POLITICAL IMPERATIVE FOR THE NORTHERN ELITE MOST NORTHERNERS - TopicsExpress



          

POLITICAL IMPERATIVE FOR THE NORTHERN ELITE MOST NORTHERNERS DID NOT AGREE WITH THIS VIEWS OF THE SADUANA OF SOKOTO. THEREFORE, DID NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS ALL NORTHERNERS......Paffcomm Nwachukwu Aniagolu As we approach yet another election in Nigeria’s fourth republic, the rhetoric from all sections of Nigeria, especially that which pertains to the bearings of our nation’s North-South divide on the election, remains a sad reminder of how long we have to go in the task of nation building and how much damage the antics of some of the so-called founding fathers have had on the collective psyche of Nigeria’s political elite. Specifically, the “venerable” Sir Ahmadu Bello (to quote Sam Nda-Isaiah, owner and publisher of Leadership), the premier of the Northern region during Nigeria’s First Republic was perhaps the originator and chief architect of this warped psyche to which so many of our contemporary northern ‘politrickcians’ subscribe. This article examines the impact of Sir Ahmadu Bello’s political ideology on that of many of our modern day political elite from the North, the impact of that ideology on the current state of political affairs in the country as we approach the political crossroads of the 2015 elections and the paradigm shift that is required by them to sustain our national unity. To understand the relevance of Sir Ahmadu Bello’s ideology on contemporary northern Nigerian political thinking, we need to evaluate some of the fundamental notions that he implanted in their collective consciousness. The first notion was that the northern Nigerians needed to contain the restive ambition of their southern counterparts. For Ahmadu Bello, the southerners in general and the Igbo in particular, simply needed to be curtailed, given their unquenchable thirst for and relentless pursuit of self-improvement, acquisition of knowledge, education, material wealth and overall socio-economic upward mobility. The second notion was that the feudal and strict hierarchical social stratification of northern Nigeria needed to be maintained at all costs, and protected from the influence of the republican, egalitarian and infidel, i.e. (mostly) Christianised, South. The third notion was that the only way the North (as a political entity) could thrive within the modern construct of Nigeria was through control of political power (in some respects, to ‘counter’ the socio-economic ‘domination’ by the South) and use of this control to skew the allocation ofNigeria’s resources in favor of their small but powerful clique. In a famous interview with a British journalist, (youtube/watch?v=8y1Zpk4DrlA), the late Sir Ahmadu Bello’s responses provide hard evidence of the foregoing notions. First, in response to a request from the journalist for Sir Ahmadu Bello to explain the “…obsession…” that northern Nigerians seemed to have with the Igbos, he states as follows: “…well, the Igbos are the sort of people, whose desire is mainly to dominate everybody. If they go to a village; to a town, they want to monopolise everything in that area. If you put them in a labour camp as a labourer, within a year, they’ll try to emerge as head man of that camp, and so on. Well in the past, our people were not alive to their responsibilities; because, as you can see from our northernisation policy, that in 1952 when I came here, there weren’t 10 northerners in the civil service here…and I tried to have it northernised and now all important posts are being held by northerners.” Next, in response to a follow-up question from the journalist on whether this policy of filling all key posts in northern Nigeria solely with northerners and not with other Nigerians, was temporary or permanent, Sir Ahmadu Bello responded as follows: “In actual fact, what it is, is a northerner first. If you can’t get a northerner, then we take an expatriate like yourself on contract. If we can’t then we can employ another Nigerian but on contract, too. This is going to be permanent, I should say, for as far as I can foresee; because it would be rather dangerous to see the number of boys we are now turning from all our learning institutions coming out (and) having no work to do. I’m sure that whichever government of the day might be rather embarrassed and it might even lead to bloodshed.” His response to the next follow-up question, on whether this permanent northernisation policy doesn’t do damage to the idea of all people in all regions in Nigeria being fellow citizens of one country, sums up the Sarduana’s thinking: “…well it might but you are new to our region – how many northerners are employed in the East or in the West? The answer is (none), and if there are any, there may be 10 labourers employed only, in the two regions.” The foregoing excerpts speak volumes about the late Sarduana’s ideology: his true attitude to the notion of ‘one Nigeria’; his shallow and somewhat petty fixation on the relationship between northern Nigerians and southern Nigerians (I say petty given how his priorities come across when juxtaposed with burning issues of the time within the wider context of colonisation, the struggle for Africa’s independence and the emancipation of people of the African diaspora throughout the world). The excerpts also expose his lack of a sense of natural justice; in his diatribe against the Igbo, no relevance is accorded to the concepts of hard work, equal opportunity and merit. It appears that he had given little or no thought to the reasons behind the so-called domination of the civil service of northern Nigeria by the southerners or the Igbos up to 1952 and to the consequences that implementing the northernisation policy (as conceived by him) would later have on the political and socio-economic development of the north – many of which northern Nigeria is still grappling with today. The excerpts also provide critical insight into the ideological backdrop against which the thinking of many of northern Nigeria’s