We have become a country with jesters at the helm of affairs and the consequences are the things we see now trying to eat us up. By the weekend when I was about to write this discourse, Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State, after a visit to the President, told Nigerians the President has solved Nigeria’s security challenge. He told them, “be grateful.” See the irony: the governor only few days before witnessed an attack on the convoy of the President in his state. He was also aware that only few days after the incident in his state, the main prison in the Federal Capital Territory, Kuje Correctional Centre, was successfully invaded by terrorists who after about three hours operation released all their cohorts detained in the facility.
He was the one thanking the President for a job so well done. Now that you have read this and you know the true situation of things, tell Nigerians what you call this kind of political behavior. Governor Masiri is not an ordinary Nigerian like me and most Nigerians reading this article. He was Speaker, House of Representatives before he became governor. Do you call his position falsification of facts, diversion of attention or sycophancy? If such a person can’t look another leader in the face and say, “Oga, truly we have serious problems in our hands,” how then can we develop a Nigeria that can be competitive in world affairs and where good life can be guaranteed our upcoming generation? This is the problem. Big challenge at that.
The trouble with us is that we have leaders who know the truth, know what should be done but blatantly refuse to walk that path. They know who a politician is and the difference between a statesman and a politician, they know a politician is transactional, especially in our kind of environment where politics has become a vocation instead of service. His instinct is quick and short, he wants things done in abhoc basis so he can gratiate his ego, service his hedonistic needs and make gains. So, his decisions are driven by convenience and expediency. Our leaders know statesmen think about survival and the future, so they are patient and sacrificial. Our leaders know these but they will always opt for the path of destruction, follow the easy way out and insist they don’t care about the consequences; those who meet the consequences can work out the solutions if they care or perish if that is the option they chose.
This kind of culture is primitive. It is wicked. It is shortsighted. It is Satanic. Wars fought in many parts of the world today are not because fate made it inevitable. No true, divine head has worked out good life for man but the way a few men have always come between its realization. Germany was doing very well when Hitler made himself and his thinking the state and began to reconfigure every institution in the thinking and view of one man. For something it looked like he was succeeding until destiny began to prove that in the race of life superior principles will always defeat the inferior. Hitler died but if he died alone with his girlfriend it would have been better, his misadventure brought ruins to Germany, the effect is still with them up till today.
Our small minds don›t know that the contradictions they raise in the garb of smart politics first contradict who they are, their standing in society, ideals of the larger society before destroying the larger society. If they knew, they won›t play evil music and dance to it. It is often absolving but in the end it renders useless and kills. The North has not been fair to the Nigerian dream. This is the truth. We agreed on federalism which they too subscribed to for independence to be possible. The military came and bardstardised the entire set up and process. The natural thing would have been to reorder things after the military left but because the North got advantages from the military dominated by her sons, it has given dead ears to a every proposal along that direction.
Peace and positive development have eluded us. Everywhere tension, above and sabotage. Yet, many of our leaders especially from the core North enjoy the current situation and insist it must be so. The liberals have said no and managed to extract some concessions, among which is rotation of the presidential seat between the North and South. It has been working, until when President Goodluck Jonathan tried to subvert it and was being pummeled left, right and centre. He couldn’t gain the support of his people because they felt it was the wrong thing to do. Now, February 2023 is round the corner, when the incumbent, a northerner will be ending his eight-year tenure. Ordinarily he should be succeeded by a Southerner from South East, but the music began to change. Some of our political leaders began to change the goal post painfully in the middle of the game.
Some said South East can›t be considered because of trust. «You can›t give presidency to people who want to secede,» they began to parrot. Fine point on the surface but hollow in logic. The country insist they can›t go their separate ways, implied is that they are entitled to their rights, except that some groups designated them as slaves, in secret. When you do that you have problems, since every human pushed to wall will definitely fight back with the last strength. The second point on the secession matter is that there are many Igbo in all political parties who subscribe to indivisibility of Nigeria. Are they not qualified to hold the reins power too? The ruling party says Igbo didn’t vote for them, yet the party controls two of the five states in the region and has friends in other parties ruling the other states. Governor Soludo worked on the economic team of President Buhari. This is a fact.
