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THE 'NORTH' ALSO CRY By It was interesting to read a recent newspaper headline screaming that "Shagari decries northerners' political arrogance!" Like a voice from the wilderness calling our northern brothers to order, Muktar Shehu Shagari, the son of the nation’s former executive President, Shehu Aliyu Shagari, openly admonished his fellow northerners to play their current unending blame game softly, softly because what goes round comes round. What is more, there is the Esan proverb which says that if ones doe not attack his enemy fairly and carefully, chances are that he would end up becoming the culprit.
Characteristically, Shagari was very direct and clear in his charge: some northern polticians do not understand what democratic politics is all about. Many would prefer to continue to plunder the nation under military dictatorship even if that means the damnation of all of us. There is no doubt that they are newcomers to this politics of blame and baseless recriminations occasioned by the diminishing opportunities for the old free flowing state provided largess which were largely undeserved. Such cries used to be the specialty of some other groups, especially people of the Southwest, who where gripped by a sense of relative deprivation within the Nigerian spoil system. In their angst, some of them thought they knew too much when in deed they did not know as much. They wrote, they sang and they cried foul at every turn, correctly and incorrectly.
The case of the west, as sectional as it might seem, was given considerable credibility because they warred against a situation that was then sustained by irresponsible military dictatorships. Incidentally, the universal civilized public opinion stood against military dictatorships in Nigeria against which they ‘revolted’. Even then, they did so with some style. Of course, a few of them did not know the boundaries of political criticism and personal abuse. And such cost them a lot. Why the north would at this day and age want to replace the west in the same old blame game is utterly puzzling to some of us.
What we are witnessing among the new northern actors today is not amusing at all. They have surpassed the so-called southwest in rabble rousing. The scenario is irritating, to say the least, and good neighborliness demands that they be told the home truth before it is too late. On a lighter side, however, it proves that the North also cry! But on a serious note, it proves that it may well be that the north is not as sophisticated politically, as we had always credited it with because until a man is under stress, the true strength of his character is never fully known.
From the recent verbal intifada from those parts of the country, it is safe to assume that a lot of people are crying. But should that be so? And if so, why? It is sufficient to admit that those who have been extraordinarily yelling against the obviously inept Obasanjo system from the north have been doing so in a way that does not take into account the feelings of those of others who do not belong to the usual wazobia constellation of the nation’s power sharing formula. I am speaking about the minorities. It should be clear to any right think person that when it becomes possible for one region out of four or more regions in a given political society, to think that by itself alone, it can determine the political destiny of the rest, then, something is amiss. In the same vein, any politician that thinks he can rule Nigeria without the support of a particular region or group is only dreaming just as it is equally irresponsible for any region or group to think that whatever the feelings and desires of the rest of the union might be, it can, acting alone, "make" and "unmake" a president in Nigeria. It may well be the truth that the north has a bona fide axe to grind with Obasanjo. But it must not be presented in a way that undermines the political status and expectations of the other groups in the comity. I am aware that several groups equally have their well-founded grouse with the leadership of Obasanjo but the difference is that they are not predicating their grievances on their almighty-ness or debatable numerical dominance.
That is why Shagari’s timely intervention which condemns these northern megaphones for "being arrogant in their belief that wisdom and knowledge of political power belong to them alone in spite of the federalist structure of the country" is note worthy. As a minister in Obasanjo’s government, it is easy to dismiss him as merely pandering to his boss interests. But many of us who actually receive the resulting insults from these people do not necessarily serve Obasanjo in any capacity. Many of us do not care whether or not Obasanjo recontest or win the presidential election because the final say on that lies with the entire people of Nigeria. What I cannot take is for someone who holds the same national passport as myself to want to arrogate to himself the power to exclusively determine my political destiny. Such is both arrogant and insensitive and therefore, unacceptable.
My specific anger is about the way some spokespersons pretending to speak for the north has being going about the matter lately. There is no doubt, as Shagari himself had noted, that these people have gone overboard. It is just that some of us do not think beyond the confine of our limited ethnic cocoons when we proceed to analyze matters Nigeriana. On this charge almost every group in Nigeria share equal blame. Everyone thinks he is the owner of Nigeria to the exclusion of all others. Those who produce or control a particular item of value readily and selfishly want to hold all others to ransom over it. And the negative political put down process goes on. Such mentality does not help the course of nation building as it rapidly alienates us from one another. There is no need repeating that the country belongs to all of us. Any one who thinks otherwise is either ignorant or simply mischievous and, either way, he stands to lose at the rendezvous of national integration, as reason will ultimately prevail over ephemeral emotions and myopism.
