The problems with Nigeria…

WHEN I asked the rhetorical question: “Are Yoruba the ‘problem’ with Nigeria?”, more responders answered “No” than “Yes”. Many said Nigeria, indeed, was – and still is – the problem of the Yoruba – a cog in the wheel of its progress! I think it is necessary to locate (who are) the problems with Nigeria because, as they say, a problem once realised is a problem half-solved. I call on two articles that I chanced upon recently on social media to help us throw some light on the matter.

The first, titled “Who are the real Northerners?”, written by Davidson Rotshak Lar (JP), ran thus:  “We have been inundated with the word North, Northern Elders, Arewa Consultative Forum, Northern Governors Forum, etc.  But really we are asking: “Who are these Northerners?” Let us borrow a bit from history.

When Obasanjo as president gave the non-Fulani sensitive positions in his regime, the Sultan of Sokoto went with some Fulani irredentists like Ango Abdullahi to confront him and make allegations that the  North was being marginalized. Baffled, Obasanjo asked them: “Are non-Fulani in the North not Northerners?” The Sultan said: “Yes, they are not!” Obasanjo nodded his head to learn what he probably had not known before!

So we  ask: “Who really are these Northerners?” Cast your mind back to December 1979 to the very night of the primary elections of NPN. Clearly, Ambassador Maitama Sule, an erudite Hausa man, emerged as the NPN flag bearer.  Some Islamic Fulani juggernauts led by Sultan Attahiru of the Sokoto caliphate said clearly that the choice of Maitama Sule was not acceptable to the North.

A parallel meeting was held that night to substitute Maitama Sule with less-known and hardly-outspoken Shehu Shagari, a Muslim Fulani, and the said North was, after that, pacified. So we ask: “Who really is a Northerner in Nigeria?”

In 2015, the  North rallied and confronted President Goodluck Jonathan that power must shift to the North – to Muhammadu Buhari in particular, being a Fulani, in order to maintain a democracy that is supposed to be founded on justice and fairplay. After seven years of the (mis)rule by the same Buhari, the same North said that zoning the Presidency to the South was undemocratic! They condemned zoning entirely as being anti-democratic and some of them like Nasir el-Rufai told us that it is not about region but competence!

In 1953 when Aminu Kano, a Hausa man, upstaged the mysticism of the North to found the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), Sir Ahmadu Bello, a Fulani who had founded the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), condemned Aminu Kano, calling him an anti-North propagandist.  Until Bello died in 1966, both men were sworn enemies. So we ask: “Who really are these Northerners?”

On  October 12, 1960, just eleven days after independence, the  National Parrot newspaper quoted Ahmadu Bello, who said:  “This new nation called Nigeria is the inheritance of the Fulani given to them by their great-grandfather, Uthman dan Fodio. We shall use the Northern minorities as conquered people, and the South as willing tools until we dip the Koran into the Atlantic ocean.”

We make bold to say that the North is Fulani and Fulani is the North! Recall that when one governor of Kaduna State, a Fulani (Mohammed Namadi Sambo), was selected for the post of Vice President (by Jonathan) and his deputy (Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa) was a  Southern Kaduna Christian, it was tug of war for the Fulani to allow him (a non-Fulani) to govern the state. They could have had their way if not for the seeming immutability of the Constitution.

Recall that in the same Kaduna State in 1979, Balarabe Musa, a staunch talakawa politician and an able follower of Aminu Kano, a Hausa Muslim, was impeached on frivolous reasons to pave the way for another Muslim, this time a Fulani (Abba Musa Rimi), to become the “authentic” governor of the state. This was done to please the North.

The vexatious cloud of contortion in the whole scenario is the cultural vulnerability of Northern minority politicians to be used willy-nilly to dash the hopes of their own people to please their feudal masters – the Fulani.

The sobriquet of “One North, One Destiny, One People” is a lie from the pit of hell. Is the North monolithic? “Arewa” is Hausa, not Fulani, word for  “North”. Why? The Hausa are by far the most populous group in the entire North, but they are voiceless. The Fulani are very few but are in control politically and economically, even though they are not aboriginal Nigerians. So, a Hausa word must be used to galvanize support from the whole North so as to consolidate the Fulani hold on power. This is the racket of cultural nudity in Northern Nigeria from Uthman Dan Fodio’s time, which has served its purpose very well. And they would call all non-Muslims, including those from the North, pagans or kafiris!”

I dare to say that it is this same “North” that is threatening Armageddon over President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s tax reform that is meant to foster equity, fairplay and prosperity across board through hard work and sincerity of purpose! It is this “North” that is accusing Tinubu of marginalising it, despite that an avalanche of sensitive positions have been ceded to both Northern minorities and the Fulani themselves. It seemeth the Fulani, who pride themselves as the “North”, want all the positions for themselves and themselves only. This is one of the problems with Nigeria.

