BY SEGUN ADEBAYO, ABUJA – A group known as the Conference of Autochthonous Ethnic Nationalities Community Development Associations (CONAECDA) on Tuesday declared that it was opposed to the re-election of the present government, headed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
In a statement issued and signed by the National Coordinator, Dr. Zuwaqhu Kalli-Abungwon Bonat and Secretary General, Suleman Dauda Abu Sukukum, of the group cautioned against re-electing the present government that has failed to address issues of insecurity plaguing the Middle Belt northern ethnic nationalities.
Below is full statement of CONAECDA as released by the group:
GUIDELINES FOR CONAECDA MEMBER-ORGANIZATIONS, NORTHERN MINORITIES AND MIDDLE BELT ETHNIC NATIONALITIES ON THE 2019 GENERAL ELECTIONS
Nigerians will soon be going to the polls to elect leaders for the next four years. The leadership of the Conference of Autochthonous Ethnic Nationalities Community Development Associations (CONAECDA), finds it necessary to address this statement to the over 350 ethnic nationalities that constitute the member-organisations of CONAECDA across the 15 States of the Middle Belt and Northern Minority Communities. Based on our earlier resolutions and policy statements in various communiqués, press statements, publications, blogs, publications and posts on social media platforms, the CONAECDA National Council wishes to make the following statement as guidelines for conduct of members of our communities before, during and after the 2019 general elections.
THE STATE OF THE NATION AND THE STAKES OF THE NORTHERN MINORTIES
Since independence, the Northern minority nationalities and Middle Belt peoples have been struggling for emancipation, self determination and equal opportunity to fully participate in the affairs of the Nigerian state, and to reclaim our cultures, institutions and identities. CONAECDA has observed with growing apprehension that some of the gains our communities and nationalities have gained over the first fifty years have been eroded and reversed in the last four years.
CONAECDA lamented the killings of thousands of its members and
The Security Situation
1. Our communities have been subjected to extreme violence with prejudice, by Boko Haram insurgents in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Taraba. Over 80% of the displaced communities in these states are members of ethnic minorities, who have been killed, their houses and villages razed and sacked, and millions displaced and driven out of their towns, local governments and states. Our people have been subjected to horrendous attacks, massacres and genocide in Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, Southern Kaduna, Taraba, and Adamawa states, by herdsmen militias and terrorist groups. In many communities the farmlands have been laid desolate, businesses destroyed and the communities sacked. New groups announcing themselves as ISIS West Africa have made the lives of poor and innocent people horrible in Kaduna, Zamfara and Niger States.
2. As thousands of our people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been driven out and community lands occupied by herdsmen from various states within Nigeria and even from outside the country.
3. Kidnappers, cattle rustlers and armed marauders have taken over our rural areas, while armed robbers have made our highways and houses insecure in both rural and urban areas.
4. While this violence has been spreading and intensifying, the federal government that controls all security apparatuses has either ignored the violence, condoned those who justify it, or issued belated statements. The terror groups attack our communities for hours without intervention by the security forces. It took national outcries and international pressure in 2016, 2017 and 2018 before the Nigerian federal government acknowledged that there was violence in the Middle Belt and Northern Minority areas.
5. The Middle Belt people have borne the brunt of the violence in northern Nigeria, in a government headed by northerners, where all the security and paramilitary agencies have been headed by Northern Hausa Fulani Muslims since 2015. Our people have been attacked be they Christians or Muslims. Even as we go into elections, the attacks, or threats of attacks, still continue.
It is this federal government, headed by General Muhammadu Buhari, which has failed to secure the lives and properties of Nigerians, that is vigorously campaigning to be re-elected.
GOVERNANCE
1. The Nigerian state structure has been very oppressive of the Northern Minorities. Since 2014, the Northern Minorities, under the auspices of CONAECDA, have articulated their demands for restructuring of Nigeria, as the only guarantee against the violations of the rights of indigenous and minority peoples. It is indeed very sad that the present ruling party has been against restructuring of the state and governmental structures because it advances the interests of some sections of the country. The Buhari administration has categorically stated that they are against restructuring and they will not restructure the government even when Nigerians are asking for it. As we go for elections in a few weeks time, Northern minorities should not forget this very crucial issue and the stance of the ruling party over the issue of restructuring.
2. In the history of Nigeria, there has been no government that has brazenly displayed nepotism as the present government. This nepotism has been seen in the virtual takeover of all federal government agencies by members of one ethnic group, in gross violation of the federal character principle as prescribed in the Constitution and the law. This cynical and reckless display of ethnic and religious insensitivity has severely strained the tenuous fabric holding the Nigerian people together. Our ethnic nationalities are very strongly urged to bear the need for a harmonious corporate development of Nigeria in mind as they exercise their right to elect our national leaders.
