Opinion: There is darkness looming over northern Nigeria

In the news another young northern man is claiming to be the new boss of Boko Haram. Mohammed Marwana bragged that to prove he was the new don, he had promised ahead of time of the Kano bombings at Sabon Gari that claimed over a dozen innocent lives. Marwana's claim to the title of leadership over this death seeking, senseless cult comes shortly after a group of four other youth in a video, claimed they had shot and deposed of Shekau–that other mad guy–and that they including one Abu Zamira, were the new dons of Boko Haram.

I guess to prove who is the new don, these two and the 'shot' Shekau are going to compete in who can prove his ownership of murder and mayhem. The reward for being the proprietor of the death cult is very promising from our government who love to reward terror, but hate and ignore good–like the Civilian JTF heroes, who are largely abandoned and offered no amnesty.

I saw a dark cloud hovering over the north of beautiful Nigeria. And as I ruminated on how to meaningfully convey this pressing rendition, I saw two articles from fellow northerners I strongly respect. Authors and speakers who are never shy to say it as it is, both describing the same predicament.

Sheikh Gumi, known for his fearlessness and clear condemnation of terror and evil, in a Ramadan sermon, monitored and published by SaharaReporters, said:  "I am not surprised of how Nigerian Muslims are dominated and suffering; it is because of our iniquities… God has placed people who don't like us because of our atrocities and complete drifting from teachings of God. It is not about population but serving God truthfully."

Ibrahim Waziri's whose recent article, "The Northern Knot," which investigated and explained the Christian origin of the Northern Arewa insignia, was simply bewildering, in a rejoinder article published yesterday in his Kaduna Voice editorial, opposed Adamu Adamu's classification of the "Hausa-Fulani" north. Waziri said of the so-called Hausa-Fulani group: "There is no group in the real sense, but a set of confused individuals. The Hausa Fulani are in truth helpless and wandering in the most uncooperative wilderness of history. They are an object of pity and in need of most help."

It is the truth. There has been a lie. The Hausa-Fulani has lived and supported that lie and now as Gumi said, there is darkness overshadowing the land. Is the lie true? We will never know, because the silence out of the north has been taken to mean complacence. The lack of self definition from the north has made it accept the definitions from those who choose to define it. The north and Islam has allowed itself to be spectacle. While crimes in the south escape as being mere crimes, in the north, we accept them all to be labeled Hausa-Fulani and Muslim crimes.

The lie has come to life. Boko Haram terrorism is not the problem in the north; Boko Haram is a mere presentation of the underlying problem. In medical terms, we will call that a symptom of the disease. The disease is the lie that has been lived and the darkness that has engulfed the north of Nigeria. That deadly quiet 'Muslim leader,' the Sultan of Sokoto even voiced similar alarm, that there was some "plot to plunge the North." Plot by whom, if I may humbly ask?

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