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Friday Lines (37) With: Dr Abubakar Alkali. An Open Letter to Ms Kemi Badenoch

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  Abubakar Alkali / 1 month
• 2
• 8 min read

An Open Letter to Ms Kemi Badenoch, Leader of U.K’s Conservative Party On her Statement Depicting All People of Northern Nigeria as Boko haram. To generalise is to be an idiotWilliam Blake (English Poet Who Lived and Died in London in 1827) I will like to use this medium to congratulate Ms Kemi Badenoch on her election as the leader of U.K’s Conservative Party. I have actually been longing to congratulate Kemi since her election on 2/111/24. Although i am finding the energy to congratulate her now that I have to put up a rejoinder to a statement she made about Northern Nigeria and it’s people which I totally disagree with, I still think my congratulation is not belated. Well done Kemi and Goodluck with your new role. Ms Badenoch was reported few days ago to have said that she has nothing in common with the people of Northern Nigeria which according to her, is ‘haven for Boko haram and Islamists. In her interview with the British outlet the spectator, Ms Badenoch was quoted as saying; ‘I find it interesting that everybody defines me as being Nigerian. I identify less with the country than with the specific ethnicity Yoruba. Continuing, Kemi added ‘I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, the Boko Haram where Islamism is,” My problem is with the last line of Kemi’s statement; people of Northern Nigeria, the Boko haram. While it is completely the prerogative of Ms Badenoch to associate or dissociate herself from Nigeria or any part thereof, it is advisable to do so in such a manner that will not raise unnecessary dust and promote tension. I find it competely within Kemi’s rights to admit or deny she is a Nigerian but what sounds completely unacceptable is to insinuate that a particular section of the country is a haven of terrorism, thereby indirectly or directly labelling the people from such section of the country as terrorists. I am very concerned with Kemi’s ‘terrorists’ label on the entire people of Northern Nigeria because that is not the case. Not all Northerners are terrorists although there are some terrorists in Northern Nigeria. Yes Boko haram is a terrorist organization and a clear danger to all Nigerians -particularly the people of Northern Nigeria – and even beyond. The terrorist group operates majorly in Northern Nigeria and principally domiciled in 2 out of the 19 Northern states -Borno (the epicentre) and its neighbouring Yobe state. The renegades also stage occasional and daring terror attacks across borders into Cameroon, Chad and Niger republic and are thought to have links as far as Mali and Burkina Faso. The efforts of Nigeria’s gallant military and other security agencies has largely restricted Boko haram and their murderous intent within the Borno/Yobe axis particularly around the vast Sambisa forest in Borno state. Kemi may have made such a statement about ‘people in Northern Nigeria and Boko haram terrorists’ in error out of a clear paucity of knowledge of the people in Northern Nigeria or as a result of the frenzy to respond to Nigeria’s vice President Kashim Shettima’s remarks about her denigrating her supposed ancestral home, Nigeria. Either way, I feel Kemi’s generalisation is not true as not all people of Northern Nigeria are terrorists. Yes, it is right to say Boko haram is in Northern Nigeria but completely wrong to insinuate that ‘all the people of Northern Nigeria are Boko haram, the Islamists’ as Kemi thinks. I actually feel that Kemi should have replied VP Shettima directly instead of making a generalisation and depicting a situation which suggests that everyone in Northern Nigeria is a Boko haram. As famously stated by the great British poet William Blake, To generalise is to be an idiot. Generalisation usually leads to errors and regrets. In fact independent research has shown that most generalisations are made out of anger and frustration and end up as regrets. The people of Northern Nigeria are not Boko haram and terrorists. In fact, the people of Northern Nigeria are victims of Boko haram, bandits and terrorists. Moreso, not everyone in Northern Nigeria is Boko haram. Not everyone in Northern Nigeria is a sponsor of Boko haram. These and the fact that some members of Boko haram are thought to be non-Nigerians makes Kemi’s remarks less than complimentary. In fact, there are several cases in Northern Nigeria where the locals had to resort to self-defence against these terrorists. For more than 10 years since it’s launch, the Borno state government has equiped and maintained the civilian JTF (joint task force) to work with and provide intelligence to our gallant military and other security agencies in fighting Boko haram and violent extremism. More recently this year, 7 states in the North-west launched community protection guards (CPG) Askarawa to fight the bandits (another group of terrorists operating in Northern Nigeria) who are more into kidnapping-for-ransom than the misplaced ideological extremist fundamentalism of Boko haram. The Nigerian authorities are doing something to stop Boko haram hence several local government areas previously under the control of Boko haram have been rescued by our gallant military and other security agencies over the past 10 years and now back under government’s control. Despite her outbursts against her ancestral home Nigeria, I believe that Kemi Badenoch doesn’t hate Nigeria but hates our fantastically corrupt system where nothing works. Kemi is right to hold strong reservations against Nigeria, it is her right to hold an opinion after all. It is reassuring that Kemi at least aligns with her Yoruba ancestry although I am not sure if she bothers to hold the Nigerian passport at all. Dear Kemi, grab one of you don’t have any because you may need it someday. In fact, I agree with some of Kemi’s statements about Nigeria being something of a ‘distasteful menu’ but what I find completely unacceptable is to sectionalise her opinion and label an entire particular section of the country as terrorists and/or the root-cause