Am sorry, but if you were Hausa or Fulani, or a Northerner in fact, you do not get to define what racism or marginalisation is in Nigeria.
An illustration
1. You enjoy an exploitative form of affirmative action in education. Your kids are allowed to gain admission with the lowest mark thereby displacing my kids.
2. According to section 162 of the Constitution of the FRN, Nigerian resources domiciled in the South and to an extent in Igboland are shared using certain indices like population, land mass, population density.
Amongst all these indices, the only favorable one to an Igbo man is derivation. All the other indices are in your favor. Consequently, you get the bulk of the natural resources you did not produce yet you have no intention of controlling your population since a man can comfortably bear 25 children whether or not he can take care of them.
3. You are allowed to practise your own religion even when the provision of your religion are contradictory to the Constitution. For instance, section 10 of the constitution prohibits state religion. So you have two laws guiding you in the country -constitution and sharia whereas I have nothing like Christian law. My Christian laws are merely church rules which cannot be formally recognized anywhere.
4. I cannot get any law passed comfortably without your consent whereas you can pass any law I am not comfortable with, with or without my consent. This is because I have fewer members in the legislature whereas yours is twice as much as mine. The constitution requires a 2/3rd majority before any serious bill can scale through. Not even all the whole southern senators can meet up with the 2/3rd whereas in your case, it's a walk over
5. You have uncountable numbers of local government which enables you to get the bulk of my natural resources
6. You prohibit beer yet you get the bulk of VAT on beer. I drink beer and even produce it, yet your VAT is bigger than mine.
7. In recent times, the president, a Fulani attempted to use the same oil money to purchase Brazilian grass for cows of individuals from the area whereas there is no converse plan to purchase motor spare parts for those who are into car parts sale business. The fact that it was even considered leaves much to be desired.
8. How can you define racism when you can kill me just for a cartoon of Mohammed in Denmark that has nothing to do with me? How can you kill me when I protest your urinating in front of my shop just because I live in your environment whereas there has never be such a story in mine own vicinity?
9. You take up all the plum jobs in Oil companies even when you do not have oil. You are a core decision maker in oil industry and even NDDC whereas no Southerner is a member of the newly formed NEDC
10. In a calculated attempt to limit us, you have used state creation to carve out Igboland and merge them with other ethnic groupings that has nothing in common with us. We stay in those areas and face the worse forms of marginalisation because those people know we are not like them and we are not them.
11. In Igboland, in recognition of the fact that there are other people in the areas, news broadcast are done in Igbo and any other language. For instance, in Anambra State, news broadcast are done in Igbo and Igala whereas every little thing I do outside Igboland is interpreted as an attempt to take over that area. There have been demonstrations to disapprove of my intention to live freely.
The above illustrations is just few in number. There are more. He that is wearing the shoes, knows where it pinches.
Chimamanda is right to say a white man does not get to define what racism is. Marginalisation of the North or racism against the North is not coming to social media to write stuffs like, "Fulanis are mean and marginalsing me ". A Fulani who saw me write something like that cannot say he or she is being marginalised or being hated. How can you call truth hatred? The reasonable thing to do is to ask for explanation assuming you do not know. Telling me that it is our leaders that are doing so is bunkum when you will be the first person to stand against restructuring whenever the issue is raised.
Responding by calling me a tribalist is foolishness. It only means you are not ready to tackle the issues.
No Fulani or Hausa is in a position to define what racism or marginalisation means in Nigeria. If you want to know what marginalisation means in Nigeria. Ask an Igbo/Ijaw/Ogoni etc.
In the same way, no white man can define racism.
Chimamanda is right.
#COPIED