Correcting the False Middle Belt Narrative over the NWDC Board Nominees

Abdullahi Usman

I just came across an interesting Press Statement signed by one Luka Binniyat, the Middle Belt Forum’s Kaduna State Chapter Chairman, dated Sunday, October 6, 2024, in which he tried to raise legitimate questions around the composition of the Board nominees of the newly established North West Development Commission (NWDC).

Without prejudice to the whole essence of the inclusivity message that the said intervention sought to push through, one would still like to insist that there are palpable signs of gross misunderstanding and misrepresentation bordering on outright confusion around the definition of the term or concept of the Middle Belt that its Forum’s Kaduna State Chapter Chairman was attempting to project out there via his Press Statement.

Firstly, even from the sound of its name alone, the Middle Belt concept looks to be more of a geographical expression than anything else, and that has been the case since its formal introduction into the public consciousness several decades ago.

Indeed, it can rightly be argued that it all started as an agglomeration of the various peoples or communities spread across the middle or centre of the geographical expression we have all come to know and recognise as Nigeria today. And that has remained so for quite a while now since the Middle Belt concept’s official launch, but I stand to be corrected.

As time went by, however, successive leaders and promoters of the Middle Belt Forum and its ideals actively sought to expand its reach by way of the deliberate extension of its outreach messaging to appeal to other people of the same or similar faith and shared experiences. This is principally on account of their minority status in several of the core Northern States, with a view to fighting for a common cause. And that is all fine and good, to be honest!

But what they should probably have done from that point onwards was to promptly effect an appropriate name change to reflect its renewed focus and expanded status beyond its original geographical circumscription. This is especially so because many of its targeted would-be new entrants are undoubtedly located very far away from the centre or middle of any perceived belt, geographically speaking.

Again, you cannot possibly go on to define the Middle Belt “as all parts of Nigeria that were not ruled or conquered by the Sokoto Caliphate (emphasis mine) and the Kanem Borno Empire in pre-colonial Nigeria”, in one breath, and then go right ahead to immediately attempt to contradict yourself by including such historic towns and villages of the Gwandu Emirate as Kalgo, Koko/Besse, Suru and the like, in your patented pipedream of an expanded or greater Middle Belt, in another breath.

That does not make any logical sense at all, unless you do not have the slightest idea of what you really are talking about. To do so would amount to the closest example of approbation and reprobation one could possibly think of, albeit in the reverse sense!

Indeed, if one can ever get away with ‘annexing’ any other town against its express wishes based on your own strictly defined criteria of not having been ruled or conquered by the Caliphate, that town would certainly not be Kalgo, would it?

Kalgo, by the way, is reputed to be a veritable staging point of sorts for several Gwandu Princes who served as its District Head, better known by its formally recognised title of Sarkin Gobir of Kalgo, en route their onward journey towards their manifest destiny of ascending the Gwandu Emirship stool of their forebears; Gwandu, being the pivotal Western flank of the expansive Sokoto Caliphate, just in case Mr. Binniyat may not have been aware of that fact.

Again, as unlikely as it may ordinarily seem to the untrained eye on account of the legendary modesty of the vast majority of the Emirs in its rich and storied history, the Gwandu Emirship stool has always been, and will forever remain, the second most revered throne in the hierarchy of the Caliphate structure after that of His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto; again, just in case Mr. Binniyat may not have realised that just yet.

In addition, and talking specifically about the Southern Kebbi concept, I struggle to see how a place like far away Kalgo; a town that is both critical and historically relevant to the Gwandu Emirship stool and also proximal to Birnin Kebbi, its longstanding capital located  just a stone’s throw away, can ever be considered to be an integral part and parcel of any conceivable expanded Southern Kebbi or Kebbi South configuration of his dream by any stretch of the imagination.

At any rate, I am not exactly aware of the existence of any extended Belt of sufficient enough dimension, at the centre or in the Middle of which Kalgo may logically be deemed to have been factored into, and both legally and legitimately embraced.

These are just a few observations around the deliberate provocative narrative spins driven by the extremely wild and way off the mark conjectures informing that strange inclusion of the mentioned areas in the expansive buckle of the utopian Middle Belt concept that Mr. Luka Binniyat may wish to respond to.

In closing, I would still like to humbly restate that nothing I have said or written here is designed to detract from the essence of the primary message he is trying to convey around the recent nominations for the newly established NWDC Board.