Being Communiqué of The Middle-Belt Progressive Movement issued at the end of another crucial meeting at No.14a Waff Road, Kaduna, on 23rd June, 2023, Chaired by Potter L. Dabup, Deputy Inspector-General of Police (rtd)
1. The meeting resolved to reproduce the maps of Cultural Middle-Belt Region that were produced by Research Unit of the Movement.
2. The meeting rejects the State creation exercise where its ethnic groups were dismembered and merged with different states where the Hausa/Fulanis (or Kanuris) are predominant, e.g., part of Kaduna, Bauchi, Kebbi, Borno and Yobe States. These areas are now appendices of the states created. Where that was not feasible, they ensured that the State Capitals were at emirate town; e.g., Lafia in Nasarawa State. This was the forerunner of the current evil geo-political zones of today, which the meeting totally rejected. The 36 States that were progressively created by military fiat are not reasonable. The meeting resolved that they are unacceptable.
3. The cumulative effect of all these is that, States and Local Government creation were tilted in favour of the Hausa/Fulani, thereby making representative democracy a sham. Realizing the wicked forces against Middle-Belters – the institutionalized structural imbalance and iniquitous system, the ethnic nationalities of the Region are boxed into a state of psychological trauma. This is completely unacceptable.
4. Against the rules and principles of demography and population growth, the desert and arid lands of the Hausa/Fulani is allocated more number than the coastal and savanna regions of the South and the Middle-Belt in the pre-independence and subsequent census exercises. The meeting also rejected this.
5. The Middle-Belt Progressive Movement demands for a true Federal system of Government and reject the 1999 military-imposed constitution. The opening paragraph of the constitution, which says, “We the people of Nigeria,” is FRAUD because a constitution is an agreement freely entered into by a people regarding how they are to be governed. It sets out rules for the conduct of a country’s political life and sets limits of those who exercise authority and power on behalf of the people. Nowhere did we see that Nigerians sat together to give their consent freely to the constitution, and that is why the meeting called it a “Fraud.”. The meeting deplored the present geo-political zoning, which pretends that the Middle-Belt ‘does not exist.’ This is also rejected.
6. The meeting called for the immediate implementation of Recommendations of the 2014 National Conference Report, which was held in Abuja.
7. That, if the Southern ethnic nationalities of the East and the West could be merged to form the Western, South-South, and Niger Delta zones, we see no reason why the Middle-Belt should not be constituted into zones of her own, i.e., Middle-Belt West and Middle-Belt East, or Upper Middle-Belt and Lower Middle-Belt regions, as proposed in Map No.2. The North-Central zone into which the Middle-Belt is subsumed is rejected. It resolved to give what it takes to have a geo-political zone of its own name. The meeting called for the immediate Convocation of Conference of Ethnic Nationalities of Nigeria to discuss the terms of our co-existence as a Federation, if the Government fails to fully implement the 2014 National Conference recommendation Reports.
8. The Middle-Belt Region is the largest region in land mass in Nigeria, comprising of ten States and half or part of five other States. Going by 1991 Population Census figures (which in any case was disputed), the Region was about 26 million people.
9. The meeting expressed grave concern over the long-term grand plan of its marginalization by the Hausa/Fulanis. It condemned and called into question the behavior of the government for turning blind eyes, in spite of the unlawful kidnappings, killings in Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, Niger, Taraba, Zamfara and other affected areas in the country. The present administration is called to stop the escalation of crime in the country, particularly in the Middle-Belt Region.
10. That the government should take urgent steps to ensure the release of the remaining 93 Chibok girls and the then 14-year-old Leah, who were abducted by Islamist extremists from their schools. The House of Representatives in 2018 declared the atrocities of the Fulani herdsmen as “genocide.” The Human Rights and International Organisations should take the last administration to International Court of Justice.
11. That all internally-displaced ethnic groups in all parts of the country be returned to their various homes and integrate with their communities. The States and Federal Government should saddle the responsibilities of their settlements in their indigenous lands without delay. The Fulanis that were imported into the country by the past administration be expelled and asked to return to their homes in West Africa.
12. It called on the Middle-Belt youths not to be discouraged but to keep their hope alive and disregard the numerous challenges they are facing. Freedom cannot be achieved, freely, there is price to pay.
13. The meeting supports the agitations by ethnic nationalities in the country demanding for fairness and justice in governance; to give them, collaborate and cooperate in pursuit of self-determination.
14. The meeting frowned at the mounting debt of the Federation and State Governments and declared that it is overbearing, and unacceptable because it has made the country bankrupt.
15. It resolved to have more robust collaboration with Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for self-determination.
16. Both the Federal and State Governments should see to the enforcement of the Human Rights established by the constitution and International Convention.
17. The Presidential System imposed by the military is too expensive to run. The system has to stop, in order to free resources for development. Restructuring is, therefore, unavoidable. On Parliamentary system, the meeting resolved, is well suited for the country and our economic status.
18. It also observed that the past two arms of governments, the House of Representatives and the Senate, were mere rubber-stamps of the Executive. Most of their decisions and the laws they made did not mirror the public’s preferences. The two Houses turned deaf ears to public opinion. They only succeeded in looting the treasury dry.
Insightful piece