DR Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, Director of Publicity and Advocacy for the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), while featuring on a television programme this past week, said the Forum regretted supporting then candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, to oust the then incumbent, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, in the 2015 presidential election.
According to the NEF spokesperson, President Muhammadu Buhari had performed so poorly that even die-hard members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) were disappointed in him.
His words: “We raised huge expectations, we told people, ‘Get rid of Jonathan, put Buhari there, he would fix corruption, he would fix insecurity, he would fix the economy’ (but) look at where we are now.”
Given the level of bile and invective generated against Jonathan by northern elements and APC’s foot soldiers ahead of the 2015 election, this volte-face about Buhari and Jonathan should have earned Baba-Ahmed an epaulette. But just a few days before his television appearance, the same Baba-Ahmed, while delivering a keynote address at the maiden Maitama Sule Leadership Lecture Series, organised by the students wing of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, had said because the North had the population advantage, it would go for the presidency in 2023.
According to him, “We have the majority of the votes and democracy says vote who you want. Why should we accept second class position when we know we can buy form and contest for first class and we will win?”
The North’s current agitation for the presidency is despite the fact that by 2023, the region, through President Buhari, would have occupied the highest office in the land for eight years. It is also despite the brazen nepotism of the present administration which has tilted most of the juicy appointments in the country in favour of the North and has made other regions aliens to the common patrimony. The agitation is also in spite of the gentleman’s agreement among the political class to swing the presidency between the North and South.
Without a shadow of doubt, Baba-Ahmed spoke the minds of the Northern establishment about 2023. Many northern political actors from the two major parties are not secretive about their plan to succeed a fellow northerner in 2023. While the heaven may not fall should a northerner succeed President Buhari in 2023, such eventuality would widen the cracks in the country, exacerbate the fault lines and further weaken the nation’s cohesion.
But unfortunately, as scary as that scenario appears, the North would rather have that than lose its hold on power. Many northerners believe the relevance of their region in the Nigerian equation is tied to their closeness to power. The reason is founded on the pre-independence belief that since the Easterners controlled the economy and the Westerners had the education advantage, political power should go to the North for there to be a balance in the country. President Buhari still alluded to this during his recent visit to Imo State when he said, “The evidence is there for everyone to see that Igbos are in charge of the economy.”
The dominant thinking in the North is that should the region let go of power in 2023, northerners would have to play the second fiddle for the subsequent eight years. Being out of power, which translates to being unable to dispense political favours, being unable to make policies that would subjugate other regions to the North and confer undue advantage on northerners, as well as not having unfettered access to the nation’s coffers is incomprehensible to northerners. So, they will do anything and everything to hold on to power.
This is the rationale behind the recent poaching of opposition governors and lawmakers from other regions to concretise their advantage because they know that without the support of pliable and buyable politicians from other regions, their Hope 2023 would be dashed. This is also why the North and APC have been idolising Jonathan who they demonised just six years ago. So, anyone who believes that Baba-Ahmed is sincere about the compliments paid Jonathan would believe anything. The man himself does not believe what he said. He had to say what he said as part of the North’s strategy to hoodwink the rest of the country to hold on to power beyond 2023.
I have no doubt that the North will push as much as possible to see if they can get away with the plan to plant a northerner as President Buhari’s successor in 2023. But despite its acclaimed population advantage, the region does not have the final say on the matter unless the rest of the country wants it. And that is the big question: Is the South determined to have the presidency in 2023 or are those jostling for it merely doing so to have a fighting chance for the vice presidency? While there is no doubt what the North really wants, it is not clear what the South really wants. That is the real issue.
The South’s indecisiveness about the 2023 presidency is the real edge that could keep the presidency in the North beyond 2023.
Your view
Re-Debt: The destructive attraction
One cannot but appreciate and eulogise you for your write-up in your column of last Sunday Tribune, titled “Debt: The destructive attraction”. Right from the combination of the words in the title – “debt”/”attraction”/”destructive” – and all through the piece, it is a well articulated clarion call to those in power, at both federal and state levels, to ruminate deeply and desist from taking the people of this country on a peonage voyage, as it were!
The last two sentences of the piece are most ardent and piercing, i.e. “The time to stop the excessive borrowing is now. Otherwise, the memory of the present generation of Nigerian rulers by the future generations of Nigerians would invoke not joy, but sadness; not pride, but regret; not prayer but curses”.
My brother, we can only pray that the powers-that-be would not shrug it off with “who cares”, and turn it to the case of the Yoruba saying, “Ake̩yin-si abiyamo̩ ko gbo̩ e̩kun mo̩”, that is, the case of “A mother that turns her back, to prevent hearing the cries of her child”!!
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