In a country as complex as Nigeria, truth has never been cheap. It attracts enemies, misinterpretation, and sometimes outright danger. Yet history consistently shows that nations only begin to heal when individuals and institutions refuse to be intimidated into silence. That is the context in which recent public reactions to comments by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu (SAN), must be understood—not through the narrow lens of ethnic hostility, but through a broader demand for honesty, justice, and moral clarity.
The public narrative attempting to frame the INEC Chairman’s remarks as “anti-Fulani” or “anti-Muslim” is not only misleading; it is intellectually dishonest. Across Northern Nigeria, including among Hausa communities themselves, a counter-narrative is emerging—one that rejects the weaponisation of religion and ethnicity to suppress uncomfortable truths about insecurity, mass killings, and state failure.
Hausa Voices Are Speaking—And They Are Clear
Contrary to the loud online propaganda suggesting widespread outrage in the North, many Hausa activists, youth groups, and civil society voices have made it clear: condemning mass killings is not an attack on any ethnic group. Speaking against atrocities is not treason. And demanding accountability does not amount to religious hostility.
From Zamfara to Katsina, Kano to Sokoto, Kebbi to Jigawa, and even across the Niger border regions where Hausa communities extend culturally, a recurring message is being echoed: truth must not be sacrificed on the altar of political convenience.
Thousands of Hausa youth—Muslim and Christian alike—have rejected attempts to present the INEC Chairman’s stance as an ethnic betrayal. Instead, they describe the backlash as political blackmail, driven largely by fear of open conversations that expose long-standing failures to protect lives.
Religion Has Been Abused for Too Long
Northern Nigeria is deeply religious, and no serious observer denies this. Islam and Christianity shape daily life, moral codes, and social identity. However, religiosity does not equate to gullibility. Increasingly, Hausa communities are pushing back against elites who exploit faith as a shield against accountability.
For decades, religion has been selectively deployed to:
Silence victims
Justify inaction
Frame criminal violence as “communal clashes”
Deflect responsibility from state actors
This pattern is well-documented by Nigerian security analysts, human rights organisations, and independent conflict researchers. Groups like Amnesty International and SBM Intelligence have repeatedly reported that victims of banditry, insurgency, and rural massacres in Northern Nigeria are overwhelmingly ordinary civilians—many of them Hausa Muslims.
The Uncomfortable Truth: Hausa Muslims Are Also Victims
One of the most distorted aspects of the national conversation is the false implication that acknowledging violence against Christians automatically erases Muslim suffering. The reality is far more tragic—and far more complex.
In Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, and parts of Kaduna, entire Hausa Muslim villages have been wiped out by armed groups. Markets have been raided. Schools shut down. Farmers abducted. Women displaced. Children orphaned. These facts are not speculative; they are documented across years of security briefings, humanitarian reports, and government data.
Yet silence has prevailed in many quarters—often out of fear, political loyalty, or resignation.
What has angered certain power blocs is not the truth itself, but who dared to say it out loud, and from what institutional position.
Why the Attacks on the INEC Chairman Feel Coordinated
The sudden calls for removal, resignation, or “disciplinary action” against the INEC Chairman did not arise organically. To many observers in the North, they reflect a familiar Nigerian playbook:
1. A public figure names a problem
2. The issue is ethnicised
3. Religion is dragged in
4. The speaker is painted as an enemy
5. Attention shifts from the victims to the controversy
This strategy has worked repeatedly in the past. But it is now encountering resistance—especially among younger Northerners who are more informed, more connected, and less willing to accept recycled narratives.
Hausa activists have openly stated that the attacks against the INEC Chairman are driven by fear of his clarity and courage, not by genuine communal outrage.
Fulani Identity Must Not Be Reduced to Criminality—And Criminality Must Not Be Excused
It is critical to state this clearly: no ethnic group owns violence, and no ethnic group should be collectively blamed for the actions of armed criminals.
Nigeria’s insecurity crisis involves:
Bandit networks
Terrorist cells
Criminal gangs
Arms trafficking routes
Weak state response
Reducing this crisis to ethnic labels does injustice to innocent Fulani pastoralists who are also victims—and equally does injustice to Hausa, Christian, and other communities who have suffered relentless attacks.
However, rejecting collective blame does not mean denying patterns, refusing investigation, or silencing those who speak out. Accountability is not hatred. Naming violence is not bigotry.
Silence Has Failed Nigeria
Perhaps the most powerful statement emerging from Hausa youth voices is simple but devastating: silence has helped no one.
Silence did not stop the killings.
Silence did not protect villages.
Silence did not secure farms or highways.
Silence did not bring justice to widows or displaced families.
If anything, silence emboldened criminals and weakened public trust.
This is why many Hausa Muslims now openly acknowledge that when Christians speak out against mass killings, they are right to do so—not because suffering is exclusive, but because injustice anywhere threatens everyone.
A Turning Point in Northern Political Consciousness
What Nigeria may be witnessing is not a regional backlash, but a shift in political awareness. A generation raised amid violence, displacement, and broken promises is less interested in protecting narratives and more interested in protecting lives.
They are asking harder questions:
Who benefits from silence?
Why are victims rarely named, but critics quickly attacked?
Why is truth always “divisive” but bloodshed “complex”?
These questions cut across religion and ethnicity—and that is precisely why they are uncomfortable.
Conclusion: Truth Is Not the Enemy
Speaking against mass killings is not an act of hostility. It is an act of responsibility. The attempt to punish public figures for acknowledging uncomfortable realities only deepens Nigeria’s credibility crisis.
Hausa voices rejecting religious manipulation are not betraying their faith or culture. They are defending its moral foundation.
And as more Nigerians—North and South—refuse to be divided by fear, one fact becomes unavoidable: Nigeria’s problem is not truth-tellers. It is the cost of ignoring them.
Silence helps no one.
Truth still matters.
And no amount of intimidation can permanently suppress it.
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