15th September, 2010
The fear of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is the beginning of wisdom for the 2011 elections, especially for presidential aspirants. This phobia has forced some presidential aspirants to regroup and renegotiate to consolidate their base to clinch victory against Jonathan. This is the situation in the Babangida/Atiku camps.
The attack on the President from the North has been so venomous that only the brave-hearted can withstand the vitriolic onslaught. But Milton admonishes us to have the “courage never to submit or yield to fear and intimidationâ€. And President Goodluck Jonathan seems to have a pedigree of humble equanimity even when the environment is agitated and in turbulence. The Governor Alamieyeseigha and President Umaru Yar’Adua cases bear testimony to such antecedents.
The North has threatened fire and brimstone; they have thrown the kitchen sink and all they can muster at Jonathan but the President seems unruffled. The Arewa Consultative Forum, the Northern Union, the Northern Political Leaders’ Forum have all united to frustrate the ambition of the South-South to produce its first President in Nigeria, come 2011.
Banners like “its zoning or nothingâ€, “Northern President or notingâ€, “North will disgrace Jonathanâ€, “North moves against Jonathanâ€, “ACF may compel Northerners to quit Jonathan’s Govtâ€, “Northern leaders read riot actâ€, “North plans strategy to frustrate Jonathanâ€, evidently show that some elements in the North are against Jonathan.
The silent and unwritten clause of the foregoing war banners is that the North will voluntarily or otherwise quit the Nigerian Nation if Jonathan wins in 2011 in spite of all their plots and schemes to the contrary. In spite of all these babbling from the madding crowd some sane voices have been heard from the North.
Even within the North many believe that the North has been unfair to the South regarding the governance of this country. Some Northern elite believe that the North will be the first to groan if the North and South part ways especially with the demise of the groundnut pyramids in Kano in the 70s.
However, the North is desperately exploring for oil to call the bluff of the Niger-Delta region, but these efforts have not yielded dividends yet. Northern Nigeria has ruled Nigeria for 38 years while the South has ruled for a paltry 12 years. This unjustifiable and unfair travesty seems to have emboldened the North and further entrenched the born-to-rule mentality which has now become a cultural heritage of the North, even among Federal Civil Servants. If you have worked in a Federal Government establishment, you will understand the arrogance of the few Northern graduates who become Directors-General under 7 years while their Southern counterparts get to that exalted position after about 25 years of meritorious service. Northern dominance has largely become a cultural and conceptual creation of adherents of the bogus “North must rule†mentality.
The North must realise that all Federating units of a Federation are regarded as politically equal to one another and no unit of the Federation must be marginalised or impoverished as the people of the Niger-Delta who ironically lay the golden eggs that sustain Nigeria.
Even in the international system, the theoretical equality of Independent Sovereign states is non-negotiable. That is why Montenegro, one of the states from the old Yugoslavia with a population of less than 700,000 can be admitted to the United Nations on an equal footing with the United States of America with a population of about 307 million people or with China with a population of about 1.4 billion people.
The North by its overbearing attitude over Southern Nigeria is sowing the seeds of destruction which will implode with the emergence of two or more nations if caution is thrown to the wind.
Who are the Northern candidates? General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Mohammed Gusau, General Mohammadu Buhari, Gov. Bukola Saraki, Mrs. Sarah Jubril to mention those who have declared interest.
Babangida is the least qualified of all the aforementioned. In a civilised and highly democratised country, Babangida should by now be cooling off in a maximum prison facility for his multinational crimes against his fatherland. Babangida’s crimes are beyond pardon. He introduced the structural adjustment programme in the 1980s that destroyed the lives of millions of Nigerians. Babangida devalued the naira and officially introduced corruption and perfected the “settlement†culture at a time when Buhari and Idiagbon were trying to set standards and inculcate discipline and values in Nigerians.
