Resolving the legitimacy crisis in Nigeria: From the 'Will of the North' to the 'Will of Nigerians'!
by
The nation was taken a back a week before the fortieth birthday of Nigeria by the recent attack on President Olusegun Obasanjo by the Arewa Consultative Forum and the Committee of the former Heads of State. On reflection the attack was on called for and there was nothing in the issues they raised, which could not have been raised through informal communication between any of them and the President. The episode raises many issues, which are at the root of the survival of the Republic that I now choose to examine the ramifications of the attack in this paper.
It would appear that the President Obasanjo is faced with how to cope with what appears to be three conflicting bases of legitimacy today. Should he rely on the northern political leaders built around the Caliphate as his basis of survival? Should he have his faith on the Nigerian people broadly defined as his basis of survival? Should he throw his hands up and put his faith on God as he did recently that he was divinely made the President? The President's survival depends on how he resolves this conflict.
NORTH AS BASIS OF SUPPORT
The northern leaders acting through the Arewa (North) Consultative Forum and the Committee of former Heads of States and Islamist Jihadists claimed that they made General Olusegun Obasanjo, the President of Nigeria in 1999. This means that the President's basis of legitimacy derives from the north that put him office on trust that he would rule in the name of the north. What was not clear and maybe inferred was that the pact directs President Obasanjo never to rule with some elements of justice to all. Of course, the pact definitely means that he would never consider his ethnic nationalitiy (Yoruba) as prior to the north. As the former President, and spokesman of the former Heads of State Alhaji Shehu Shagari aptly put it in a BBC Hausa Service on September 26, 2000 as translated in the Comet of September 27, 2000 'Obasanjo has technically abused the trust of the north'.
This is a weighty language to use against a reigning President by a former President, which any of the former Heads of State would not tolerate from anybody. What is the trust of the north? This is the pact, which President Obasanjo still has to tell the Nigerian people. Nigerians should demand full disclosure from the President and the northern leaders.
Even though Alhaji Shagari did not say what the north would do as a result of the breach of trust, but he was quick to say that the north was not interested 'in paying back in his own coin'. Nigerians are left to ponder as to what the north would do to rectify the situation. It is obvious that the position of the north is that since the north made the President in 1999 for the interest of the north, the north could and would unmake the President, if the northern leaders are convinced that the President has 'abused that trust'. What would the act of withdrawing support for the President mean? What would the north do, if the President decides to ignore them? We are actually dealing in the realm of the unknown in the Nigerian politics and in the context of the highly politicized armed forces with a regional interest the future is bleak.
It is obvious that the northern political leaders are planning to ally with the National Assembly. They are planning to use the National Assembly to run the clock on the President who may never get anything done under one term. The heavy attendance of the key Senators from the north mostly critical of Obasanjo since 1999 is ominous for the policy making process of the President in his working with the National Assembly. The President should know that the National Assembly will become the new tool in the hands of the northern leaders in their fight with the President.
from the content analysis of the way the northern leaders have been expressing their disgust with the President, one could deduce certain relationships. For example 'We made him' and we will unmake him'. 'Our people called him to run and our people will tell him he could not run the government at the expense of the north'. 'He promised to run the government according to certain guidelines' and everything he does since he became the President is against the agreement'. 'We provided him the money for the election' and our people still have money for another candidate this time from the north. 'We manipulated the rules to give him victory for him in 1999, and we can do it again'. These expressions are pretty serious. The President would have to address these issues, if he is to be taken seriously by Nigerians as a national leader working for their interest and not for the interest of some self-serving politicians, traditional rulers retired military officers and religious leaders from the north with no grass roots support.The foregoing is now capped by the open campaign by the Islamic religious leaders and traditional rulers throughout the north for 'suicide squad' to embark on jihad against the President. For an example of how this is working in the north, see Tempo, September 22, 2000..
NIGERIAN VOTERS AS THE BASIS OF SUPPORT
Nigerians as the Nigerian voters in the southeast, the south-south and the Middle-belt want to dispute the claim of the northern political leaders and claim that they too made General Obasanjo, the elected President of Nigeria in March 1999. This means that the basis of legitimacy of President Obasanjo derives from the 'will of the Nigerian people'. This claim is found in the oil producing areas and in the Ndi Igbo area. Their leaders can cite many instances of the pact between General Obasanjo and the political leaders of these areas before they committed their people to vote en mass for him. Even the Ndi Igbo still talk of the assurance General Obasanjo gave to them after the defeat of their son, Dr. Ekwueme at the nomination convention, which made their people to vote for him.
