Not a few are alarmed at the attempt to redefine Nigeria on the alter of exclusion. We must immediately discern that the scheming to declare Abubakar Atiku non-Nigerian relates more to checking the possibility of his emergence for the Nigerian Presidency in 2023, considering his strong outing in 2019, than it is about the present legal contest.
While the aim may be to politically destroy Atiku, it stabs the heart of millions of other fellow citizens in the Gongola-Adamawa region of Northern Nigeria who are equally affected.
For starters, history proves that the Atiku lineage are direct descendants of Sultan Usman Dan Fodio and his third son Sultan Atiku Abu Bakr by his second wife, Hauwa, who also gave birth to the Sokoto Caliphate’s second Sultan, Mohammed Bello.
Atiku Abu Bakr succeeded Mohammed Bello as the third Sultan and was indeed the one who moved the Caliphate headquarters from Wurno to Sokoto. He courted a special relationship with the Adamawa people which his father handed to the authority of Modibbo Adama, his ally during the Fulani Jihad.
Atiku Abu Bakr’s sons, Ahmadu Atiku and Abderahman ibn Abu Bakar, and his grandson, Muhammed Attahiru 1, also became the 5th, 11th and last Sultan of Independent Sokoto Caliphate.
Journey to Adamawa:
The jihad conquered the various states and communities of the Adamawa region which spread into what was later known as Northern and Southern Cameroon and brought them under the authority of the Sokoto Caliphate.
The charge by the Fulani jihadists to convert the conquered natives to Islam as well as the scourge of slave trade drove majority of the original inhabitants from the Northern part in the Mambilla/Upper Benue plateau to the deep Southern end in the lower Benue River basin.
The pastoralist Fulanis migrated in droves to take over the region, converting most of the farm lands for cattle grazing. Among the migrants from Sokoto to the Adamawa region were the descendants of the Atikus who gave birth to the great grand father, grand father, Atiku Abduqadir, and father of the now prominent Atiku Abubakar.
Colonization and the Cameroon Connection:
Many African traditional authorities submitted to colonization. Just like Lagos and Sokoto were brought under British rule, Germany took over the African stretch by the Kamerun (now Wouri) River, including the Northern and Southern parts which hitherto were under the authority of the Sokoto Caliphate. The Germans controlled the region until 1919 following their defeat in World War 1.
With the defeat of the Germans by the European Allies, the Kamerun region was divided by trust between Britain and France by the supervision of the League of Nations, later United Nations. While the French colonized the larger Western part of Kamerun, the British were given control of the Northern and Southern parts hitherto under the control of Sokoto Caliphate.
It must be emphasised that at no time was the area referred to as Northern Cameroon brought or given under the administration of French Cameroon or the present day Federal Republic of Cameroon. Indeed records of the British Empire confirms that both Northern and Southern Cameroon were joined to and administered as part of Nigeria Colony from 1945.
According to the record, “The British did not establish a separate administrative structure for the mandated territory but placed the two territories under the colonial administration that operated in Nigeria. Northern Cameroons was administered by the lieutenant governor of Northern Nigeria; Southern Cameroons was under the supervision of the lieutenant governor of the southern provinces” (of Nigeria).
This account is also confirmed by the records of the US Department of State:
“During the late 1770s and early 1800s, the Fulani – a pastoral Islamic people of the western Sahel – conquered most of what is now Northern Cameroon, subjugating or displacing its largely non-Muslim inhabitants.
“After World War 1, this colony was partitioned between Britain and France under a June 28, 1919, League of Nations mandate. France gained the larger geographical share, transferred outlying regions to neighboring French colonies, and ruled the rest from Yaounde. Britain’s territory – a strip bordering Nigeria from the sea to Lake Chad, with an equal population – WAS RULED FROM LAGOS.” (Emphasis mine)
It was for this reason that one of Nigeria’s founding political party presided by Herbert Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe was named “National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons,” in recognition that the authority of Nigeria covered both Northern and Southern Cameroons. So, even before independence, Northern Cameroon had been part of the political process in Nigeria.
It must be cleared that in the build up to independence, the issue at the Plesbicite of Northern and Southern Cameroons was not whether they would want to JOIN Nigeria but whether they would want to REMAIN in Nigeria. Nigeria got independence in 1960 and in 1961, Northern Cameroon affirmed they want to REMAIN in Nigeria while Southern Cameroon opted to join the Federal Republic of Cameroon.
Drawing from that, a 13th province known as Sardauna Province was declared. The naming as Sarduana Province was in recognition of the fact that the zone was part of Sokoto Caliphate before the colonization by Germany and entrustment to Britain.
Arising from that, the NCNC changed its name from “National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons” to “National Council of NIGERIAN CITIZENS,” recognising that the people of the region are full fledged nationals of Nigeria.
Following from that, on February 3, 1976, Nigeria created Gongola State combining Adamawa, Sardauna Provinces together with the Wukari Division of the then Benue-Plateau State. For easier administration still, Gongola was further split into Adamawa and Taraba States on 27th August 1991.
While the foregoing confirms the lineage of Atiku Abubakar from Usman Dan Fodio and the status of Northern Cameroon as a traditional and bonafide part of Nigeria, it must also be stated that Jada, Atiku’s birth place always was part of Adamawa and was never part of the stretch referred to as Northern Cameroon.
It is for this reason that Atiku Abubakar as others from the region have been prominently part of Nigerian society and politics. He was born and bred in Nigeria, attended primary school in Jada, Adamawa, proceeded to Adamawa Provincial Secondary, then to the Nigeria Police College, Kaduna, then School of Hygiene, Kano, where he was appointed Interim Students Union President, then Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, even on the scholarship of the Northern Regional Government, for a Diploma in Law.
Matters Arising:
In conclusion, the following questions therefore arise:
1. If Atiku was not recognized as a citizen, how could the Northern Region Government have awarded him a scholarship? Were they training manpower for Cameroon?
2. How was he admitted into the Nigeria Police College, if he was not a citizen?
3. Why did we admit him into the Customs Service and allowed him to ascend the height he did, minding the strategic position of the customs to national economy and security?
4. Was Shehu Musa Yaradua, former Nigeria number two man, as stupid or irresponsible not to have been aware of Atiku’s Northern Cameroonian status when he brought him into politics through the People’s Front?
5. Was the Northern Region crazy when they voted Atiku to represent one of their constituencies at the Constituent Assembly of 1989, when they were in a better position to know whether he is a Cameroonian?
6. Was Northern Nigeria ignorant when Atiku came out to contest the Governorship election in defunct Gongola State in 1990?
7. Were our top leaders in the defunct Social Democratic Party stupid to have allowed Atiku to enter the Presidential Primary that threw up MKO Abiola in 1992?
8. Was the Nigerian Government stupid to have allowed Atiku to contest the Governorship of Adamawa State which he won in 1998?
9. Did we not know about Northern Cameroon when he was called to be Vice President under Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999?
10. Why did the Action Congress controlled by Tinubu present Atiku as their presidential candidate for the 2007 election if they know he was not Nigerian?
11. Were the Northern elders led by Adamu Ciroma stupid and irresponsible when they nominated Atiku as their candidate in the PDP primaries ahead of the 2011 election?
12. Didn’t the APC also controlled by Tinubu and Buhari know these things when the party cleared Atiku to contest in the APC primaries ahead of the 2015 elections? Why did they not show responsibility to safeguard the nation while he was with them?
Finally, I advice that we instill some limits and decency to politics. The level at which are going can only lead to anarchy and total destruction of all the sacred fabrics that hold us.
I rest my case…
Fred Edoreh
Sent from my iPad
