As I settled down to write what you are reading, the lyrics of one of the songs of iconic musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti came into my mind. The part of lyrics of interest goes like this: “…na truth I want talk again,” which implied that he was saying the whole truth. I have said it several times on this page that we have gotten to the point in our national life where truth is the most essential thing we need for our healing.
In more than 60 years of independence, it has been the norm to keep lying, double speak and carry on with deceits. We keep piling up contradictions; we forget when contradictions attend height they turn into the society’s albatross. They release factors that turn the people upside down and destroy the society itself. This is why our leaders and the rest of us must be careful about the things we do.
Thrones and destinies are preserved by secrets and codes, so I would keep what am about to disclose to myself but I take liberty to reveal I planned to discuss is the need for a new Constitution today. One of the many aberrations troubling us today is the faulty constitution, of course, initiated by a section of northerner elite in power at some critical time in the life of our country. The document as it is today is a bundle of contradictions. It is a provoker of hate. Let’s take just one example: it prescribes secularity of the Nigerian state in one breath and yet makes space for Sharia Muslim law at another side. Leaders who disturb everybody with the assertion that the unity of the country was non-negotiable canvassed for it and did everything to get their way around opposition to its inclusion. Few days ago a “Nigerian” under a secular constitution was sentenced to 24 years imprisonment for blasphemy.
I will definitely return to the matter perhaps next week. For today, I move the motion that we should have an agreement that will make the North, North West zone in particular, to rule the country in perpetuity. The arrangement will save us from many things truncating development in our space. It will clear acrimonies that pervade the land each time election period is around the corner; it will deal a death blow to naked manipulation of power which tends to downgrade one race while lifting another. The arrangement has capacity to banish lying and prevent us from wasting our time walking round the same mountain for years on end.
What our experience has shown so far is that it is far easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a southerner to become president of Nigeria. Our history is full of rich and relevant examples: Nnamdi Azikiwe led the struggle for independence; he did everything to accommodate the North which was hesitant about self-rule. When the chips were down, he was cajoled out of the powerful position of Prime Minister and a reluctant candidate from the North got it on the altar of threats. When Aguiyi-Ironsi came in it was circumstances beyond anyone’s control that took him up yet he didn’t last. Worse still, he was killed in the most abominable manner. We hear he was tiedd to a Land Rover jeep and dragged along Ibadan streets.
Jack Jacob Gowon, a Christian from the North was thrown up following intrigues hatched by northerners. Knowing his place, he quickly changed names to the more tribal Yakubu, throwing away Jack and Jacob, taking on the more “appropriate” local version. He was smart and lasted all of nine years and wanted to stay even more. Within the period of his reign he demolished the country’s inherited legacies, cancelled out regions not minding that our country is a deeply plural society, and replaced them with states. His successors created local governments to satisfy the initiators, placate wives and girlfriends and to satisfy group interest.
Military commanders, mainly of northern extraction did all their coups and took the leadership position except for an Obasanjo who like Ironsi happened by chance. His northern benefactors have told us how courage failed Obasanjo when they told him after the assassination of the Head of State, General Muritala Muhammad, he as number two would succeed his boss. Who wouldn’t fear especially if one knew very well that power resided elsewhere. Obasanjo as a surrogate knew the group that had the power. Telling us about “cowardly” Obasanjo was designed to rub in the message that there exists two classes of people in country: first and second class citizens. Buhari came for two years, then Babangida for all of eight years. And Abacha came too. Abiola came, won the election but they said he could see the throne but won’t sit on it. He died in nasty circumstances.
Knowing that slaves can get angry and bite, the northern political establishment went to prison and pulled out their favoured chap, Obasanjo, who already had said he was tired of the country’s power set up. They made him sign agreement – at least that is what they told us, to serve only one term. What a humiliation. It was from Obasanjo’s time we began hearing of signing of a bond before a southerner can be president. When it was clear he would not stick to the agreement, the northerners pulled the Sharia joker. States under their sphere of influence began showing preference for Islamic laws. Imagine that in a supposed secular country.
Then came Umaru Yar’Adua into national consciousness. Without even saying he wanted to be President, yet he was prevailed on to become president. The man wasn’t known anywhere beyond his provincial enclave yet no one gave him condition he must visit Southeast or any other place for that matter, where he wasn’t known at all to give lectures, build churches, schools and feed the poor. He made the top job easily even with a terminal disease that later took his life. Compare this to what Abiola did and now Bola Tinubu and the rest of them from the south looking to be president of Nigeria. Tinubu had been to Kaduna to give a lecture where he nearly fell of his feet. Last week, he went back to Kaduna on condolence and gave N50 million to victims of terror attacks.
Yar’Adua got terribly sick and proxies began to rule on his behalf. It was obviously a bad precedent but guess what, nobody found it abnormal, so long as it was a northerner, it was right. When he died his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, from the minority South-South zone was told in plain language he couldn’t ascend the throne. It took placating, an agreement to serve out the term and go and of course a “Doctrine of Necessity” by the National Assembly to get him, the Vice President to succeed his boss. Isn’t this terrible?
Instead of the situation reversing for good it is getting worse. The sense of entitlement is gaining fervency. One ordinary northern in an interview last weekend told us bluntly: “A northerner must succeed Buhari, if it must be a southerner we must find one who will do our bidding.” As I read that my mind recalled Jonathan who couldn’t do anything for his people but worked to satisfy the north yet… As the next general election approaches, northerners are running with different views about what should happen. Many say it is time to run on merit but they limit its application only to the presidential seat, leaving out other areas thereby exposing narrow interest. The two main parties are not helping matters either. They prevaricate on rotation forgetting that predictability is a cardinal component of credible polls. Last week did the People Democratic Party, PDP, threw the search for a presidential candidate open. It tallies with what the northern elements in the party want.
If we were into nation building, the South East producing the next president of Nigeria would have been a settled matter, but that is not what we are into. We are into grabbing and rolling so it isn’t so. The All Progressives Congress, APC, that subverted processes to gain two states in the South East still believes the area is not qualified to produce a president; PDP for which Ndigbo made enemies now says it is no longer zoning the presidential seat to any area, simply because the same forces from the North that abandoned the party in 2015 and made it lose the presidential seat have declared their supporters won’t vote for any person outside North. The subjugated have since accepted. For the sake of peace let us reach a written agreement ceding permanent rulership to the North. This arrangement will give us peace and development, this much the god of Pastor Tunde Bakare laid in my soul.