This is the moment of decision not only for the President but also for the Nigerian people. Now that the North at its meeting of the Arewa Consultative Forum and of the Committee of former Heads of State openly asserted that the north as his maker in their own image are disowning him, can he be or does he want to be a political orphan? This is the time when the rest of the country should assert themselves as voters and openly claim President Obasanjo and throw their support behind him? The question some of their leaders are asking is where does President Obasanjo now stand or where does he go from here? Can he or should he call off the bluff of the northern leaders and survive? Can he or should he ask for the support of the Nigerian people as an alternative to or in lieu of the dependence on the north for survival? By the Nigerian people, one means Nigerians from all parts of the country, which would include the people of the north in whose name the elite of the north are speaking. This is the problem today that the Nigerian people are still to feel the impact of the present administration in their daily lives. His enemies in the north are not interested in what he would do for the Nigerian people. They are using the Arewa Consultative Forum and other organizations to advance their selfish personal and narrow political agenda.
GOD AS THE SOURCE OF SUPPORT
The President tends to believe that there is a third way. He tends to rely on the divine force as the basis of his rule. The Chairman of the Council of Ulamma, Dr. Datti Ahmed recently told his muslim audience that President Obasanjo as a born-again Christian was anti-Sharia and by implication anti-Islam and anti-north. I personally suffered from such a campaign against me by the Kaduna mafia when I was appointed the Director General of the Centre for Democratic Studies in 1989. They were opposed to me because of my role in the Constituent Assembly when I joined forces with my colleagues from the middle-belt in the Constituent Assembly to stop those who wanted to make Sharia a political platform from the Constituent Assembly in 1977.
The President and Nigerians should read the writings of Dr. Datti Ahmed, which are too provocative to reproduce in this paper. There are two, which one should identify for the President to read. One was the long interview published on the September 18 edition of the Weekly Trust, a Kaduna based paper with the highly seditious title, 'Sharia is Greater than Nigeria'. The second was one which was supposed to have been delivered in Hausa to an Islamic group in Katsina, but mysteriously smuggled out and translated and reproduced in Tempo of September 22, 2000 with another highly seditious title, 'North is Raising a Suicide Squad'.
Specifically Dr. Ahmed is critical of President Obasanjo for preaching the Christian God whenever he invokes the name of God, which he said is at variance with the Islamic God. He interpreted the recent visit of President Clinton in religious and regional terms as part of President Obasanjo's plan to 'Christianize' the country and subdue the north and the outlying Islamic countries such as Libya and Sudan. He even sees the military arrangement between the US and Nigeria as an attempt to provide support for Obasanjo in the event of a military coup against Obasanjo. The President should address some of these issues, which are gaining ground in the north.
VOX POPULI VOX DEI
In my review of President Obasanjo's dilemma with a colleague in Boston, we were faced with three critical questions. One is whether President Obasanjo can call off the bluff of the northern elite and survive? Second is whether President Obasanjo can take a deep breath, walk back and associate himself openly with the people of Nigeria through his policies? Third is whether President Obasanjo can throw up his arms, claim his mandate as originating from and dependent on the will of God? He could stick to the third and still accommodate the first and the second issues.
The best approximation of the 'will of God' in a democracy is the 'will of the people', hence the saying that the voice of the people is the voice of God translated from the Latin saying, vox populi vox dei. Those who work for the enthronement of democracy based on the 'will of the Nigerian people' are aware of the yearning of the Nigerian people. They know that the Nigerian people have been longing for a ruler who would rule with justice for all, contrary to the northern political generals who misruled this country from 1966 to 1999 in the interest of a few northern elite. The will of God can not be based on the false claim of a collection of self-serving northern leaders acting through the Arewa Consultative Forum and the former Heads of State who misruled and plundered the country for over thirty years in the interest of a few. This is the dilemma facing President Obasanjo and the Nigerian political class. The President should challenge the northern leaders to show what they did when they were in charge of the country for the north in areas of education and health. They can only boast that they made their few sons the holders of sinecure appointments where they milked this country. They are bitter that today President Obasanjo is not allowing that kind of thing to happen.
