Takaya: Middle Belt Region Has Not Benefitted from Nigeria’s Independence

Seriki Adinoyi in Jos

One time governorship aspirants of Adamawa State, Dr. Bala Takaya saturday said the middle-belt region has not felt the positive impact of Nigerian independence since over 50 years ago.

According to him, “for too long the autochthonous peoples of the Middle-belt have lived under the illusion that it is well for them in the independent Nigeria.” He said, “On the other hand, their dictators, who see them as mere second-class citizens, make every effort at eroding whatever is left of their political rights and fortunes as well as demeaning their human dignity almost every step of the way in Nigeria’s socio-political advancement.” He has also identified the pockets of civil disorders in the North, like the Maitatsine crisis in Kano, the Yan Awaki crisis in Gombe, the Bulumkutu ward debacles of Maiduguri, the Rigasa riots of Kaduna, the Doubeli Jimeta uprisings of Yola, and the crisis that greeted the declaration of Shari’a state in Zamfara, as what eventually gave rise to the Boko Haram.

Takaya, who was a Guest Lecturer at Late Joseph Dechi Gomwalk Inaugural Lecture organized by Plateau Trust Group in Jos, spoke on ‘Nigerian Federation of Geo-Ethnic Inequalities:

The Imperatives of JD Gomwalk’s Visionary Template for Egalitarian Nationhood.’ He challenged Nigerians and northern political leaders to take a cue from the leadership style of Gomwalk, the first Sole Administrator of the defunct Benue/Plateau State, whose rule witnessed no form of violence because he constantly consulted with his colleagues from other state thereby enabling him to lead such a rare legacy.   Takaya revealed that the current and persistent insecurity in the middle-belt was an attempt by some people to occupy and dominate the region in all aspect of life. He said, “To my mind, the salient but silent motives behind starting these relentless internecine wars in the middle-belt, though waged on the wings and machinery of Islamic region, are part of the perpetual struggle for the control of the region’s political economy aimed at dehumanization of the region’s populace.” Takaya added that Jihad in the middle-belt region, which literally means to convert other people who do not practice Islamic region, was aimed at dispossessing indigents of their inheritance. “Jihad invaders attempted to war against native middle-belters at all, it was usually undertaken as a struggle, invariably initiated through a divide-and-rule strategy,

principally aimed only at possessing the land of their host rather than to proselytize the ‘non-believers’.” Also speaking, Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, represented by the state Commissioner of Health, Kuden Kamshak, said promised that his administration will strive to meet the standard that Gomwalk set. Lalong appreciated organizers of the lecture, and called on sons and daughters of the Middle Belt to emulate the leadership style of Gomwalk.