Now to the second piece by Reno Omokri titled “The Historical Reasons Why I Strongly Support President Bola Tinubu”; it goes thus: “Nigeria, as it is presently constituted, is not what we agreed with the British. It was forced on us by a General named Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi after a coup staged by mostly Igbo officers… For the first six years of our existence as an independent nation, Nigeria had regions with full powers of resource control and who were free to do pretty much as they pleased, except secede. For example, two of the three regions (the West and East) had diplomatic relations with Israel while the North rejected it.

Economic competition spurred growth. At that time, the Southwest was so advanced that the Saudi royal family used to have their medicals at the University College Hospital, Ibadan. Western Nigeria had universal free basic education before many European countries and was the pacesetter for progressive policies in Nigeria. The immediate post-independence Nigeria was not a British construct. Our leaders sat down and agreed to form a loose union. We would have even gotten our independence before Ghana, but the North was not ready, and there were quarrels between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo mooted the idea of a secession clause in 1954 during the Lagos Constitutional Conference, but Nnamdi Azikiwe rejected it, galvanising a majority of the conference attendees to kill the idea. Chief Awolowo again wrote to the then Governor-General of Nigeria, who rejected the clause on the grounds that the majority, led by Azikiwe, did not support it. Because of Azikiwe, section 86 was inserted into our Constitution with the proviso that if any region should secede, it would be an act of treason. We eventually gained Independence on October 1, 1960.

There was an initial nationwide celebration (of the coup of January 15, 1966) until the dust settled and the rest of the nation realised that the Igbo coup plotters did not kill their own Igbo leaders. And when an elected Northern Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, was killed by Igbo soldiers to be replaced by an Igbo General, instead of the next ranking member of parliament from the ruling Northern Peoples Congress (which would have been Zanna Bukar Dipcharima), protests broke out. When the new ruler, Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, broadcast a message and assured the nation that the plotters would be tried, things calmed down. But Ironsi surrounded himself with only Igbo advisers, including Chief Francis Nwokedi, Dr. Pius Okigbo, and Colonel Patrick Anwunah. Calls for him to appoint at least one token non-Igbo were brushed aside.

And then, rather unwisely, Ironsi promulgated Decree Number 34 on May 24, 1966, which effectively ended regionalism, took control of all resources, including oil, which had hitherto belonged to the regions, and domiciled them in his military government. Other members of the Supreme Military Council alleged that Ironsi did not consult them before promulgating the decree. It is not known if their allegation is true. However, Ironsi’s Attorney-General, Chief Gabriel Chike Michael Onyiuke, later said Ironsi did not need to consult them. If Ironsi had not sacked Taslim Olawale Elias as Attorney-General and replaced him with a fellow Igbo, Chike Onyiuke, he might have gotten a different counsel, but we will never know.

That decree ignited the counter-coup of July 29, 1966, during which Ironsi was killed and was replaced with Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon… All Military Governors accepted Gowon except Ojukwu. Eventually, the then Ghanaian military leader, General Ankrah, invited Gowon and Ojukwu for a peace meeting in Aburi, Ghana between January 4 and 5, 1967. Agreements were reached, including that Gowon would broadcast first, AFTER CONSULTATIONS, followed by Ojukwu. However, upon return, Ojukwu made his broadcast first, which shocked other regions and jeopardised Gowon, who was almost removed by those who made him Head of State. Note that Gowon… at that time, was just a titular Head of State. Real power was domiciled with Colonel Murtala Muhammed until Murtala was militarily humiliated by the Biafrans at Abagana on March 31, 1968, after which Gowon relieved him of his command…

If Ojukwu had been patient and had waited for Gowon to make his broadcast first, it is almost certain that there would not have been a civil war. The bulk of Northern soldiers, led by Murtala Muhammed, wanted outright division and if they could not get that, then, a return to status quo ante bellum. The fragile Gowon government had been working on Decree Number 8, which, when you look at that decree in hindsight, could have solved much of Nigeria’s current challenges. But after Ojukwu preempted Gowon by his March 1967 broadcast, the decree had to be reworked. In fact, if Ojukwu had proclaimed Biafra with only territories belonging to the Igbos, then, it might have still been possible to avoid war. But by seceding with the entire Eastern Region, including minorities like the Ijaw, Efik, Ibibio, Ikwere and others who were not consulted as equals before the May 30, 1967 declaration of the Republic of Biafra, Ojukwu knowingly or unknowingly made war inevitable…”

Zik who stood against the right of the regions to secede peacefully without war or violence; the young military officers who, while ending the First Republic, introduced tribalism into the polity; the first military Head of State who ended regionalism and imposed the military command structure on the country; and the overly ambitious Biafran leader who made a 30-month civil war (whose sores are yet to heal) inevitable – these men created the foundational problems the country has yet to find a way to exit. Ironically, their supporters and successors are not only adamantly unrepentant, not willing to look themselves in the mirror, but also loudest at pointing accusing fingers at others!

Let the so-called North and the East mend their ways and give peace a chance!

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