As if to confirm the very arrogance the Minister Shagari spoke about, his host, Governor Abubakar Habu Hassid of Gombe, in response said "I don't believe we northerners have that mentality of being arrogant as you (minister) have claimed." In other words, the northerners being perfectionists could never fall into the common mistake that afflict ordinary Nigerians (presumably only non-northerners do!) as to be arrogant. It is like someone denying having six eggs with him simply because he only has half a dozen of it! If this is not arrogant, let someone kindly tell me what it is. By his statement he has only substantiated the allegation of arrogance, a state of mind which make some people continue to think of themselves as being above reproach even when they are wallowing in legendary errors.
None of these newbreed northern leaders has irritated me as much as Governor Bafawara did recently, the main character and focus of this piece. My take on him is that he does not know where to draw the line between private bedroom boasts and open soapbox noise-making. And that should, by implication, extend to others that think like him. He is on record to have put it so bluntly what many of his peers have been muting and rumbling about within their hate-propagating circle. He seems to have an idea of a Nigeria that would always offend other fellow citizens and many individuals think it is high time he is put in his proper place.
For my position to be properly understood, it is perhaps equally meet and proper for me to re-assert my Nigerian citizenship and, by implication, my standing to tell Governor Attahiru Bafarawa of Sokoto that he needs to examine his head very well in view of his misguided claim of a northern permanent ownership of political power in Nigeria. I am an Esan man, fathered by an Opoji chief through an Opoji woman. My ancestors are part of the great Edo Empire in the present Edo State. That means that I am a member of the so-called minorities that the big wazobia groups habitually love to contemptuously disregard.
I do not mean any offense if I say that, compared to members of some of these larger groups in Nigeria, say, the Hausas, Fulanis and the Yorubas, I am most likely to be a thorough bred Nigerian, a purer breed, if you will, because the Edo people like several other smaller groups within the country, are totally indigenous to the territory of Nigeria.
On the contrary, some of those who claim Sokoto state today could possibly have slipped in from Niger Republic; some who claim Maiduguri could possibly have trekked in from Chad while those that claim Lagos could easily have swam in from Dahomey. But not so for my kindred. We do not have cousins or ethnic or cultural affinity with other groups outside the borders of Nigeria. Little wonders that we tend to think more about the integrity of the nation than those who think they are kingmakers or the natural heirs to the leadership of Nigeria.
And if by section 25 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution a citizen by birth, the highest status the constitution can confer on an individual, is defined as "every person born in Nigeria ... either of whose parents or any of whose grandparents belongs or belonged to a community indigenous to Nigeria", then, I should enjoy a greater prima facie presumption of Nigerianness and citizenship than Governor Bafarawa of Sokoto who is a Fulani man, for, we all know that there many other Fulanis from outside of Nigeria. So, between the two of us, I am culturally, socially and possibly, legally more of a true Nigerian because as we have explained above, Edo people are wholly and completely indigenous to Nigeria. Yet, we do not claim we exclusively own the political power of the country and we will never do so!
I am going into this lengthy constitutional cum sociological analysis just to refute the insult Bafarawa recently heaped on other Nigerians in his statement that political power in Nigeria belongs to his people which he wrongly referred to as the "North", whatever that means. How could a man who occupies the exalted office of a state governor make such a reckless statement to the effect that political power in Nigeria is an exclusive preserve of the north as contained in a recent Tell magazine interview?
We know he is from Sokoto and we also know from history that under the Caliphate, Sokoto subdued many of the Hausa States about two centuries ago. We also know that the Caliphate was itself militarily routed a century later by the ruthless British. Even then, the parameter of his illusion of power fashioned within such an out-dated power scheme is still limited to just Sokoto and its feudal remnants. And that is all. It should not surprise him to know that as an Esan man from Edo State, I might never have heard of the great jihad or the Caliphate beyond what the all-conquering British permitted to be told. So from where does Bafarawa gets his illusion of power and dominion over all of Nigeria?
