As ACF amplify the war drums.

When a few months ago the northern governors threatened in an infantile stupor to “break up” Nigeria, many people called off their bluff even though it was the right thing to do! Right now breaking up Nigeria is on everyone’s mind! After that shameful threat lacking in adult decency and political decorum, Buhari took it upon himself to ramp up another bombastic threat to bomb the #Avengers “out of existence”! In making his threat to stick, Buhari described his move thus: “I’ll so deal with the #Avengers more than Boko Haram, they will regret they ever existed”! So far, the pesky guerilla fighters have called off his bluff. Somehow, Buhari realizes at his age, he cannot go to the Hague and die like former warlord Charles Taylor of Liberia.
After the northern governors and Buhari did their part, it was now the turn of the Arewa Consultative Forum. Only recently, one Ango Abdulahi, a known registered geriatric rascal in the forum issued another threat, that if the #Avengers don’t stop the destruction of oil pipelines, the nation will be visited with another civil war. Unfortunately, the geriatric rascal doesn’t think the murauding Fulani herdsmen who are rated as the fourth largest terrorist group and whose atrocities and crimes against humanity has been acknowledged by the UN is imminent and present danger to the corporate existence of Nigeria. Anyway, in the consultative forum where most are geriatric rascals, they cannot be drafted to fight a war, so they are at liberty to talk war.
Then last week, it was governor Tambuwal of Sokoto state issuing a veiled threat for southern governors and political leaders to support the grazing reserves bill. In over a short period of time, the north has upped the ante of war games with every manufactured opportunity, believing that the conquered territories would capitulate like in previous occasions. For most political leaders in the north, Biafra captures a nostalgic experience and they can hardly wait to repeat the novelty. That belief is predicated in the understanding that the army will be used to actualize their political ambitions whenever it’s ordered to do so.
However, these warmongers in the north must not have factored in the variables. Biafra was fought more than four decades ago. Remember the Faulklands war in which Argentina left Britain with a bruised ego? Remember how Paul Kagame’s forces routed their opponents and the Hutus eventually saw hell fire? The rest is now for the history books. Rwanda is now a force to be reckoned with in that part of Africa. It is unfortunate that the Ango Abdulahis in the Arewa Consultative Forum are still stuck in a time capsule where past glory continues to massage their bloated egos and warped sense of self.
For one, the recent blitzkrieg operation by the army in the Niger Delta, and the subsequent invasion of Oporoza in Gbaramatu Kingdom has only emboldened the region to stand up to the self proclaimed giant of war games. And let the north know that this impending civil war won’t be like Biafra when the Niger Delta fought on the side of the federal government. 
At the moment, the army itself has never been more fractionalized than it is now. If the recent retirement of southern generals and senior army officers is anything to go by, the idea that the military is poised to win a guerilla warfare in the Niger Delta should be given a rethink. The army is not going to win a war of attrition with the #Avengers without the complete destruction of the precious oil and gas industry. Where does that leave the Arewa Consultative Forum and their equally precious oil blocks? Gone with the wind!
The threat of war games, the beating louder of war drums won’t solve any of the current socio-economic and political problems of Nigeria. Our problems are for the most part ethno-religion driven and only an holistic restructuring of Nigeria can prevent the next civil war. Only religious bigots fail to see the Fulani herdsmen as imminent and present danger, and a catastrophe waiting to happen. Only the reprobate warmonger will fail to see that the impending civil war will never come out looking like Biafra. That it will not be another novelty, another nostalgia reminding the feudal lords of past glory.
            __________ Ebi B Asain