I have had to change the headline from Buhari and Nigeria’s future because it gives the wrong impression that restructuring the country and changing from presidential to the parliamentary system of government are matters within President Muhammadu Buhari’s power to implement. When all he can do is present a bill on the issues to the National Assembly, which along with at least 24 of the 36 – State Houses of Assembly can amend the constitution with two – thirds majority to bring about the new order. In other words, it is the president and the legislators, especially the latter, that should be urged to act on the transformation agenda.
I am writing this to provide evidence for Buhari and the members of the National and State Assemblies to know why they should take seriously the advice of patriotic Southerners and a few from the North that the country should be restructured and returned to parliamentary system of government. From the perilous and bloody situation in the last seven years and which has been worsening year after year it should be clear to our leaders that if they do not act soon that our beloved country may break up one day in the nearest future, rather than in the furthest or distant tomorrow.
In the 2nd Republic it was the Maitasine Islamic uprising, now it is Boko Haram. In the late 1960s it was Biafra secession, now it is Niger Delta and Igbo militancy asking for fair – deal or the independence of their people. Even if the present agitations are suppressed, without restructuring other groups will come up.
Indeed, if care is not taken we can’t rule out military seizure of power sooner than later. Or as in Ghana in 1979 when they brought back Flt. Lt. Jerry Rawlings from detention to be Head of State, they may do away with the Assemblies and ask Buhari to remain as the head of their government and continue with his war against corruption. And the Western countries will back him because they support his present effort to sanitize Nigeria. Or because Nigerians have been pushed to the wall instead of military takeover it could as in Russia in 1917 and China in 1949 be a people’s revolution that may occur in which as was the case in the two countries past and present leaders, frontline politicians, top civil servants and senior military officers alike, will be brought to book, with some of them executed for corruption.
Those who have been reading this column since 2010 when I began writing about God’s attitude to Nigeria know that I am a servant He has been revealing things to about the country since 1993. They know that Nigeria would not have been unstable in the last 23 years if late Chief Moshood Abiola had not joked with the Lord’s message I conveyed to him in May 1993 and which caused the June 12 presidential election of that year which he won to be annulled eleven days later.
Such long – time readers also know that the unending tragedies which have been plaguing the country since 2010 would not have been if General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the then Military Head of State, had not ignored the Lord’s message I delivered to him in April 1999. Which was that he should get 41 Muslim clerics in each of the 36 states in the country to fast and pray for seven days reading the Holy Qur’an from chapter one to the last chapter every day before handing over power the following month to the elected president. They also know that the Peoples Democratic Party would not have been in trouble today and the uprisings and chaos in the country in the last five years would not have been, if President Goodluck Jonathan had heeded the advice I gave in this column in June 2010 not to seek re – election in 2011, but wait until 2015.
How I wished that the leaders and members of the Action Congress of Nigeria who abandoned their party’s presidential candidate, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, to vote for Jonathan had accepted my plea to back Buhari in 2011. To God be the glory that Mr. Okudaye in Mandala, Niger State phoned me last month, on July 4 bringing back to memory what he called my prophetic column of January 2, 2013 on Jonathan’s destiny misconceptions, which reflected on my advice to him in June 2010.
To be continued next week Wednesday.
The 4 major tribes & Nigeria’s problem
I have had to alter the title of Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, not Yoruba, are Nigeria’s problem to this one to save space. I suspended the series three weeks ago after telling the story that National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) dominated by the Igbos was in alliance with the Hausa and Fulani dominated ruling Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) and that they formed the Federal Government in power from Saturday, October 1, 1960 – Friday, January 14, 1966.
I am continuing the series today with the two parties move against Chief Obafemi Awolowo, their common foe. When the Action Group (AG) crisis broke out in 1962 they supported Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, the Premier of the Western Region and Deputy Leader of the AG, when he was expelled from the party. Akintola formed the United Peoples Party (UPP).
The NCNC which was the leading opposition party in the Western Regional House of Assembly went into alliance with the UPP and through it the two parties had the majority in parliament and as a result Akintola was able to remain as Premier while the NCNC’s Leader of Opposition, Chief Remi Fani – Kayode, who decamped from the AG in 1960, became the Deputy Premier. The NCNC teamed up with the UPP to avenge what it called Awo’s tribal politics in 1951 which deprived its leader, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe the opportunity of becoming the Head of Government in the Yoruba – dominated Western Region. According to the NCNC it had secured an alliance with the Ibadan Peoples Party led by Chief Meredith Adisa Akinloye to form the government since the AG did not win enough seats to do so.
More on it next week