26/05/2025
Are You a Hypocrite or a Coward: An open letter to Gen T.Y Danjuma
Dear Theophilus,
I write you this letter with pains in my heart and eyes full of tears. I am writing you this letter as a son whose father has gone astray and lacks every morale right to be called father. In 2018 at a function in Wukari, the whole world stood still when you cried out that there was an agenda of ethnic cleansing against certain tribes of Nigeria. In that convocation ceremony, you told the world that the Nigeria armed forces including the Nigeria army whom you commanded for years, are colluding with Fulani expansionists to kill poor farmers of the Benue Valley in order to occupy their ancestral lands. Many people received this with mixed feelings considering your past records.
I don’t want to remind you of your role in the death of Major Gen Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi and the subsequent unwarranted civil war that killed over three million easterners. No, may be you were still young and might have pushed for some evil ways of resolving conflicts out of youthful exuberance but what of when you were Defense Minister to President Olusegun Obasanjo?
Baba Theophilus, at 81 which you are, you should have been more concerned about your name. Theophilus is a Greek name meaning a friend of God. Ask yourself how truly you have lived by this name. In the Christian faith you are, the Gospel of St Luke and the book of Acts of the Apostles were specifically addressed to you, Theophilus. You should have taken your time to critically read these books and help your adapted community, the Jukuns. But it seems you are more interested in supporting the Jukums to fight other tribes over land. As an army officer, after killing Gen Aguiyi-Ironsi, the northern powers rewarded you with large oil wells which you used to establish multibillion dollar companies. Is that what you intend to achieve again in Taraba? Is that why you are supporting the Jukums to continue killing other tribes to occupy their land? Haba Baba.
Baba Theophilus, you have been an ethnic bigot and pure extremist when ever your adapted tribe is involved. You have made the Jukum people of Kwararafa to be the most villain tribe in the middle belt. Baba, can you tell us why the Tiv are always the Target of your ethnic cleansing agenda in Taraba? Is it because of what happened to your mother in Kunav in June 1938? If it is, you should have asked questions rather than allow emotions to turn you a beast against your people. You should know that your father did not send your mother away intentionally. Your maternal relatives took your mother away with your pregnancy because your father couldn’t afford the bride price by the time they came. As a grown up man, you should have by now known how difficult things are for peasant farmers in the month of June, your father needed the understanding of your maternal relatives though they rejected, he would have surely paid during harvest season. Is this why you want to wipe out the entire Tiv in Taraba? Haba Baba.
As a defense minister in the Obasanjo government in 2001, you took advantage of your position to build a Jukun militia against the Tiv in Taraba, when they were over powered by the Tivs, you conspired with Gen Aliyu Gusau to influence Obasanjo who ordered the killing of over 700,000 Tiv people across Zaki Biam, Gbeji, Vaase and other places in Benue State, not even in Taraba where your militia was overpowered. You made sure the house of Gen Victor Malu was destroyed. Can it be that you were even part of those who plotted the killing of former Chief of Army Staff Lt Colonel Joseph Akaaham? Your anger against the Tiv is too much. Haba Baba
Baba Theophilus, just last year, your name was everywhere crying loud about ethnic cleansing. Few months later, your adapted tribe Jukum is doing everything using all powers of their sons and daughters home and broad including those in government to eradicate a tribe from their state. You have suddenly gone comatose. No single condemnation but a full silence of support. A local government chairman in Taraba even gave his official vehicle which was used in killing Tiv people house to house and the killers were arrested with the vehicle and co**se of two Tiv people. You couldn’t even cough. It was last year in Wukari when you spoke of ethnic cleansing. Just today, Federal University Wukari, was invaded by your kinsmen the Jukums who came to the campus hunting Tiv students and lecturers to death, the world couldn’t hear your voice. Baba, at 81, if you could condemn the Buhari Fulani but support your JuKum to cleanse the Tiv from the ancestral lands in Taraba, are you a hypocrite or a coward? The world is watching all the scripts you are writing and acting, posterity is a fair judge and Karma is a beast.
I am proudly a Tiv, the tribe that fathered you but you have named them for extinction from their land.
COPIED
Luke Denen Ifer
