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A Jukun Wanu priestess during the 2021 Jukun Day at Abinsi
By HRH Dr. Sabo Azyidoku Emmanuel
According to the Greek Mythology, the Trojan Horse is a tale that stems from the Trojan War which was about a subterfuge horse that the Greeks cleverly used to penetrate the walls of the Troy. The war had dragged on for ten years. Trojan Horse refers to a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan war, to enter the city of Troy and win the war. “Metaphorically, a “Trojan Horse” has come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe (an enemy) into a securely protected bastion or place”. Now, if you describe a person or thing as a Trojan horse, you mean that they are being used to hide someone’s true purpose or intentions.
This concerned mind is not against any Jukun Wanu person relating with the Tiv people. Today, the Tiv people are our wives, husbands, in-laws, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and even our friends in politics, in commerce etc. These are constant realities, but relate with caution. Though this opinion may not be a cause célèbre, but that just it. This is not innocuous neither it is a tub-thumping. Be imbued with a desire for social justice and freedom from enslavement or marginalization. The Wanu in Benue must insist on their rights as citizens and must be allowed to enjoy as indigenous people with all the rights and privileges.
The Jukun Wanu situation in Benue state is thus, far, pathetic. It is a tale of a people who have not been captured in the gazette as indigenous people of the state. Their historical claims, their conspicuous presence and structures are inconsequential. It is a situation liken to a people in a house of exile. This is even worst compared to Apartheid Regime in the then South Africa. As it is today in Wanu land, the manifestation of this ugly scenario has the express permission with the nod of some Jukun Wanu people, who can best be describe as the Trojan Horse. The Trojan horse is a collection of or a compact of some of these Jukun Wanu and “their mojo”, who, networking them is like dangerously negotiating a bend at an accident-prone zone, scene or flash point. They are a group of overzealous
individuals who must have gone too far in the bargain game. They dispense valuable and useful details to their sponsors who give them peanuts for their rascally job. But they are still miserable and indigent. What a pity! Unfortunately, they always settle for less. With all these pranks, or subterfuges they have not improved economically, educationally and have
culturally become rejectees in the neighborhood.
The Hausa adage says “yaki ba ya ci gari, sai da dan gari”. Meaning, in a war situation, the certainty of victory lies in the crafty influence of an informant. The spoilers are always there to destabilize any good work of the Wanu people. Their preoccupation is that, if I am not the one, let the whole race perish. Realizing this feud amongst the Wanu people, the Tiv people had since cashed in, on the Trojan horse (spoilers) psychology. As it is, the Falcon can longer hear the Falconer and therefore anarchy is loose upon the world. Remember any devastating phenomena in human history, do you? The Great Flood, the Holocaust, the Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombings, the Era of slave trades, the Tsumami disaster, hurricane Cathrina, Typhoon Insurgencies, the Covid 19 etc. These are likely equivalence of calamities, the Wanu people have found themselves through the diabolic activities of these spoilers that have allowed themselves to be used as Trojan Horse by Tiv people in Wanu land. These adverbial particles as Trojan Horse should care to know that the Benue socio cultural group, the giant voice of the Tiv people, their mega umbrella, dozed off in full relaxation as the Mdzough- U-Tiv (MUT) who will never be mute or be muted at all on Tiv and Jukun crisis. Just recently through the President-General of MUT, retired Comptroller of Prisons, CP Iorbee Ihagh in a statement, made the position of the Tiv socio-cultural organization known in Makurdi, the Benue state capital. They rejected the boundary line between the Tiv and Jukun instituted by the colonial masters in 1923 and 1924. This is newest, a very recent declaration from the arrow head of the organization.
Mr. sellout, what are your gains? Are you a Tiv man or a Jukun man? Will the Tiv people consider you in their sharing formula of “ya na angbian,” eat and give your brother? Leak our secrets out to them and lick all the glory. You clad in their symbols and yet you are still not their own. Attend their meetings, they still look at you as a spy, no confidentiality. You are just but a Trojan horse being used for their true purpose or intentions. Take it or live it, the Tiv people do not mean well or any good for the entire Jukun race and their Kwa Group in the Kwararafa confraternity.
The Tiv people who are strangers to the Jukun people of Benue state and also settler – indigenes in Taraba, Nasarawa states are benefiting immensely in these states. Today, the Tiv people have been given the royal prerogative to be counted as natives, indigenous people of those states mentioned. But in Benue state, the Jukun people have been expunged and expelled by the unpopular mandate or the instrumentality of the State Assembly.
