Nigerian Tribune’s Northern Bureau Chief, MUHAMMAD SABIU, engages the spokesperson of the Middle Belt Forum, Luka Binniyat, on security in the North, the coming elections, and why the forum is backing the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa (rtd), over his statement on Nasir El-Rufai. He also said it is the turn of the Middle Belt to produce the president in 2031.
For someone who is reading you for the first time, can you please introduce yourself?
Yes. My name is Luka Binniyat. I am from Zangon Kataf Local Government Area of Southern Kaduna, and I am the National Spokesman of the Middle Belt Forum. I am also the Joint Spokesman of the Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum.
You are from Kaduna, not from the North Central, yet you speak for the Middle Belt Forum. How did that come to be?
Let me try to define what the Middle Belt is so that Nigerians will not confuse the Middle Belt with the six states that make up the North-Central geopolitical zone. The Middle Belt is made up of all the ethnic nationalities, over 300 of them, that are not Hausa, Fulani, or Kanuri. It doesn’t matter whether they are Muslims or Christians. So, if you are from the 19 Northern states plus Abuja, and you are not Hausa, you are not Kanuri, or you are not Fulani, it invariably means that you fall under what we call the Middle Belt.
So, the Middle Belt Forum is the socio-political body that represents the interests of all these ethnic groups. The Middle Belt Forum was formed in 1954 because we were clamouring to be out of the arrangement of the defunct Northern Protectorate. We felt that the core North and we do not share the same values, do not share the same history, and do not share the same identity.
The feudal system that the colonialists arranged, which put us under their subjugation, was unacceptable to our founding fathers. So, the Middle Belt Forum was formed around that time in 1954.
On whether I came on board – since the present EXCO came on board: Yes. I was actually elected as the Kaduna State Chapter Chairman of the Middle Belt Forum in July 2024. The National Headquarters felt that I was very vibrant and that they didn’t have a spokesman who was getting visibility, so they brought me to join them as the National Spokesman of the forum.
What I can categorically say has been an achievement is that we have been able to bring to the conscience of Nigerians that the North is not actually monolithic, that the North actually has other ethnic nationalities that do not belong to the Arewa North, and that the Middle Belt itself cannot be limited to the North-Central geopolitical zone.
We try to enlighten people that the Middle Belt includes Southern Kebbi, Southern Kaduna – I’m the National Spokesman of the Middle Belt Forum and I’m from Southern Kaduna. The President of the Middle Belt Forum himself, Dr. Pogu Bitrus, is from Southern Borno; he is from Chibok, Chibok Local Government. So, the Middle Belt is bigger than the six states that make up the North-Central geopolitical zone. We are in Taraba, Adamawa, Gombe, even parts of Southern Yobe, Southern Bauchi, and the core six states of the North-Central – which includes, of course, Kwara, Kogi, Benue, Niger, and the rest – are all part of the Middle Belt.
So, we have tried to sensitise Nigerians that the real majority in the North are not even the Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri. No, there are so-called minorities – the people that have been branded as minorities, which is an abnormality. Because when it comes to the number of human beings, that is population, and land size, the 19 Northern states plus Abuja is about 732,000 square kilometres, and the Middle Belt region has over 500,000 square kilometres of that land.
We believe that in a free and fair census exercise, there is no way you will tell us that these people who cover this area are a minority. When you aggregate our numbers, we are actually a majority. I agree that if you separate us as individuals, we are all minorities, but if you put the people of the Middle Belt together, we are actually the majority in Northern Nigeria.
That is what we have been able to bring to the conscience of the people. Then, the Middle Belt Forum has also tried to intervene in some intra-ethnic clashes – in Taraba between the Tivs and the Jukuns, in Adamawa between the Jukuns and another tribe. We have tried to see how they can cease fire.
We have also tried to expose the oppression and the killings that have been affecting our people under this very bizarre state of insecurity, both by Boko Haram and by the so-called Fulani bandits. We have raised our voices very loudly.
Then, we have also been able to speak as one voice and vote as a bloc in the 2023 presidential election. That actually showed the Middle Belt went for Peter Obi, and we believe that the results were manipulated against him. So, the Middle Belt is coming out under this EXCO as a formidable bloc, and we are going to take a position very soon on the direction to go in the presidential election of 2027.
