By Umar Bello Jada (Calculate)
I have chosen to scribble something on this subject because I laid my hands on a piece by one paid writer called Zayyad.
Although, Zayyad seems to be a paid agent of instability with deliberate intention to destabilize the peaceful coexistance of the diverse people of Adamawa State as we are now enjoying under the able leadership of Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri PDP lead government.
But by the grace of God Almighty those evil ambassadors of doom will never find place of abode in Adamawa Inshallah. If not for the way and manner he wanted to use religious and ethnic sentiments to cause conflagration no one would have care to respond to his charade.
How can a writer with good conscience dwell on ethnic chauvinism for want of what to write. In the piece under reference, he mentioned that His Excellency, the Governor of Adamawa gave Christians/Bata land in Demsa to build university and therefore should equally give Muslim/Fulanis land to establish Islamic University.
I nearly wept and became sympathetic to the author for the utter balderdash he is spewing and operating at a very low intellectual frequency and/or having polluted mind to such a level as not to dissect what to dish out to his target audience.
To set the record straight, Governor Ahmadu Fintiri has not and has never given any piece of land to the said proposed LCCN university in Demsa or anywhere, the documentation records for the purchase of that land by LCCN dated back to over 15 years, that was when Mr Felix Tangwami was the council chairman of Demsa local government as he was the first to issue them Local Government Certificate of Occupancy on the 60% of the said land.
Additional 30% of the land was gifted to the Church by the Hamma Bata of Demsa who’s the Paramount Ruler of Bata Kingdom and the remaining 10% added to the land was purchased by the Church directly from the owners at a price paid by the Church. All these happened long before the emergence of Fintiri’s administration.
Facts and records are there for anybody who may want to check and confirm right from Demsa local government land registry to the state ministry of land Yola.
Without much ado, the land use Act of 1978 which is still in force, gave all Governors powers to grant titles to lands owners in their respective states.
Accordingly, the LCCN Church Demsa only applied for Certificate of Occupancy for their own land in which they proposed to build university which was duly granted. If I may ask what is wrong here? Was there any Muslim Council or Hausa Fulani or any Muslim man that made same application for C of O but was denied by the governor anywhere within Adamawa State? If there’s please present it as evidence of fact to support your assertions.
The Governors are holding all lands in their States in trust for the citizens, and the philosophy of this Law is to protect the peasants from oppressors like Zayyad’s paymasters who may want to convert those lands/homes of the poor/less privileged persons into brothels and guest houses or gambling centres.
In case Zayyad is ignorant of history, Bata people are already settled people with their own administrative structures long before the jihad of Modibbo Adama. In fact, Bata people were part of Modibbo Adama’s contingent to Sokoto to collect the FLAG that’s to show the historic partnership and friendship between the Fulanis and Bata tribe in setting up of present Adamawa.
The fact is that the land Zayyad is referring to, is situated in Demsa where both the Church and the Bata people are synonymous to the extent that you can not separate one from the other.
Therefore, the attempt to pitch Fulani tribe against other minority tribes who are historically part of Adamawa many generations ago is an exercise in futility by sponsors of Zayyad writeup.
Even in politics, there should be decorum, I can say without fear of contradiction that His Excellency, Governor Fintiri and his government has been very fair and just to Hausa Fulani people in terms of patronage, engagement and security of their well being within Adamawa State more than the author and his sponsors.
Evidence to buttress this fact can be seen from the recent visit by leadership of Fulani groups of PAARE, Pulaaku Jonde Jam & Miyetti Allah who thronged into the Chambers of the Government House, Yola to show their appreciation and to also thank the Governor for the rare kindness shown to them by his administration.
It is therefore, my considered view that, in as much as we want to promote our candidates for the forthcoming elections, we should not indulge in hate speech or incite the public in the name of politics.
Our voters are now enlightened to a level that they have to check your pedigree before considering if it worth it to listen to you.
In addition, both the author and his sponsors must know that Adamawa State is known for hospitality to even visitors, so to insinuate ethnic and religious division in the name of politics is akin to retrogression.
Calculate, a political strategist writes from Yola.
