself deprived of
its control of the military instrument
it had used to hold on to power for
three decades. It was not amused.
It responded to its eroding hegemony
by playing the Sharia card. So, soon
after it saw the way obj was going, it
launched the sharia movement and
installed the sharia as the constitution
in the 12 states of its Arewa bastion in
Nigeria’s Far North. This was a challenge
to the Constitution and tantamount
to opting out of the secular Federal
Republic of Nigeria. But obj, for reasons
best known to himself, declined to
enforce the constitution against them.

Why did obj do nothing when the
Arewa states violated the secular
constitution by adopting Sharia? Wasn’t
that a form of secession, by repudiating
the Constitution that is supposed
to hold Nigeria together? Wasn’t that
treason? And wasn’t it his duty as
President to uphold and enforce the
constitution? How was that action
constitutionally different from Biafra’s
exit from Nigeria? And wasn’t it his
duty to preserve “One Nigeria” in the
Sharia case — like he had helped do in
the Biafra case? Had obj taken action
in 2000 against the Sharia “secession”,
would Boko Haram have emerged in
2002? Would it have grown into the
monster it has become today?

183

Their chronic unclarity about their
Caliphate enemy, and their persistent
lack of unity would also be true in the
struggles since the June 12 crisis. June
12 officially ended in 1999, when a
harassed Caliphate made a negotiated
handover of power, through a
pre-determined election, to obj, its
Yoruba agent of proven loyalty.
It considered the handover “temporary”.
But it soon came to regret the handover.
To safeguard his presidency,