THE BITTER TRUTH THAT MANY NIGERIANS DO NOT WANT TO READ OR HEAR.

There is no region of Nigeria that is perpetually always on either the Sunny or the Rainy side on any issue.

We are defined not necessarily by our ethnicity but by our places on the socio-economic ladder.

Nigeria is like George Orwell’s Animal Farm where a few rulers of different animal species, (in this case ethnic groups) amass untold percentage of the society’s resources to themselves as they rule over a diminishing number of the struggling to middle and working-class and hundreds of millions of the population who live in abject poverty.

Some of the richest Nigerians from all over the country have first degree relatives who live in abject poverty.

Individual personal experiences do not always reflect the general or even the average experience of the entire population in any jurisdiction or among any specific ethnic group in Nigeria.

The socio-economic climate/ conditions in Nigeria are just like Hawaiian weather on any day of the week and any season of the year. If it’s raining on one beach all you need to do is drive two or three kilometres down the road where it might be sunny on another beach. The only problem with this analogy about the Nigerian condition is that only the wealthy have the luxury of being able to move around to avoid bad weather. The poor are stuck wherever they are even if their roofs are leaking during heavy rainfall.

The wealthy neighbourhoods in any town or city in Nigeria are often within a walking distance or a short ride from the slums. So geographically but emotionally distant and disengaged they could as well be as far apart as being on different continents.

It is interesting to observe that the victim hood syndrome which compels Nigerians to always complain about marginalization is no longer unique to our brothers and sisters from the former Eastern Nigeria. It has also afflicted other Nigerians from the West, Middle Belt and the North. The grass always looks greener from the other side of the fence!

The complaints of marginalization are often at their loudest when the President of Nigeria is not from the region of the complainers and when the ruling party has failed to earn the votes of the complainers.

Nigerians are also inclined to always find a scapegoat to blame for their real or perceived marginalization. 

The current scapegoats are the Fulani herdsmen and the Fulani in general. If one were to believe some Nigerians, one would be forgiven

to think that the Fulani are recent invaders or aliens from outside of Nigerian borders.

While no sane Nigerian would overlook or condone the menace and the unlawful actions of some Fulani herdsmen, we need to search our conscience and consider whether or not it is fair to generalize the sins of the few errant Fulani herdsmen to all of their cadre or even to their entire ethnic group.

If the complaints are not about the Fulani herdsmen they are often directed against the broader Fulani ethnic when in fact their real targets are the greedy Fulani leaders and power brokers who are just as impervious to the sufferings of the majority of their population just as they are to the basic needs of all other Nigerians they are sworn to serve.

It is quite possible that the so-called power-hungry Fulani syndrome also exists among all other Nigerian ethnic groups.

 But is Nigeria not a democracy, even it is a flawed one? Is it not possible to use our votes to remove a non-performing government?

The incessant cries for secession and for the creation of mono-ethnically 

defined nations from a multi-ethnic Nigeria is often founded on such flimsy excuses of real and perceived imaginary marginalization.

When all ethnic groups in the country are complaining about being marginalized it is difficult to separate the marginalized from the marginalizer.

Marginalization in Nigeria is real. However, it is not based on ethnicity. It is a socioeconomic marginalization of the middle and working-class by the rich and powerful. This is a phenomenon exists within and cuts across all ethnic groups in Nigeria.

The pervasive poverty in northern Nigeria is not caused by a lack of support or financial transfers from Abuja. It is a perfect textbook example of how a minority of educated political leaders have purposefully chosen, both through greed and poor policy choices to pauperize and marginalize their peoples while consigning current and future generations of their children to perpetual poverty.

When northern Nigerian political leaders pacify their citizens by offering them Sharia Law instead of investing in Western education, they are sowing the seeds of multigenerational poverty. 

How many southern Nigerians would wish to trade their places for the current conditions of the average northern Nigerians, including the Fulani?

Which other regions of Nigeria suffers the misfortune of having over 8 million children who should be in school roaming the streets and begging for alms every day of the week including Sundays?

We need to be always careful about what we wish for!