The Challenge of the Arewa Intifada
by
From a distant and muted rumbling against a perceived displacement by a narrow clique of northern politicians, military and civilian,
from a previously entrenched privileged position over and about all other Nigerians, the lingering cacophony has now developed into an unmitigated seismic
outburst with shrilling and bitter echoes of marginalization, neglect and unauthorized denial of God-given privileges within the Union of Nigeria as was
articulated by Lord Lugard in 1914.
Their grouse is that for the first time in more than forty years, they are suddenly not able to sit atop the wealth and resources of the nation and dole out
grace to whomever they like and in the manner that suited their fancy. Like slave masters, they are suddenly realizing how difficult life could be without
free slave labor and resources from the other sections of this large and variegated nation. In other to gain audience and hopefully regain their insecure
positions, they are now pretending to be fighting for the North, the same geographic region that they had exploited to assume prolonged selfish leadership
positions from where they unfairly enriched themselves at the expense of their people and the rest of the nation. The fact on the ground is that these leaders
of the North, while they selfishly held on to the reign of power neglected their people; held them down educationally and socially under the guise of religion
while their own children were schooling in the so-called worldly schools acquiring the skills for economic emancipation like the 'infidels' of the South and
in some cases, in Christian Europe.
The Arewa Consultative Forum, AFC, is the umbrella under which these men of little developmental attainment hope to fight for their political risorgimento.
The principal membership of the gang is by itself instructive. It includes Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Buhari, Gen. Babangida, Gen. Abdusalam and
if they were still alive would have included Balewa, Murtala (both of blessed memories) and Sani Abacha! If in a country comprising of North, South, East and
West parts and of 250 ethnic groups in between, the 'North' alone is able to produce all but one Head of State, (Obasanjo, first time by pure accident and
this time around, allegedly by the grace of the same North following the fortuitous demise of Abacha. Shonekan's interimism certainly does not count both
legally and politically as he was never a head of state in any sense) all normal expectation should be that the North would be ashamed of her unfair monopoly
of power in a union comprising of several nationalities, faiths, economies and cultures. And for such a group to now be crying marginalization after only a
few months out of absolute power (for all key ministries are still in their hands) is not only arrogant and provocative, it is also suicidal.
Certainly the
North has put too many pebbles in the garri of the blind South and they are beginning to know that they did not join the Nigerian Union only to become second
class citizens and political slaves. For the first time in the history of Nigeria, southern leaders are beginning to know that the law of geography prescribes
that for every North there must be a South! Only the northern governors have been conferring to discuss their "common problems" with their Southern
counterparts in perpetual disarray. The North had enjoyed this effective divide et imperium absolutely. Now that most of
the southern states are in the hands of governors who do not necessarily suffer the inferiority complex of their forebears, they are asking questions about
justice and fair play and in response, the North is waving the Sharia wand as if there is no God elsewhere.
Their battle cry? "President Obasanjo whom we single-handedly installed into office has slighted us!" " We provided the money with which the
votes were bought!" "We brought him out from jail (by killing Abacha?), rehabilitated him and decided that he should move into Aso Rock as our
nominee-president and continue as usual" "Now he is talking about transparency, corruption, etc." "We have been degraded from the exhorted
Olympian position of a monopoly into ordinary participants just like the other conquered citizens!". "For these insults and betrayal, we decree that
his time is up!" "After all, we handed over power to you voluntarily". Now there are no more easy money, crazy contract scams, mindless
patronage and nepotism of unlimited dimension, etc..., they are crying! These people think they can do whatever they like today simply because they made
Obasanjo in the first place, and anything from military coup to a fabricated impeachment is therefore within their bloated contemplation. Playing God, eh?
Professor Omoruyi has already clearly put the case to Obasanjo: tell Nigerians what pact you entered with the northern political contractors. The rule is: pacta
sunct servanda: (agreements must be kept). And if there is any compelling reason in the nature of clausula rebus sic
stantibus (fundamental change in circumstances) why this agreement can no longer be performed, Nigerians ought to know. What would
make people, traditionally noted for their royal aloofness, boundless privileges and opportunities within the Nigerian situation, to suddenly come out smoking
with loud complaints and immiseration about marginalization is something quite serious and compelling. The President cannot feel safe just by pandering to
these threats by merely re-diverting all national privileges and opportunities to the aggrieved Arewa kingpins so as to avoid the northern Fatwa.
Even after all that, they could still strike for other selfish reasons. Nigerians therefore need to know what are those covenants that have been unfairly
violated by the President so that they can act rationally if the need to defend the Republic against the intifada should
eventually arise. The various mutinous posters mushrooming in several parts of the north cost a lot of money as well as require a lot of tactics and those
behind them are just not kidding. Everything reads like 1966 or thereabouts.
I am particularly disturbed about the raison d'être for the complaints by the pantheon of past northern leaders. If they cry marginalization, what would they
expect those other parts of the country to do? Someone gave the other day, as an example of the President's unwritten crimes that after the enormous support
Professor Jibru Aminu gave Obasanjo; he was only rewarded with mere ambassadorship to the United States! Adding that while his people orphaned him, the north
fostered him and now he is claiming to be born-again in a religion they cannot stand. If Nigeria were not heading for the cliffs, how would Jibru Aminu be
deployed to such positions ahead of great international scholars like Profs. Itse Sagay, Ajomo, Omoruyi, Okonknwo, etc...? This does not take anything away
from the competence of Aminu, anyway. Still, they cannot complain because those who were born to rule have not had enough!
If the North with 9 out of the 10 leaders Nigeria has produced since 1960, with all the dominance they had had with key and strategic political appointments,
civil or military, largesse and patronage, could still feign marginalization, it means the peoples of the south, east and west, especially the Niger Delta had
been foolish all along. The is historically the ways of oppressor groups: the Egyptians did not understand the sufferings of the Jews until they revolted; the
Romans did not understand the frustration of their dominions until they revolted; the colonialists did not understand the sufferings of the colonies until
they revolted; and of course the Boer apartheid racists of South Africa did not understand the sufferings of the Blacks until they revolted. It is therefore
not surprising that the Hausa/Fulani politicians will not understand the sufferings of other Nigerians until they revolt. What message are they sending to the
Niger Delta and other majority/minority groups?
If Nigeria is unlivable today, it is directly due to the failure of these past leaders who mistook the public realm for their private fiefdoms; if corruption
has become the other name of the nation today, this is the legacy they left behind; and if marginalization is now the sing song, that was what sustained them
so unfairly for so long. If after all the evils that they have done they still want us to continue to rakandede them,
then, they surely got it wrong. When Awolowo was building schools in the West, they fraudulently urged their people to shun western education and concentrate
on the Sharia while they sent their own children elsewhere, reveled in southern Christian beauties and life-style and
doing what they preached against.
Now that the people are beginning to differentiate between what man caused and what God ordained, they are panickly putting up the Sharia charade and calling unjust and baseless intifada or ethno-religious insurrection. Who is the fool? Well, Obasanjo might have violated their mutual covenant but that does not give them the license to behave as if the rest of us are their slave. My citizenship should not be degraded by the unrestrained demands by those who have had it all. This is a challenge to our collective stake in the Nigerian project. The Arewa gang has gone overboard and they must be told that ours is a republic and not a fiefdom.
Professor Mike Ikhariale
Harvard Law School
Cambridge, MA
USA