Thread by @DavidHundeyin

Whenever these Arewa supremacist types start threatening the rest of Nigeria, it's always the poverty of imagination for me.

If it's not "Your food is grown here" (which is not supported by any data), it's "We will kill you" (as if violence can't be reciprocated).

Sometimes it's "We outnumber you" (which is unsupported by data and is meaningless even if true because a large unskilled population is a liability and an existential security risk).

Now Garba has come with "We will blockade the Niger river."

Always low level and unimaginative

When the UK wanted to leave the EU, the arguments against it from the EU side included numbers and data - "You will lose x number of jobs and your economy will shrink by x billion pounds. You will also lose access to the world's largest and wealthiest single trading area."

I am waiting for Garba or those white bearded, bespectacled idiots at the Arewa Consultative Forum to ever put forth an argument that is similarly convincing, as against dumb threats that they have zero capacity to carry out.

I'm bored. Surprise me please!

You cannot speak for a region that is a net liability (argue with the data) by threatening the regions that are net contributors.

With what leverage are you making these threats? What can you ever do except the usual low level violence (against people who can't shoot back)?

If small Tompolo West decides today to grind all oil production in Nigeria to a halt for 6 months, no be starvation go kill una? Where is the only place in Nigeria where the World Food Agency has a disaster response program?

Why are you talking?