current political elite is currently set. It explains why Sam Nda-Isaiah, an aspiring opposition presidential candidate under the APC, indicated, during a recent question and answer session on twitter (#ASKSAM),that “Federal Character is needed to build a nation”! It also explains why in one of his (many) implicitly and explicitly vituperative articles and speeches against the current (southern led) administration – in this case, a speech delivered during the first City People monthly lecture on Sunday, August 17, 2014 (leadership.ng/columns/381319/moving-nigeria-forward-lessons-malaysia-singapore-china-dubai), he essentially implies that General Yakubu Gowon, who he credited for “…prosecuting the civil war, and keeping Nigeria one…” and the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, who he credited for “…bringing together the nearly 200 diverse and disparate tribes of the North, irrespective of religion, to live in peace and harmony…”, were Nigeria’s best leaders past! It also explains why Adams Abonu, in his article: The Clamour for Jonathan to Seek Re-election Reminds One of the Abacha Years (ekekeee/adams-abonu-clamour-jonathan-seek-re-election-reminds-one-abacha-years/) attempts to draw parallels between Jonathan’s re-election bid and Sani Abacha’s perpetuation bid! It explains the indifference of the Noethern Elders Forum and the Arewa Consultative Forum during the shameful shenanigans around the swearing in of the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President when President Yar’Adua was clearly incapacitated. It alsoexplains multiple statements from them on various issues – the ‘unfairness’ of the 2015 re-election bid of President Jonathan; the ‘sanctity’ of the zoning and rotation principles; the ‘dangers’ of state police; the undesirability of a national conference (sovereign or otherwise); the ‘sanctity’ of the 1999 Constitution (with all its aberrations);and their wild-eyed, finger wagging reactions to Chief Festus Odimegwu’s denunciation of past censuses in Nigeria, to mention a few. Finally, it explains the tacit and active support that the northern political elite gave to the wave of controversial enactments of Sharia Law in northern states during President Obasanjo’s administration, and are now surreptitiously giving to the current Boko Haram activities. The Sarduana’s interview, over 50 years ago, explains it all. Having established the three vexatious notions crippling the political imagination of the northern political elite, it is now appropriate to discuss the political imperatives for the north in the run-up to 2015, within the wider context of Nigeria’s current political atmosphere and the impact thereof on our nation’s fragile democracy. The first imperative is for the North’s political elite (including but not limited to the likes of Nda Isaiah, Kwankwaso, Atiku, Balewa, Lamido, Aliyu, and principals of the ACF and NEF) to realise that the foregoing notions inspired by the thinking of the late Sir Ahmadu Bello were and continue to be false. Not only did those notions (and the political interests, strategies and positions fueled by them) make Sir Ahmadu Bello one of the greatest enemies of Nigeria’s independence struggle (in contrast with Nigeria’s true ‘independence fighters’, such as Herbert Macauly, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kenneth Mbadiwe and Anthony Enaharo), they have actively undermined all subsequent efforts towards true nation building. The first notion, i.e. that the northern political elites need to contain the restive ambition of their southern counterparts, underscores the unfortunate inferiority complex that is embedded in the way that many northern elites view the south. Part of this is as a result of the impact of indirect rule, which was most fully implemented in northern Nigeria. Indirect rule, via the north’s Sultan and Emir Caliphate system, shielded the northern elite from the wind of rapid modernisation that had been experienced in the South and from the impact of a new, merit-based social order. The dismantling of the pre-colonial social order (based on traditional governance structures) and the emergence of a new elite, based on their success in western education and or modern businesses), had taken place to a far less extent in the North, than it had in the South at that time. This resistance to the emergence of the new order, the sustenance of the old conservative ‘blue bloods’ (of whom Sir Ahmadu Bello was very much part of) and the aversion for fair competition with hitherto ‘commoners’ (northern and southern) who now had opportunities for upward mobility under the new order, created the conditions for the subsequent fear of southern republican, egalitarian progressivism. This fear, along with the second notion, (i.e., that the feudal system of the North had to be maintained to as large extent as possible) led to a perceived need to contain that progressivism in order to maintain social and political relevance. The third notion, (i.e., relating to the need to control political power and the use of that power to allocate resources and positions of authority) is what has led to the current desperate clamour for rotation of the presidency, despite its obvious absurdity, and the general hostility towards any renegotiation of the principles and framework of Nigeria’s unity in general or of the (northern scripted) 1999 Constitution in particular. It has distracted the North from what ought to be their mantras for 2015 – one person one vote; and let the best candidate win. Instead, the statements that dominate the current narrative are along the lines of how “…in the interest of national unity, the presidency should return to the North…” etc. How sad! While many southerners are not necessarily ardent supporters of President Jonathan (I, for instance, voted for Buhari during the 2011 elections), they reject the idea that the basis of asking Jonathan not to run in 2015 should have anything to do with what part of the country he comes from, rather than how judiciously (or not) he