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One of two issues dominating political discussions currently is the return of the President-Elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to the country. Nigerians are very happy that he is back after spending 34 days abroad. He looked healthier which is good news.
May I quickly add that I don›t support medical tourism abroad by anybody, more so our leaders. It is a trend that rubbishes a race, a country from different dimensions and perspectives. No evidence confirms disorganization and underdevelopment of the worst kind more than this. The view of two sovereignties, one under another, ugly sight we see when our presidents go to England or any other country to lie down in a corner, is simply put nauseating and very humiliating indeed. Great races don›t toe this line, they work hard to stay independent, create organisations and institutions that produce systems and keep their dignity. It ought to be so in our case. The coming months could be challenging in this regard. Back to point at hand.
The second matter has to do with expectations from the new government by the Nigerian people and the world at large. Remember, Nigeria by size and population is strategic to world affairs. Would the Bola Tinubu administration offer the country a new lease of life? Could we be on way back to our status as the Giant of Africa?
Does Tinubu understand the enormity of the challenge at hand? Is he equipped enough in terms of knowledge? Tinubu has said he will continue with the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administrative trajectory. The question has been if he would continue with a cabinet of nearly average people? How about a governance paradigm which has seen the country more divided than it has ever been since we became an independent country. It is on this account a lot of Nigerians think while merit driven system is ideal, sense of belonging seems a far more important factor now.
The prevailing thinking is that competent hands abound in almost every family today, across the country. A leader needs broad-mindedness and ability to defy selfish advisers and look a little farther away from one›s immediate constituency to pick a winning team. President Buhari failed this test woefully. So far, Tinubu has not shown signs he intends to take a different path. The crowd around him is yet to show Southeast would be in for a better deal this time. It is the desire for national unity and greater sense of belonging that the question of who leads in the National Assembly has become a very interesting matter.
The desire is moving from interest to tribal contestation. Zones that should look away are looking-in. The war of supremacy, always veiled, is there walking on all fours. The North that always dominate power is having a field day. It is in control; the conservative block has cemented its hold on power by concretizing their alliance with the West with the throw up of a Yoruba indigene as President shortly after General Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba too had been elected twice. This act tends to give credence to fears that the two divides intend to work to keep power at the commanding and do what they want with it, and it wouldn’t matter. This won’t help anyone at all. Lack of accepted consensus would at any time throw up convolutions.
The other thing would be the Fulani oligarchy, clever as usual, have averted national resentment on a large scale by crafty political engineering. The Yoruba can’t produce President of Nigeria twice in near close succession and still fancy idea of troubling the country for any reason. Tinubu is a bounded president, many may not see this but it is true so restructuring which his people have always demanded is technically given a knockout. It will be kept in abeyance, those who doubt will soon see. As it is today, the North is very happy, and the Yoruba should be too all through the season except things go awry as many fear. Political intrigue is indeed very high, those who have eyes know this much. If the stream doesn’t get muddled, they will keep their smiles. The rest especially Southeast that is the only very distinctive group with very large population are by current permutations left hanging. They seem outside the calculations which may seem very unfortunate. We have recently had a minority president in the person of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Ndigbo desire is to have the chance to rule from the seat of the President of Nigeria. They have pursued the ambition very seriously, but the constraints remain very huge. The Igbo want Nigeria and hold the record as citizens with highest investments outside their region. A visible measure of their commitment to the New Nigeria many envisage. Yet, it is as if Nigeria is not ready for them. The thinking in some corners is that they fought a war of secession, were defeated and the defeated ought not to be considered full citizens with all the rights. The small group insists Igbo must be viewed with suspicion and given a pariah status. It would seem a national policy, though unwritten, is in place.
Civil War ended over 50 years ago, yet despite the industrious nature of the Igbo people the area has remained the most underdeveloped. Federal presence is near zero. The people are economically squeezed. The group remains the most attacked whenever “real Nigerians” feel they must get angry and vent their spleen. In the eight years of Buhari regime it would seem the Igbos committed another act of felony very recently. The marginalization grew to another level. These put together make reasonable Nigerians urge the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the President-Elect to pay greater attention to the question of national unity by doing things very differently. There is a demand on all sections to be participants in governance of the country.
One good way to begin is the spread of critical offices in the land across the different groups that make up the union. The call has become very stringent in the last few days when viewed against the fact that our incoming president and his deputy are both Muslims. This configuration obviously adds to the mix. The leadership in the National Assembly should go to Southeast and a Christian and if this is taken the lot should naturally fall on Senator Orji Uzor Kalu.
Some of reasons I have enunciated earlier in portions of this discourse, the rest I will now state. Bringing in Southeast will produce a rich and rewarding salutary effect. After the Yoruba, Igbo remains the biggest group in the South. Like the Yoruba and the core North, Ndigbo have this influence that spreads very far beyond their immediate environment. Those pushing for the South-South Senate Presidency on the grounds Tinubu is a godfather to Senator Godswill Akpabio miss the point. Orji Kalu and Tinubu have been pals even before the advent of civil administration in 1999. They have fought serious political battles together. Both are political icons in their zones. What is more, South-South just recently ran a presidency that lasted all of six years. That Presidency received the highest backing from South-East to the point many outside the Eastern flank thought Igbo were politically unwise.
So, given where the country is today and what is required to build a strong, virile country, Southeast becomes the point. The other would be the candidacy of Orji Kalu would assuage the Igbo and the adjourning zones to an extent and deal decisively with the challenge posed by deficit of trust on Igbo for no apparent good reason. If some Igbo want a separate country, which is the foundation on which the fear rests, it should gladden the hearts of pro-Nigeria ones among the same Igbo who believe that Nigeria as presently constituted is the best gift God gave to Nigerians and the Black world.
The power managers, I nearly referred to them as manipulators, have a cardinal responsibility to promote such examples of unity and market them as beacons of hope for the rest of their kind who have ran and still do run with different ideas. People make a society and then create a country from it and finally build a nation from both society and country. Making of a nation is no easy task. America with all its glory is still battling with the challenge of race integration more than 240 years after independence. This doesn›t mean ours should take similar long time, no, we have history to make us avoid old pitfalls.
Critics say Kalu has no vision. What is vision and what is development? Big vision is great but that is not all that is important in an evolutionary kind of process. What is, is ability to join people together and influence them to move as one unit towards positive actions.
Vision sometimes is not personal it could sprout from others around but good enough Kalu I know has great vision about Nigeria. He is detribalized. He is one person from Southeast that knows how to engage his people, speak their language and create a consensus. He has ability to walk through people of diverse races and aspirations and make them work harmoniously for their good and betterment of the general whole. This is what we require most today.
My final advice to Bola Tinubu and his party: a new Nigeria is very possible where vision reigns, everybody irrespective of tribe, religion or party affiliation are carried along. We urgently need a national consensus. That a particular area didn’t vote for a winning party shouldn’t arise again. Once elections are over, partisanship ought to die a natural death and pure governance takes over. When people advice this group is hostile and back and the other excellent, what we should know is when all people piss out and only one person insists on pissing in, a point comes when the atmosphere is so fouled up and unsafe for anybody’s use. Our country has turned very hostile because a few unpatriotic fellows ran with the faulty idea they could be all and all. See, where we are today. Who likes it?