If I were to advise President Obasanjo, I would strongly plead with him to courageously call off the bluff of those who are falsely laying claim to what the Nigerian people as voters claimed they did in 1999. I would strongly urge President Obasanjo to claim what he knows best by invoking the name of God who wants him to be just to all the people of Nigeria. Consequently he should tell the Arewa Consultative Forum including the former Heads of State that they did not make him to be unjust to the Nigerian people as they did during their thirty years misrule of Nigeria from 1966 to 1999. Above all, the President should assure Nigerians including the Northerners that his rule derives from the 'will of God' as expressed through the Nigerian voters, which also include the northerners. Can President Obasanjo fight for this position? This should be his strategy of survival.
President Obasanjo should not capitulate to the threat of reprisals from the northern leaders as he is now trying to do from the recent meetings arranged by a delegation of the northern leaders constituting of three former Heads of State. These are the same peole who called the president all kinds of names and boasted that they would unmake him.
One was disappointed with the performances of the President's Special Adviser on Inter-Party Affairs, Alhaji Mahmud Waziri and the Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who are part of the Arewa Consultative Forum. Any capitulation on the part of the president will be an invitation to more blackmail' throughout his remaining one term.
It is sad that none of the President's men so far has so far condemned the northern leaders for the highly seditious attack on his person and his administration. Instead, the Special Adviser of Inter-Party Affairs organized a forum in Kano for the political leaders drawn from the states in the Northwest to explain the President policies to them. The Vice President used the auspices of this meeting in Kano not to defend the President but to offer justification for the seditious attack of the President. According to the Vice President, the Communique of the Arewa Consultative Forum and the attack on the President by the Committee of the former Heads of State 'were more of expressions of the desires and aspirations of the people than opposition to the government'. Thi' was an opportunity for the Vice President to respond point by point to the issues arising from the meetings. He did not. But the Speaker of the House of Representatives Alhaji Ghali Na'aba used this forum to further lambaste the President. He used the recent report of the Transparency International, which said that Nigeria is the most corrupt nation in the world to call the President anti-corruption and fear of God as mere metaphors and empty words.
The Speaker then concluded that the Nigerian crisis has to do with the yearning desire of Nigerians to long for 'the leader they can trust and that 'that leader has not arrived'. For the positions of the Vice President and the Speaker see the Guardian and the Vanguard of September 28, 2000.
REACTIONS OF OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY
The action of the northern political leaders and the lukewarm reaction of the President's men will only intensify reactions, claims and counter-claims by other ethnic nationalities. For the immediate reaction by the Oyo State Governor see Vanguard and Guardian of September 27, 2000 challenging the north to go away. The 5th World Congress of the Yoruba condemned the northern leaders for their intemperate language, threat and false claims. See the Vanguard and the Guardian of September 29, 2000. We are yet to hear from the oil producing areas on who the economic health of the country depends, who are certainly not waiting for the misrule of the north once again. We are also yet to hear from the Ndi Igbo who suffered in the hands of the northern military since 1966. The unfortunate development in the Ndi Igbo world is that their leaders have not been able to identify who the enemies of the Ndi Igbo are and who actually brought about the marginalization of the Ndi Igbo since 1970. I was at the center of the debate within the Ndi Igbo leaders in the Constituent Assembly in 1977 leading to what the Ndi Igbo should do during the transition process from the military to civilian. This was where the post civil war leaders of the Ndi Igbo failed their people.
Maybe the northern political leaders believe that they would have the kind of relationship they had in the past with the political leaders of the Ndi Igbo and the political leaders from the oil producing areas. Maybe they did not know the changes that had been taking place since 1993. These two areas are the losers under this administration of President Obasanjo and they do not know how to turn their natural resources (human and mineral) into political resource. This will be a subject of another paper.
THE NEW AGENDA FOR THE NORTH IS REJECTION OF OBASANJO
The mission of the Arewa Consultative Forum under the leadership of the Emir of Ilorin is well known. It is meant to address the knotty issue of a new agenda for the north and for Nigeria. The recent meeting of the Forum (September 20/21, 2000) followed by the meeting of the Committee of the Former Heads of States (September 26, 2000) was in furtherance of the mission of the new and the invigorated northern organization.
The summary of the outcome of the two meetings as reported in all the Nigerian media on September 21/22, 2000 and September 27, 2000 tells us how General Obasanjo became the President of Nigeria. We are told that contrary to what many Nigerians and the international community thought happened in 1999, the Arewa Consultative Forum and the former Heads of State said that they made General Obasanjo the President of Nigeria. Those who have not read their press releases enumerating the sources of the grouse of the north should read the following papers.
