Here is the thing about these 2015 conversations that many appear to have refused to move on from.
They should be a teachable moment. Sadly, aren't asking the right asks. Too many people from my neck of the woods (SE/SS) keep insisting on narratives that won't stand scrutiny.
First, Benue. In 2015, Benue state voted for Buhari.
No one within the set of people who keep shouting about ethnic jingoism ever seems to ask themselves why.
There are/were two reasons: first, Gabriel Suswam's government was unbelievably bad.
Instead, Suswam was mollycoddled by the GEJ govt.
https://t.co/bDkC2QLy4r
Terror in Nigeria\u2019s Food Basket \u2013 A report on the violence in the Middle\xa0Belt https://t.co/hadraIzy2W pic.twitter.com/KmKdI19q52
— SBM Intelligence (@sbmintelligence) October 20, 2015
Benue people were fed up, and the 2015 vote, which was close for the record, was a major protest.
To now reduce those decisions to the effects of "an ethnically driven PR campaign" is to do the Benue people a disservice.
Many of the people who shout about an ethnically driven agenda by Yoruba people against GEJ have probably never taken a look at Nigeria's voting patterns, at least since 1979.
Persisting with this accusation risks alienating people we should be having more constructive engagements with.
The only time they came close to voting as a bloc was in 1999.
The pic below shows the breakdown of votes by GPZ in 2015.
The corresponding ratios for the SE and SS were 13:1 and 11:1 in favour of Goodluck Jonathan, while for the NE and NW, the ratios were 7:2 and 5:1 in favour of Buhari.
Shouldn't it be something we honestly want to discuss amongst ourselves? A herd mentality eventually breeds a messiah.
FTR, this pattern has repeated itself since 1999.
https://t.co/uJCOq0v1JT
1/ As is becoming habit, the complete thing is here, for those who can sit and read: https://t.co/jTgkZ6NGvZ
— Chxta (@Chxta) June 20, 2016
Neither is it a bad thing to have opposed interests. It is how to bring those interests together that counts, and this is where my people are dropping the ball.
This is where wise politicking comes in.
We, for example, have the common interest of weakening Abuja.
With the South-South we already have a relationship that is both fractious and familial. We have to manage it properly.
We have been hurt by the poor Buhari economy.
The Buhari economy has also hurt the SW, and even though many won't admit it, their treatment by the North has also hurt their pride.
No.
Do we have to trust the South-West to make an alliance with them?
No.
More from History
TIL:
- first Western detective stories translated & published in Japan in *1863*--that's pre-Meiji, even!
- first Chinese-written detective stories featuring Western-style detectives starred women as both detectives and criminals were published in 1907--author Lü Simian (!).
Quote: “This case is so complicated that even Sherlock Holmes would feel helpless if it fell into his hands. [Now] it is solved by a woman who returned from abroad for a brief
visit to her hometown. Who is to say that the wisdom of Chinese cannot compete with the Westerners?”
The lead female detective in these stories, Chu Yi, is a fan of Doyle's Holmes stories and asks herself "What would Sherlock Holmes do?" while crime-solving, but succeeds through her use of martial arts and more "Chinese" attributes--China, not the West, solves the crimes.
Author Lü Simian, btw, is this guy: https://t.co/swPvAxr87J . One of the "four greatest modern Chinese historians," also wrote a landmark work of literary theory, and helped cohere Chinese detective fiction with his stories. Bit of a badass.
Holmes was the dominant influence on Chinese detective fiction of the late-Qing & early Republic years, and the biggest star of Chinese detective fiction of those years, Cheng Xiaoqing's Huo Sang, was a spin on Holmes.
- first Western detective stories translated & published in Japan in *1863*--that's pre-Meiji, even!
- first Chinese-written detective stories featuring Western-style detectives starred women as both detectives and criminals were published in 1907--author Lü Simian (!).
Quote: “This case is so complicated that even Sherlock Holmes would feel helpless if it fell into his hands. [Now] it is solved by a woman who returned from abroad for a brief
visit to her hometown. Who is to say that the wisdom of Chinese cannot compete with the Westerners?”
The lead female detective in these stories, Chu Yi, is a fan of Doyle's Holmes stories and asks herself "What would Sherlock Holmes do?" while crime-solving, but succeeds through her use of martial arts and more "Chinese" attributes--China, not the West, solves the crimes.
Author Lü Simian, btw, is this guy: https://t.co/swPvAxr87J . One of the "four greatest modern Chinese historians," also wrote a landmark work of literary theory, and helped cohere Chinese detective fiction with his stories. Bit of a badass.
Holmes was the dominant influence on Chinese detective fiction of the late-Qing & early Republic years, and the biggest star of Chinese detective fiction of those years, Cheng Xiaoqing's Huo Sang, was a spin on Holmes.
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In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
The story doesn\u2019t say you were told not to... it says you did so without approval and they tried to obfuscate what you found. Is that true?
— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) November 15, 2018
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
