Opinion

The promise of fuel subsidy removal was that market forces, rather than government intervention, would determine the price of petrol...

By IBRAHIM LOT South Africa is once again confronting a resurgence of xenophobic violence and anti-migrant sentiment. Fuelled by deepening...

With Lilyan Yepwi Many people spend their lives pursuing what they want without understanding what they are called to do....

By NANCY TUAMMEN Last week, we examined the issue of indigeneity or indigeneship in Jos North. Today, we take the...

By MARIE-THERESE NANLONG As Nigeria inches closer to another election cycle in 2027, the battle for votes has already begun....

It used to be very rare to find a man who carried the title of father without also carrying the...

In conversations about life, many people use the terms purpose and fate interchangeably, as though they mean the same thing....

Since Nigeria gained independence in 1960, one issue has remained a recurring theme in the country's political and economic life:...

With NANCY TUAMMEN On June 9, 2026, Plateau State woke up to reports that Justice Chris Donglong had granted indigeneship...

Issued by the Berom Educational and Cultural Organisation (BECO)  Following the Judgment in Suit No: PLD/J215/202, Fatima Baba Akawu & Anor v. Jos North Local Government Council (Delivered 9 June 2026)  PREAMBLE: A Judgment That Proves Our Point  On 9 June 2026, Honourable Justice C. Donglong of the Plateau State High Court delivered a judgment directing Jos North Local Government Council to issue a Certificate of Indigene to one Fatima Baba Akawu, a Hausa woman, on the grounds that her father, Baba Alhaji Akawu, was himself an indigene of Jos North who had represented the constituency in the National Assembly in 1983.  We at BECO have read this judgment carefully We do not dispute its legal reasoning as a matter of positive law. The court applied Section 25 of the Constitution and the Supreme Court's decision in Anzaku v. Governor of Nasarawa State (2013). The Defendant Local Government Council did not appear to defend the case. On these narrow procedural and constitutional grounds, the judgment is what it is.  But law is not justice. And a judgment is not widom What concerns BECO, and what we now place before the Nigerian public, is not the technical correctness of Justice Donglong's ruling. It is the selective, hypocritical, and politically motivated deployment of this judgment by HausaFulani irredentists who would never, for a single moment, accept its logic when applied to their own domains.  The question we pose to Sani Ibn Salihu and his co-travellers is simple and unavoidable:  If this judgment is correct for Plateau State, why is it not being celebrated in Kano State? If Fatima Akawu is entitled to indigeneity in Jos North because her father was born there, why is the daughter of an Igbo man born in Fagge LGA in 1955 not entitled to indigeneity in Kano State?  The silence from the Hausa-Fulani establishment is deafening. And that silence is the most eloquent confession of bad faith.  PART ONE: The Curious Geography of Constitutional Enthusiasm  Let us begin with a factual observation that Salihu cannot dispute.  Since the judgment was delivered on 9 June 2026, BECO has monitored public commentary, social media discourse, and legal analysis across Nigeria. What we have found is revealing:  Region Reaction to the Akawu Judgment  Plateau StateCelebrated as a victory for constitutionalism and human rights by the Hausa-Fulani advocates  Kano State (official and unofficial circles)Complete silence  Kaduna StateCautious endorsement for Plateau Hausa-Fulani; but no equivalent demand for Kano  Lagos State (Hausa-Fulani commentators)Supportive of the judgment's logic, but strictly for the case of Plateau only  South-East (Igbo commentators)Asking the same question BECO is asking: what about us in Kano? ...