It is instructive to note that all
those including Brig Gen Enitan Ransome-Kuti were charged under the leadership
of Lt-Gen Kenneth Minimah, the immediate past Chief of Army Staff. What is
curious is, why pardon some, get them reinstated while dismissing and jailing
others? Does it have to do with their ethnic background, the religion they
profess or gravity of offence? Whatever it is, it would only be fair to serve
punishment or pardon on the basis of what is sauce for the goose is also sauce
for the gander.
The recent dismissal and jailing of
Brigadier General Enitan Ransome-Kuti by the military for various offences came
to many as a shock following the fact that just in September, the military
pardoned 3,032 soldiers who had been convicted also for various offences by a
properly constituted General Court Martial (GCM). The worry here is that the
pardoned soldiers were not said to be innocent. That they were pardoned and not
that the verdict against them was said to have been passed in error is an
indication that the pardoned and reinstated soldiers were actually guilty of
the offences for which they were convicted. This much can be understood from
the statement released by the Director of Army Public Relations at that time,
while trying to clarify “that not all the dismissed soldiers were granted
pardon and recalled”, adding that “those with criminal cases for instance, have
their sentences upheld”.
The question here is, what
constitutes a criminal case and what does not in the eyes of the military? Were
those pardoned not convicted of crimes? If they were actually convicted but
later pardoned, does it not say a lot about the fact that they were actually
convicted of one crime or the other? So on what basis or what criteria did the
military use in selecting and differentiating between those pardoned and those
whose sentences were upheld? The military should know that we are not all
stupid! One begins to be tempted to ask for the names and ethnic origins of
those whose sentences were upheld and those who received pardon. We are tempted
to think that one of the criteria used is ethnicity. If you are pardoning
soldiers of crime why not pardon all of them? As long as they were all
convicted by a properly constituted GCM, even though some were later pardoned,
it means that they all committed one crime or the other.
It is instructive to note that all
those including Brig Gen Enitan Ransome-Kuti were charged under the leadership
of Lt-Gen Kenneth Minimah, the immediate past Chief of Army Staff. What is
curious is, why pardon some, get them reinstated while dismissing and jailing
others? Does it have to do with their ethnic background, the religion they
profess or gravity of offence? Whatever it is, it would only be fair to serve
punishment or pardon on the basis of what is sauce for the goose is also sauce
for the gander.
The only non-Hausa/Fulani race that
still needs to be declared subjugated officially is the Yoruba race, and the
process has since started.
It is even more curious that a
former Commissioner of Police, Mr. Zakari Biu, who was dismissed by the police
for his role in the escape of a notorious Boko Haram suspect, Kabiru Sokoto,
was pardoned by the police to the consternation of a majority of Nigerians just
a day after the military pardoned the soldiers in question. Is there any
correlation between these two issues? While Zakari Biu was exonerated, Enitan
Ransome-Kuti was dismissed and jailed!
Is this all part of the script to
deliberately and systematically humiliate and further subjugate certain parts
of the country in favour of others?
With a name as famous as that of
Ransome-Kuti, the thinking might just be to test the ground with such a
renowned name in the history of our nation from the southern part of the
country generally and the South-Western part particularly. If Ransome-Kuti is
dismissed and jailed and no dust is raised, then the systematic and deliberate
subjugation of the South-West can take a more daring dimension without qualms.
Those who wish to perpetually subjugate other regions/persons usually test the
waters in this manner. It was the same thing with King Herod in the Bible, Acts
12:1-3. King Herod had seized James, one of the Apostles of Jesus Christ, and
had him put to death. When he saw that this met the approval of the Jews, he
went ahead to seize Peter, the Head of the Apostles.
With the growing rampage of Fulani
herdsmen in the South-West that culminated in the kidnap, torture and
humiliation of elder statesman, Chief Olu Falae, the dismissal and jailing of
Ransome-Kuti when others were pardoned, is a pointer to the bigger plans of
those who wish to keep certain parts of this country under their total control
and dictate without questioning what happens in our nation.
With the deliberate denial of
strategic appointments to the Yoruba race by the Buhari administration, a clear
message is being sounded out by the Hausa/Fulani oligarchs, and the message is
loud and clear: only a slave and those who wish to remain slaves would pretend
everything is normal right now. The Igbo and, by extension, the South-South
people, by virtue of the 97 percent and five percent dichotomy as elevated to
an official status by the president himself, have known their place, at least,
for now, and can only fight and react the way the youths are already doing. The
only non-Hausa/Fulani race that still needs to be declared subjugated
officially is the Yoruba race, and the process has since started.
With the growing rampage of Fulani
herdsmen in the South-West that culminated in the kidnap, torture and
humiliation of elder statesman, Chief Olu Falae, the dismissal and jailing of
Ransome-Kuti when others were pardoned, is a pointer to the bigger plans of
those who wish to keep certain parts of this country under their total control
and dictate without questioning what happens in our nation. If not for the
kidnap of Pa Falae, the other atrocities perpetrated by these Fulani herdsmen
would have gone unannounced. And if not for the uproar generated by the kidnap
of Pa Falae, it is possible those criminals would not have been apprehended and
their crime would have gone unpunished just like the others that end up in
“peace deals”, same peace deals that are never respected in the North-Central
but that lead to more brutal attacks on the other parties to it.
…one is tempted to think that Brig.
Gen. Enitan Ransome-Kuti’s dismissal from the Army and his jailing has more to
it than we are being told.
Appointments by the federal
government have not shown that any other region would be treated better.
Despite the hue and cry that followed the earlier appointments by the
president, he has gone ahead to still pick northerners in his latest
appointments: Dr. DanAzumi Ibrahim as DG of National Office for Technology
Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), and Professor Mahmood Yakubu as INEC
Chairman. As it is now, Class Captains and Senior Prefects of our schools will
have to come from the North, and where there is no northerner in such a school,
be it in Lagos, Enugu or Port Harcourt, the class/school will have to do
without such “offices”. That is how bad the situation is becoming!
It is based on the foregoing, that
one is tempted to think that Brig. Gen. Enitan Ransome-Kuti’s dismissal from
the Army and his jailing has more to it than we are being told.
jrndukwe@yahoo.co.uk. Twitter:
@stjudendukwe
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