All Jukun towns are undergoing baptism and evacuation from their ancestral homes. Constant to remember are: Amngho (Fiidi) or the Makurdi Airport settlement area that has been ransacked and to be ransomed, the Agyaha demolition episode, too hot to handle, the Agyogo or Wurkum-Ungwar Jukun side, relocation to give way for Urban renewal as proposed, the Agyetashi evacuation in the North Bank area of Makurdi, the annexation of Abinsi land, Abinsi name, now deleted as one of the towns in Benue state, after it has escaped being submerged by erstwhile proposed Dam construction in 1980, then, the Banjimba mop up etc. Besides, if the chairman of Makurdi local government council will declare unequivocally that the Jukun Wanu in Agyogo and by extension in the entire Benue State are a scrap and that they can be consumed in a second, then, only dreamers can fault this braggart. This is a warning signal to the spoilers who will not be exempted in the inferno, in the flood, that day.
Eventually, these sellouts, traitors, betrayals will very soon discover that they are a wooden horse as a Trojan horse being used by the Tiv people to cheat the Jukun people who are their consanguinity in Benue state, in particular. Oh, “l cry today, I cry tomorrow”. And like a wooden horse, they are disposables. Any moment their principal (Tiv) when thoroughly through with them, they can be thrown away. Even “Baban Bola” cannot pick them in time to come, they will very soon become articles of no commercial value. If you belief in time, it will definitely come. It is just a matter of time. Where is the joy, as you are eulogized or posing as an impostor, when you facilitate the retailing of piece of your inheritance?
Tomorrow, where will you parade yourself as a prince or a princess, tracing your genealogy as you are betraying today, as a stench betrayal?
Some early great fighters of the Tiv people in the past such as Joseph Sarwua Tarka, Akurasham Samuel Atum, Edwin Tashaku Orodi, Peter Tarkende, Vincent Orjime, Tyoshom Shirsha, Aper Aku, Paul Unongu, etc, did their best for the Tiv people. So what some of us are doing, to liberate the Jukun Wanu is in line with the Liberation struggle.
Globally, Marhattan Indra Gandhi of India, the Black struggle in America, the case of Martin Luther king Jnr, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the Nationalists in Nigeria, the likes of Alvan Ikoku, Zik, Awo, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and even down home in Wanu Land, as some have seen before and even are seeing with some patriotic Wanu sons and daughters who belief in the doctrine of “WANUISM = Wanu i ya pye”.
The warring elders’ forum or fora in Benue state should sheathe their swords. If they truly love Wanu, they should reconcile and work for Wanu.
Pride under whatever guise shall lead the Wanu nowhere. Think of posterity. Do not be a disgrace to the generation unborn. All the so-called elders have their MASTERS and OGAS among the Tiv power brokers.
Some of those elders traffic between the Jukun Wanu and their Tiv over lords. And that is why these two warring factions are pulling from the other side. We are doing ourselves no good.
The National Association of Jukun Wanu-(NAJUWA) should be on their toes to ensure that these elders answer their father’s names, properly.
They must be told that they are not elders of themselves but of the people and therefore they must work for the people with every sincerity, honesty and purpose. Since the entire Jukun Wanu people do not have opinion leaders, NAJUWA can as well double as opinion leaders as their genuine judgment on certain issues be seen as unbias; as the right thing is always done.
Finally, the religious faiths, their teachings and lessons should moderate people’s behaviours. This will make the Wanu people not to be supporters of illegality, simply because, they want to belong. Just be a man and resist any form of temptation and celebrate ingenuity and not quasi-triumph. That could be the tabernacle. Bubbles, deflected and deflated. The Wanu people should not have catholic tastes, i.e to like so many different things. Being insouciance, poses a great danger tomorrow. Enough of this Trojan Horse, as instrument being used to hide the Tiv people’s purpose and intentions to cheat, or kill your fellow Jukun people worldwide. Any Jukun Wanu descent who does not want to be counted, be regarded as a Trojan horse, must shun and not shunt, the “no go area”. For such a person not to be seen as a Trojan horse, such a person should not promote Tiv culture, by not wearing their symbols of black and white colours at Jukun ceremonies and occasions; such a person must speak for and defend the Jukun people even such a person is standing trials before the Tiv coven; such a person must not be instrumental to malevolent or malicious tendencies; such a person should not pose as an impostor, such a person must not have catholic tastes or celebrate quasi-triumph in place of ingenuity, such a person should not support illegality to belong, such a person must be humane enough to be a stretcher-bearer, as we are all casualties in view of the present situation.
Let us all join Barrister Awoke J. genuinely and not treacherously lament “I CRY TODAY I CRY TOMORROW”. Remove that garment of lassitude, gather momentum and burst with vitality, this spirit of “WANUISM = Wanu I ya pye” and you will not be a Trojan horse to be used by this diabolic creature, named, Tiv.
Jukun Wanu must survive and triumph together God save the people and their Nation. Amen. Chew this kola nut as posted by Mary Solynx Wolker in her facebook corner, “We must accept finite disappointment, but must never lose infinite hope”. – Martin Luther king.
WANUISM = WANU I YA PYE