Southern governors agreed that the next president should come from the South. Still playing in the circle of smart politics they refused to say clearly it should be South East. Governor Nyesom Wike and Emmanuel Udom came out from South South not minding that their geopolitical zone had had its turn. This was a contradiction. It produced dire consequences. They are not talking to each other again. Governors like Okowa, Makinde and Ugwuanyi shouted ‘President of Southern’ extraction but worked for another northerner, a Fulani, to wrest the ticket of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the main opposition party. Okowa has since been crowned the Vice Presidential candidate and he has asked Igbo to wait for providence. The way of men.
Let me emphatically make this point but with a good conscience: «Atiku Abubakar ought not be a candidate at all in the next presidential poll after a northerner has just finished. His venture is destructive of flow in a deeply plural society. They say that is the only way to win power, his people would only vote their own. If this is the case what is the reason of the union?
Now on APC, the drama surrounding their National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu and the presidential nomination exercise confirms like PDP’s case northern elements in the party didn’t want power to shift. Adamu announced Senate President Ahmed Lawan as the “Consensus Presidential Candidate”. The attempt forced Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to go ethnic and to speak in Yoruba and to demand a return of favour extended to President Buhari. He told Buhari point blank, “without me you could not have become President.” Veiled in that is the war that would have followed, we know Tinubu has a great war chest.
Tinubu now did the unexpected for those who can’t read the signs by choosing another Muslim as his deputy, raising possibility of giving Nigeria a Muslim-Muslim President. Some have put the blame on Tinubu, but I don’t. Yes, he is a victim of deep ambition (“Being President of Nigeria has been my life ambition”), he is ready to do anything to realize this and those helping him know and are very happy to get through him all they want. It is part of the game plan to plant a Muslim President. In Tinubu it is achieved, the extra is Muslim Vice and the cycle will be complete and sealed. Tinubu is a victim. He needs help.
They the second objective for this is, «it is the only way to win Muslim nothern votes who are in majority.” This is giving in to convenience over principles. I don’t know about high voting even though I know votes largely have not represented actuality, some of us look forward to when electoral workers would be exchanged between the North and South. But even if I were to correct it, it means northern voters see their world begin and end with them. They alone can make a president. It also means political leaders in those regions have not done anything to change how their people view other Nigerians.
The northern Christians too are a footnote: that is the message, they are of no consequence. This is not only terrible it is very discriminatory. It is akin to a caste system. Those who made Tinubu announce his vice presidential choice in far away Daura, during Muslim festivity exposed their flanks and dirty, narrow objectives which do not align with a peaceful and progressive Nigeria. The Yoruba have been rubbished or how else does one explain that a Yoruba Muslim is not fully regarded as such by Muslim brothers up North. Reason of competence and emphasis on important programmes do not vitiate the fact religion and race are potent factors in politics everywhere including the so-called developed democracies. Question over the place of Blacks and Latinos is still a big matter in American democracy today and will still be tomorrow.
It is ridiculous when our leaders do their dirty schemings and come out to brand it, “Act of God.” God is not the author of confusion. We have a bad political culture generally, which favourably placed individuals are exploiting and making gains. Rather than work for its growth and peace, they work to promote retardation, disorder and conflicts. There is a contest of expansionism going on and that is the exact reason Buhari has never subscribed to any kind of dialogue with anyone or group. He and few misguided fellows from his region believe jackbooth forays will settle the struggle and win them advantage. In the short time yes, but in the long run they will lose all.
There can›t be development, peace and progress, if there is no equity, fairness, equal rights and justice. Above all, there is need for balance of forces. North doesn›t beg anyone to listen and thing right they just act so those pushing an agenda can see the consequences ahead of time. Christians have been too docile. Waiting for an electoral process whose sanctity none can guarantee, is to say the least foolish.