To this man, political power is the property of the North, a chattel that must be returned to it on demand! This mentality brings to mind Achebe’s famous parable that the young man whose palm kernel has been struck for him by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble. That by accident of history several individuals of Northerner origins have ruled Nigeria in an unbroken relay does not translate to making it a natural preserve of the North. If some people now think of it as such, then it is pretty unfortunate for the Union, as some of us would be justified to want to safely jump off the wobbling national danfo.
The governor should therefore have been circumspect when he spoke of power being the property of the north and that it is only currently ‘on loan’ to the others.
It is quite unfortunate that since the inauguration of the Obasanjo Presidency, there has arisen a strident and, in some cases, irresponsible cacophony by certain individuals who had previously fed fat on sinecure government largesse now claiming to speak for the north about marginalization. Nothing can be farther from the truth. That the other groups within the Nigerian society played the game rather decently and did not revolt in the face of an overbearing tyranny does not mean that they are fools or should they be daily reminded of it.
If three years out of power is already taken as marginalization, what do we call the several years that the others, east, west and south, were excluded from it? By the way, is there any geographical situation that allows a North without an East, without a South and without a West? But don’t let it be understood that Obasanjo is only been criticized just because he is not a northerner or no longer a northern ‘adopted son’. Bargaining for juicy political positions and opportunities within our "chop and chop" political environment is understandable but making absolute statements about exclusive dominance in the context of who gets what and how much, is another ball game. That is not only unfair to those who had tolerated northern leadership for long, it is also symptomatic of deluded minds crying wolf.
By the way, which ‘north’ is the man from Sokoto is speaking for? Does it include those people that have been locked in a perpetual war of emancipation against their fellow northern oppressors over the years? Are the northern poor, the neglected and downtrodden who were forgotten during all these many years of northern monopoly of power also co-owners of this political property? Our brothers and sisters from the northern parts of the country have been equal victims with others from elsewhere in the misrule by their spoilt elite that is now hypocritically waving the scarecrow of a monolithic north with a view to swindling the people once more.
We must be careful whenever we speak of the north ‘dashing power’ to other groups because such statements are often loaded with insults and are overtly provocative to whoever is not from that part of this huge country. Those who are playing this northern card must realize that they are not helping the true north because the ‘north’ is north only because there are east, west and south. That is what the Zulu people of South Africa call ubuntu, a major element of traditional African social philosophy which posits that you are a human being because others are treated as such. This should be a matter of common sense but it would seem that those who now speak for the new political north are too crude, too rude and too careless to consider the feelings of others.
People like Bafarawa constitute embarrassing exceptions to the North, which used to boast of decent, shrewd and suave leaders. Who can forget the magisterial comportment of Ahmadu Bello, the urbane outlook of Balewa, the receptive mien of Shehu Shagari? All these leaders are northerners. Of course, they were not angels but non-northerners accepted them as such. Curiously, since the so-called ‘power shift’ three years ago, a new attitude has emerged from there which must be embarrassing to those who really have a stake in the good name of the vast expanse of those parts of Nigeria that are loosely call ‘the North’.
What is not right and indeed, not permissible, in my judgment, is to tie the criticism of the Obasanjo government to the notion of a north that is ‘tired of the man’ because, that claim by itself raises so many fundamental questions including, the one asking: What the heck does the north want? More importantly, it makes it difficult for legitimate critics of the ineffective Obasanjo system to be heard without the unnecessary insinuations of bias and ethnicity.
Finally, the reality is that Bafarawa has no better claim to Nigerian citizenship or the right to rule than any other person does. If he thinks so, then, it is simply illusory. That is the essence of our republican ideology under which he was fortunate to be elected a governor. He should therefore exhibit some humility and sensitivity on matter of rights and privileges pertaining to our collective citizenship. Bafawara cannot, does not and did not speak for the north when he said political powers in Nigeria belong to them. Even if he did, it is obvious that he is in a dwindling and frustrated company and should be treated as such. Just as the son of the former President has said, "the earlier the North forgets about its arrogance, the better for its people and the country at large," May 2002
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