Happy New Year dear reader. This is a sincere wish and one honest desire. However, the year 2025 doesn›t seem to have teed off on such a hilarious note as the defunct 2024 did in her very early days. The year 2024 started with ‹No gree for anybody› and all the embellishments that slogan attracted and distributed. It was as hilarious as it was a confusing message. People, in actual fact, took what suited them about the mantra – both literally and otherwise – and ran with them.
The year 2025 has not given us her own catchphrase yet. The year is still pregnant and the waiting world is all ears, waiting to hear what news. A lot of Nigerians are still on the lookout, many waiting to exhale as soon as one singsong hits their eardrums. But some have advised that we shouldn›t hurry 2025, that she is still too young and tender and unassuming – typical of babies – to tell us anything yet. Some others, on the other hand, have argued that 2025 is already running late and that she is gradually being left behind by her peers. Their argument? Toddlers are found everywhere in schools nowadays and that their parents, guardians or minders in such schools do everything to prove that your young child is actually supposed to be able to ‘do certain things by now.’ This school is of the opinion that our four-day-old year is running late already.
However, one thing is pushing up in the horizon: The year 2027 is racing towards us in a way that is too fast for our easy control. Those who want to hasten us to a rash decision on the politics of the next dispensation are so keen that they appear to have a plan to use our decision in the heat of their pressure to attack us and possibly violate us. It is commonplace to end up the victim of that which you have become through popular pressure. The Yoruba literally say that to warn the unwary. Oun tí aiye bá so e dà ni won ó fi bú o bó d›òla. Yet, we are just warming up to 2025!
Nigerians have successfully been baited into the shenanigans of what the North can do when 2027 comes. Governor of Bauchi State, Senator Bala Mohammed has spoken in this light. Many unhappy Nigerians of northern extraction have, for some time now leading up to 2025, have made Elon Musk›s X their battlefront. We also have many others from the same part of the country who are trooping to the X battlefield. These foot soldiers – more importantly seen and used as the expendables (or sere as Ibadan children called such in older kung fu movies) are in the X thicket already. Meanwhile, like the mute chameleon expertly camouflaging in the dense thicket, their falconers are doing their thing and are watching the unbridled proceedings and their possible outcome.
However, like the 2024 catchphrase, I don›t think the men and women at the other side of the battle line will ‘gree for anybody’, whether they be on X or not. It is obvious that the battle line has been drawn already and scaled, what seems to be delaying the full scale war is the fine details of who does what, when, where and how.
The loud cries of marginalisation are one pungent pointer to the unbearable situation the North claims it has found itself in. It is settled in their thoughts that they had been suffering. The mouthed marginalisation is the acclaimed bully pulpit of the renowned political bully. In the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari as president, the cries as we have them now were not commonplace. No space was given for opinions or views other than those which were pro-Buhari, nor was dissenting voices entertained in the slightest. Whenever figures like the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Hassan Kukah, spoke up about insecurity, hunger and killings, he would be hushed while official government mouthpieces would reply him in the most uncouth language. Kukah on several occasions was derided by members of the Buhari media team whenever he raised his voice and spoke up against the same things the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar would freely vehemently decry without consequences. All these happened while people groped and wailed in the thick smog of the administration Buhari ran. And for eight whole years under his watch, the country drifted aimlessly and was that rudderless.
During the Buhari period, there was not as much as a whimper against what went down in places like Benue State. It was so bad and touching that Benue people had to tell their governor to leave the president’s APC. Samuel Ortom had to agree with his people openly, and he denounced his political party and an insensitive president and commander-in-chief. There were no cries as we have it now when insecurity blitzed Nigeria’s image.
A North that could not rise then or speak up against killings among its population; hunger and rising numbers of out-of-school children in the region has been wailing and howling against marginalisation and angling for power in less than two years of Tinubu.
It is heartening when one remembers that Tinubu, who holds the reins of power today, knows as much as the lamenting North does. They had eaten in the same calabash and drunk from the same gourd. That is a path, a covenant. They were both on the same side of the battlefield until the time came to put life to Emilokan and make the concept a reality.
The entitlement posturing of the North rankles the brain. A reinforcement of this is their position against the tax reform bills before the National Assembly and the unbridled arrogance with which their leaders have spoken against it. It makes one wonder what the South East should do or say; or where the South South should tag itself in all of this. The North should just realise that Tinubu will assume ‘no gree for anybody’ posturing this 2025 as the road to 2027 is paved. One of the headlines from a visit of governors to Tinubu during the Yuletide says “Tax reforms have come to stay – Tinubu.” That’s enough said by the president even if there is nothing human that is absolute except the Divine.
However, the foregoing is not to say that the Tinubu administration is worthy too. Indeed, what should be inferred from everything said here is that they are all evil and one evil has given way for another type, which is currently enjoying its reign. We are saying that the same rules which the North used to measure the previous administration should be employed now that they have done with their display and another masquerade is on the scene.
Even a cursory look at what the Tinubu administration has been since 2023 would reveal a lot of underhand style of governance. Let us just ignore their own brand of arrogance which is equal to, if not more than what the North dished out under Buhari. In addition, a lot of the things Nigerians have heard as accomplishments of the Tinubu government are either shrouded in propaganda or they are steeped in blatant dishonesty. There is so much deceit going on and there is hardly anything anyone can do about it because we are governed by absolute rulers. Take as instances the confusion around the new minimum wage along with the commencement of its payment and the reports showing the sudden mystification of our refineries, including Dangote’s which is supposedly privately-owned. This should not be so. We are still trying to understand the economic and financial abracadabra of our government – a visit to banking halls or ATM malls would tell a tale. We are still enmeshed in the conundrum we fell into with the Supreme Court judgement on local government. We are yet to get a closure on the back and forth of our government and the government of Niger Republic over France and our military. We have learnt to endure inflation, especially food inflation and the rehash of promises to tackle it. We are barely coping.
In all of this, the North should cease to act as if the eight years of Buhari have suddenly been erased from our memories. I think by now the North should just go and warm their cold eba and chop. That saying is also one of the children 2024 gave us. Tinubu obviously will not gree for anybody. We will live with this until 2025 gives us her own child and mantra.
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and then