has performed his presidential duties since being elected in 2011. I personally reject the idea that Nigeria’s presidency should rotate between the North and the South as I do not see how it can ever contribute to national unity or national development. On the contrary, it will continue to emphasise the North-South divide, fuel suspicion between the two regions whenever one region’s ‘turn’ is truncated for any reason, and will keep in the forefronts of our mind, the issues of religion and ethnicity. The second imperative for 2015 is that the northern political elite should be acutely aware that southerners in general, and people of the Southwest and the Niger Delta in particular, are exasperated and frustrated with what many of them see as a forced marriage between a beautiful, fertile, industrious and progressive southern wife and a reckless, abusive, bitter,dependent and retrogressive northern husband. This exasperation is palpable in the commentary from Ochereome Nnanna in an article published in the October 2, 2014, edition of Vanguard, titled: What is “North’s” Plan B? (vanguardngr/2014/10/norths-plan-b/) where he states: “Ango Abdullahi and his cohorts were given free education and pampered like princes while at school… It was this class of northern elite that wrecked the country, its economy and institutions set up by the colonial masters and post-independence leaders. Like parasitic cankerworms, they ate down federal parastatals, such as the Railways, Shipping Line, Nigeria Airways, Ajaokuta Steel, Alscon, NITEL, NIPOST, among others, until they were either scrapped or sold off for pennies under questionable privatisation programmes. Back home in the North, they appropriated all the money and power they derived from their dominance of the Federal Government to themselves, friends and family members and produced a tiny core of super-billionaires, with their children attending the best schools in the world”. The exasperation also explains the counterintuitive but widespread southern support for President Goodluck Jonathan over General Muhammadu Buhari during the 2011 elections, despite an unremarkable track record of performance as Nigeria’s Vice President, Bayelsa State Governor and Bayelsa State Deputy Governor, and the continued(albeit somewhat less enthusiastic) southern support for his 2015 re-election bid. Many southerners, with whom I debated at the time, were unabashed in admitting that they were voting for Jonathan primarily to send a message to North politicians that the presidency is not their birth right. The 2011 electoral landslide victory for President Jonathan in the South represented its rejection of what was perceived to be the northern fixation on leadership rather than an affirmation of the South’s confidence in President Jonathan. The frustration of the South manifested again during the recently concluded National Conference, with their agitation for resource control (or at least greater allocation to oil and mineral producing states), state police, the creation of more states in the South, and against many of the bastions of Nigeria’s current political framework that are perceived to have been deliberately and unfairly engineered by the northern political elite.What do these, and other mainstream opinions in the South, mean for Nigeria as a nation and for the northern political elite as key stakeholders in it? They are pointers to a growing southern dissatisfaction with the current state of development of the country in general and in the southern states in particular. More importantly, they are pointers to a perceived linkage between that underdevelopment and structural deficiencies in Nigeria’s brand of federalism (as captured in the1999 constitution) and an increasing affinity to the idea of a breakup of the country. A breakup of Nigeria could spell doom for the north (at least in the short term) and if the northern political elite have any sense of longevity, their immediate priority should be forestalling such a development by making painful but necessary compromises in their current posture on many of the foregoing national issues. The North’s politicians should not be clamouring for a return of the presidency to the North in 2015 (at least, not in the interest of equity, given that they have enjoyed 12 years of democratic leadership and close to 25 years or dictatorial rule of Nigeria). Rather, they should be clamouring for better governance and leadership in 2015 (regardless of where it emerges from); and they should be clamouring for one man, one vote; one woman, one vote; one youth, one vote in 2015. In the larger scheme of issues germane to Nigeria’s long term unity, the prospect of however many additional years of further consecutive southern rule that may or may not occur pales into insignificance (especially, given the iron-clad protections in favour of northern political interests, such as Federal Character, that are currently embedded in the 1999 constitution). The current narrative for northern politicians is a belief that the imperative for 2015 is to regain power from the South at all costs and using whatever tactics that can be mustered in pursuit of this. They’ve missed the point! They should rather be focused on keeping Nigeria together, and on the necessary paradigm shifts that must take place within their political ideology to facilitate that primary objective, so that there will be a country for them to lead in 2019, 2023, 2027 (or whenever Nigerians willingly vote them back into power). They should be focused on reappraising and resuscitating the failed education systems and centre-dependent economies of the northern states and they should not be ashamed to ask their southern brethren for assistance in doing so. For once, the northern political elite should believe in, and truly practice, the “One Nigeria”mantra that they so frequently preach! https://facebook/groups/paff.789/ Paffcomm paffcomm
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 05:39:03 +0000

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