This foregoing constitutes how the grouse of the North was expressed. Items 1 to 4 refer to the assertions and claims in the deliberation and in the final Communique of the Arewa Consultative Forum. Items 5 and 6 refer to the support given to the criticisms of the Arewa Consultative Forum by the Committee of five former Heads of State (General Yakubu Gowon, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida and General Abdulasalami Abubakar).
The new northern agenda is an invitation to and a justification of a forceful change of government as and when the north could work it out. When a coup could successfully take place is a security issue, which the planners and their advisers only can determine. Those who are conversant with the history of anti-southern coup in the past ought to be worried. Is it surprising that there is a kind of mobilization among the talakawas (commoners) in the north such as the recent display of late General Abacha's photographs all over Kaduna? Did the President read the Vanguard of September 28, 2000 with a caption 'Pro-Abacha Posters Litter Kaduna As Anti-Obasanjo Campaign Mounts'? How does he explain this to the Nigerian people and the international community that the object of his international campaign against corruption is now deified in the north? These are questions, which he would have to answer in his own way. But he should appreciate the enormity of the crisis, which is at the root of his survival as the President of Nigeria and act accordingly.
A COUP ATMOSPHERE UNDER PREPARATION IN THE NORTH?
One can see a pre-coup atmosphere coming under many guises in the north. The planners believe that oil would still be there for them to be used to blackmail the US to adopt a benign neglect to human rights issue in Nigeria as the US did after the annulment. This is not new. I saw at work then and it could work again.
Nigerians seemed to have ignored the context under which Senator Joseph Kennedy Waku uttered his statement early this year. The Senator only rose from a meeting of the northern Senators meeting to voice the grouse of the north and not of Senator Waku. Nigerians seemed to have ignored the fact that there was a meeting of the northern Senators to plot anti-Obasanjo campaign in Jos and that the issues discussed during that meeting formed the basis of Senator's press interview and that what he said was not original to him. Nigerians ignored this relationship and descended on Senator Waku. Nigerians only focused on what the Senator said to a reporter after the meeting. Was it a coincidence that the same Senators including Waku were also at the recent meeting of the Arewa Consultative Forum? Were we surprised that the outcome of the deliberation of the Arewa Consultative Forum was in favor of the National Assembly? How many Nigerian have studied the Communique from this meeting and the grouse expressed by Senator Waku in the Tell interview? Is the expression of a forceful change of government not implicit in both? It certain is.
I knew Joseph Waku as far back as 1977 from my privileged position as one of the co-founders of Club 19 and of the Nigerian Peoples Party. He was a key foot worker on behalf of the party in Tiv land. I knew him as not giving to speaking just because he was intoxicated. His crime in the Tell interview then was that he jumped the gun early this year. Many people who condemned him then in the south might not have known that what he was saying, was part of the new agenda of the north, which grows from the total disenchantment of the north with President Obasanjo. Do the southern political leaders now know what is going on in the north as it affects them?
The Yoruba leaders of all political persuasions know what is happening and they are ready as one could make out from the resolutions of the Pan-Yoruba National Conference since 1993. The Ndi Igbo and the various ethnic nationalities in the south-south are still in search of leaders who would explain to them the plan of the north to take over the country again through the manipulation of their leaders as the Lugard did before amalgamation of 1914.
I am calling on Nigerians and the President to study the language in and the relationship between the utterances of Waku and the Arewa Consultative Forum and the Committee of the former Heads of States and analyze their relationships and their security implications. Unfortunately, the question is whether President Obasanjo is getting sound security advice. How could he be getting sound security advice from the same people around him who are not only from the north but who believe in the goal of the Arewa Consultative Forum? Those of us who knew how the north works were surprised and wondered aloud why President Obasanjo should surround himself with those who believe in nothing other than that there is something called the permanent rule of the country by the north. It is well known that President Obasanjo's advisers believe that the rule of Obasanjo is a stop-gap administration of one term. They are working with the northern leaders to produce a northern President at the end of one term of President Obasanjo thus making the north to rightly claim its property. How much of this is the President willing to tell Nigerians?
How many Nigerians read the new agenda of the north well publicized and enunciated as the Communique of the Arewa Consultative Forum and expatiated by the Committee of former Heads of State? It is new; it is disturbing; it is subversive. What is new and disturbing in the Communique is a combination of factors, which I hope President Obasanjo and Nigerians who love the country would study very carefully.