All right. The Middle Belt Forum recently seems to be backing the Minister of Defence, retired General Christopher Musa, over his recent allegations against the former governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai. Don’t you think that as a Federal Minister, he shouldn’t have made such a remark or statement?
In fact, we expected him to say even more than that, because what El-Rufai is being charged with now is a very small allegation compared to the weighty things that he did against humanity. So, we were even disappointed that the Minister could not say much more than he said about El-Rufai.
So, we stand by him, and we believe that if it was another party that had won the presidential election and the gubernatorial election in Kaduna State, El-Rufai would have since been brought to justice and charged for crimes against humanity.
So, what Christopher said is true. And Christopher was talking about ‘my people’-when he said ‘my people’, he was not talking particularly about the people of Southern Kaduna; he was talking about every resident of Kaduna State, because that is his state of origin. So, I know that he is not flippant; he is not a man that will just come out and say things that he cannot substantiate.
We are very excited that if El-Rufai’s family eventually goes to court, there will be a plethora of witnesses to affirm what the Minister has said. Being part of the government, I believe he also has a lot of evidence that he can bring to defend himself.
Okay, looking at the scenario as it is now in the southern part of the state, can we say that the people of Southern Kaduna are happy?
Yes. As an indigene of Kaduna State and a son of Southern Kaduna, I want to say with all sense of responsibility that the killings in Southern Kaduna have drastically reduced. What has not stopped is kidnapping, but the invasion of communities and the burning down of houses have drastically reduced, almost by 90%.
And then, the Governor himself is very restrained in his utterances – his utterances are those that bring unity, his actions are those that bring unity. He seems to have been able to assure the people of Southern Kaduna that he is a team player. He still has a lot of shortcomings that he can work on, but the violence has drastically reduced. What we are still insisting on is that the kidnapping that is still ongoing should be stopped, and those that are in the custody of the bandits should be rescued. But it is far, far better than when El-Rufai was in power.
All right, then. I want to ask you about the relationship with other blocs, like the Arewa Consultative Forum, Afenifere, and others. What is your relationship with them? Because, you see, ordinarily, I don’t think you can exist as an island. So, do you have any collaboration or any agreement with these other blocs – your forum, the Middle Belt Forum?
Yes, yes. In 2023, Afenifere, PANDEF, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, and the Middle Belt Forum took a unilateral decision that the presidency of Nigeria should be rotated to the South from 2023 to 2027. We stood by our position, and as the voting went, it affirmed that a Southerner was finally chosen. We are still maintaining that the presidency should still be retained in the South in 2027. We are still standing by that position up till now.
Now, the understanding that we have with these groups is that having supported them to produce a president for those eight years, if the presidency is eventually rotated to the North in 2031, it is a Middle Belt person that will become the presidential candidate of all the political parties.
We have started another round of talks, and we are mobilising credible candidates from the Middle Belt. It doesn’t matter whether he is a Muslim or a Christian – he could be a Nupe man, he could be an Alago man, he could be an Eggon person – we don’t care whether he is a Muslim or a Christian. But the presidency in 2031 must be returned to the Middle Belt, because we have never had an elected president, apart from Gowon who came to power through a coup. We have not produced an elected president, and given the statistics that I have given you about our size and our population, we think it is just fair and appropriate that a Middle Belter should take the presidency in 2031. That’s the agreement that we have with these other groups, and that’s the relationship that is keeping us together as a group of vulnerable people.
All right. Finally, what is it that I did not ask you? What do you want to say that I did not ask? I have given you this for free. What do you want to comment on?
Well, as a final word, I want to say that our biggest worry now consists of two things: the state of insecurity in Nigeria is becoming very worrisome. We want the Federal Government to tackle it head-on, and there is a small solution: we say the government should facilitate and supervise communities to be able to defend themselves by giving them light weapons that are approved by law.
If every community, for example, is able to have four AK-47s – every community – we believe that we are going to take care of this insecurity once and for all, and it can be done in a supervised manner. Or you give us these shotguns that use cartridges, plenty of them, we will be able to take care of these wicked people.
So, that is our worry now. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of people that are still in the captivity of both Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorist groups and the so-called bandits. So, we are very unhappy that our communities are subjected to this condition – not only our communities, even in the Southeast, there are still pockets of violence there, armed groups that have become lawless, you know…