3. We are supposed to be in a democracy, where the rule of law is sacrosanct. On the contrary, we have witnessed violations of the rights of Nigerians, high and low. Middle Belt and minority legislators have been threatened and humiliated; orders of law courts have been flouted by federal and state governments; the due process as defined by the laws of the land have been grossly disregarded and trampled upon. Only the cases of the high and mighty have reached the press. Many of our people have been deprived of their rights to life and their livelihoods destroyed by criminal gangs and violent groups without anywhere to turn to. The federal government that has failed to protect the lives of Nigerians, disregarded and flouted court orders, and violated the human rights of citizens is now campaigning for re-election. Since they behave with such impunity when they are seeking our votes, how will they behave when they know that they will not come back for our votes in the future? We must act wisely to avoid full-scale dictatorship after the elections.
4. There has been a systematic assault on our traditional institutions. Village Heads, District Heads, Paramount Chiefs and Emirs have been abducted, kidnapped and some murdered either in their compounds or while they are in hands of their abductors or kidnappers. Some governors, as in Kaduna State, which is the testing ground for the ruling party and government’s policies, have embarked on abrogating chiefdoms, changing boundaries even of local government areas, changing the names of chiefdoms and the titles of traditional institutions in order to obliterate the identities of our ethnic nationalities. Those who have assaulted our traditional institutions and killed our leaders, including religious leaders, have gone unpunished. This deliberate assault on the institutions of our communities will likely spread in the years to come were the perpetrators to be retained in power.
THE ECONOMY
1. While there are those who make tons of money due to their closeness to the government and those in power, businesses have been dying in the country due to the poor management of the nation’s economy. Unemployment more than tripled between 2016 and 2018. While they are speaking about revamping agriculture, the people of the Middle Belt, the food producing area of Nigeria, have been reduced to grinding poverty due to the destruction of their farmlands, destruction of crops and plantations. Armed herdsmen graze their cattle on the farms of cultivators without any fear. As the food stocks are destroyed and farmlands go uncultivated, the cost of foodstuff has tripled since 2015. The federal government under Muhammadu Buhari has made the culture of impunity to be so pervasive that herdsmen now behave like an army of occupation in the Middle Belt states.
2. The investment of government in agriculture has favoured some areas to the disadvantage of others. Most Middle Belt and Minority farmers have not benefited from the federal government’s several interventions in agriculture, and the free money being distributed by federal government functionaries during their electioneering campaigns have not reached the real farmers because such monies are not meant for investment in businesses.
3. On the contrary, the government has aggressively pursued and set out to take land in the Middle Belt to set up Grazing Reserves for their people. The federal government has tried to take over community lands in the Middle Belt for Cattle Colonies without the consent of the communities and the land owners. The Buhari government has voted huge funds to set up ranches for cattle herders. CONAECDA has repeatedly stated that while it is important to encourage the nomadic herdsmen to settle, community lands must not be taken by force, either by the government or the violent herdsmen militias. It does not appear that they are listening to the voices of the communities.
Voting for those bent on taking over our lands by force will be to the detriment of our people and communities, and the people of the Middle belt and all Northern Minorities should vote with wisdom.
SECURITY CONCERNS OVER THE ELECTIONS
It is salutary that leaders of Community Development Associations have been educating the people on the need for peaceful elections. CONAECDA joins Nigerians in urging the government, the security agencies and INEC to ensure that the elections are peaceful, free, fair and transparent. All eligible voters should insist on going out and voting. No persons, groups and organisations should impede the people from exercising their right to vote. Community leaders are urged to cooperate with the security agencies to ensure smooth elections so that the people can freely exercise their constitutional rights to vote and ensuring that the election results reflect the wishes of the people.
Towards ensuring that the people elect leaders that will stand for their interests, we urge our people:
1. To vote for people and political parties that support restructuring of Nigeria in accordance with the CONAECDA resolutions.
2. We should also vote for those who have resolved to empower and work with communities to address the security situation in Nigeria, and especially the Middle Belt.
3. That they DO NOT waste their votes on candidates who will not translate those votes into political power. In the present circumstances, our people should vote for those who stand the chance of winning the election. Those politicians who suddenly claim to be for certain regions should be treated with extreme caution.
4. We urge our people to beware of voting for those who will take our land and hand it to other people.
5. We should interact with and support politicians who will ensure that our occupied lands are returned to the rightful owners.
6. We should be wary of those who will try to provoke those who go to vote in order to cause violence or disturbance during the elections.
7. We must shun agents of the ruling party who are going about claiming that they have already won the elections whether the people vote for them or not. Why are they campaigning if our votes do not matter?
8. There should be vigilance by all communities, so that anything that is likely to disturb the elections should be promptly reported to the security agents.
9. All voters should vigorously defend their votes and polling agents of political parties should be resolute in defending the votes cast at the officially designated polling stations.