First, we should note the anti-Obasanjo rhetoric in both statements credited to the Arewa Consultative Forum and the Committee of former Heads of State. This is coming from the apex body (political, economic, military and traditional elite) of the north under the umbrella organization of the Arewa Consultative Forum and the Committee of former Heads of State. What should be worrying one is that these are the main beneficiaries of the Obasanjo's administration. They still want more for themselves and not for the masses of the north. They are using populist language.
Second, we should note the strong language in the 10-point Communique, which was used to dissect the administration of President Obasanjo. The support, which the former Heads of State gave and are still giving to the Arewa Consultative Forum should also be noted. Is this not alarming? The two statements are clear on one thing. That the north no longer has confidence in the Federal Government of President Obasanjo not for the reasons they gave about the President's abject policy failures in many areas but because President Obasanjo is becoming independent of the north that made him. To be independent of the northern political leaders is a crime and Chief MKO Abiola paid dearly for it. This was the attribute they feared in Chief Abiola in 1993 and in Chief Olu Falae and Dr. Alex Ekwueme in 1999. They are seeing it in Obasanjo, hence they are kicking.
Third, we should note that the Communique expresses the north's regret for bringing about the government of President Obasanjo, which the northern leaders did out of the north's patriotic and ultruistic decision in 1999 to facilitate the shift of power from the north to the south. They are in effect blaming General Babangida who brought about Chief Abiola and assured them that he would know when to stop him and plunged the country into chaos after the annulment in 1993. Here we are again; it was Babangida who brought about General Obasanjo on faith that he would be a tool in the hand of the north. He was wrong again.
My fear is that my friend, IBB is misleading the northern political leaders for the third time having misled them with Chief Abiola in 1993 and General Obasanjo in 1999. Does he think that a new agenda, the third one could be put together for the north? What power does he have on these former Heads of State: the power of money or what? Certainly it is not the power of intellect. There must be something we do not know that he is using them to achieve. Should one say some personal end? Certainly it is not a regional agenda, because he does not particularly want a rule of the Hausa/Fulani.
Fourth, what Nigerians should note is that in their calculation the act of election was never mentioned in the emergence of President Obasanjo. They completely ignored the contribution of the other parts of Nigeria to the election of President.. This is a very serious issue.
Fifth, we should note the composition of the Arewa Consultative Forum. It is made up of all the de facto and de jure former military Heads of State and the only former civilian President, retired political generals, political leaders from different political persuasions, traditional rulers, business men and National Assemblymen and other key leaders of the President's party (PDP). The list in This Day of September 21, 2000 consists of 'who is who' in the geographical north, who attended the anti-Obasanjo's meeting. What one should ask is where are the leaders of the Middle-belt? Where are they when the Arewa Consultative Forum and the former Heads of State are not meeting in the name of the north and taking decisions in the name of the north? Worse still where are they when they are in the name of the north rejecting the President they helped to elect in 1999? Did they read the outburst of Alhaji Shagari that President Obasanjo 'abused the trust of the north'? Did the middle-belt leaders believe Alhaji Shagari? Why are they not speaking out? When and where is the pro-Obasanjo group of northern leaders, if they exist going to meet to defend the President and reject the diatribes of the so-called northern leaders? When is the PDP Chairman, Chief Gemade, a Christian and a Middle-belt leader going to speak in defense of the party and the President?
The impression one is left with is that the Arewa Consultative Forum and the former and unelected Heads of State spoke for them.
Sixth, we should note that from the composition and the language of the Communique, the PDP as a political party, which was said to have been founded by the north is in disarray. In fact, Alhaji Shehu Shagari did not hide the true feelings of the former Heads of State and their disgust with the PDP in his BBC Hausa Service of September 26, 2000 as reported in the Nigerian media. Alhaji Shagari, in the name of his colleagues claimed that (a) 'the north founded the PDP' and (b) 'the north elected the President through the PDP'. He therefore blamed the PDP for failing the north. As the instrument of the north it ought to have been able to 'caution the President whenever he goes against those who elected him', meaning the north. The Arewa Consultative Forum and the Committee of former Heads of State now want to step in when the PDP founded by the north as its watchdog failed the north. Does the PDP still exist as a political party founded by Nigerians and for Nigerians as claimed by some PDP non Northerners in view of the assertion by Alhaji Shagari? One would still be waiting to hear from Dr. Alex Ekwueme who told his Ndi Igbo men that the PDP was.
Prof. Omo Omoruyi