But Babangida’s greatest undoing was the annulment of the June 12 1993 presidential election which was won convincingly by Chief MKO Abiola. The election was cancelled on the grounds that Abiola was a security risk and that some top military officers did not fancy Abiola becoming President in Nigeria.
Nigerians have not also forgotten the military crackdown in the wake of the protests against the annulment of the June 12, 1993 prseidential election during which hundreds of Nigerian protesters were mowed down in Lagos alone under the tyranny of our blood thirsty but sweet talking general.
What about the $12.4bn Gulf war oil windfall which was mismanaged without any government challenging him till date? And Babangida boasts that he is the most investigated Nigerian alive.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was Nigeria’s Vice President for 8 years and his greatest achievement was a Private American University in Yola which is also one of the most expensive in the country. Where is the morality of a vice president building a private university for himself while “serving†his fatherland.
Listen to Atiku Abubakar, “we have to work together to solve the problems facing us as a nation and making Nigeria a prosperous country for the benefit of our peopleâ€. For the 8 years Atiku was vice president, which Nigerian problem did he solve? Instead he made life more difficult for Nigerians by charging impossible fees for a university he built with funds belonging to the Nigerian people. And with all the probes Atiku Abubakar “wangledâ€Â through via the “Nigerian factor†it is unfortunate and an irony that the same Atiku Abubakar wants to ask for the people’s mandate again- may be to build more universities to exploit the people.
Mrs. Sarah Jubril has been eyeing the presidency since 1979. She does not bother not having secured a party’s ticket. For her it’s a quadrennial ritual.
Muhammadu Buhari is the only honest candidate among the pack. He means well for Nigeria. But his religious bigotry which cost him a lot in previous elections has to be addressed if he genuinely wants to lead a diversely cosmopolitan country like Nigeria.
Mohammed Gusau is the erstwhile National Security Adviser who attended a meeting with the Northern Political Leaders in Abuja to contest the 2011 Presidential ticket with his boss without resigning first. He is not a serious candidate.
Governor Bukola Saraki is on his father’s errand and has no clout beyond his father’s kingdom – Kwara State.
For 8 years both IBB and Atiku Abubakar were president and vice-president respectively, of this great country Nigeria. What did they do to reduce the culture of begging in Nigeria especially in the North? Our youths are encouraged to waste their talents and God-endowed human resources because it is to their advantage for the beggars to remain poor and dependent on the wealthy class who daily provide fish for the beggars without teaching them how to fish for themselves. These poor beggars are always at the beck and call of these rich politicians to do their bidding. These beggars become very active during electoral or other forms of political violence protecting the interests of their sponsors.
There is massive unemployment in the North as a result of cultural inhibitions especially for some of the women who are not allowed to work in open government or private offices. Even for the men the motivating drive for entrepreneurship is lacking thereby reducing artisanship and encouraging begging and spontaneous violence. Man is creative everywhere but traditional and cultural drawbacks have to a large degree defined man’s entrepreneurial freedom and drive.
But by far the greatest negligence of the Northern leaders, nay all Nigerian leaders, is in the field of education. Nigerian presidents have strategically played down the critical importance of education for selfish and personal reasons. Many Nigerian leaders have reduced funding for secondary and tertiary education to “kill†education in Nigeria while building their own private universities for only the elite of society.
Education is the only tool that can free us from ignorance, poverty and self denigration. Education is the only lifeline you can throw at a drowning man. According to Henry Peter Broughman “Education makes people easy to lead but difficult to drive, easy to govern but impossible to enslaveâ€.
Nigerian leaders know that the moment they embark on a massive education for the people of this country that same moment they will lose the vicegrip they have on its hapless citizens.
Babangida’s desparation also forebodes danger for this country especially with his Machiavellian strategies and policies and also because of his friendship with the military top brass. Babangida and Atiku should forget about governing Nigeria and even thank God that they are not in jail but walking around as free men. Is it possible for President Barack Obama to build the most expensive private university in Chicago while in office and be indicted by every probe and yet expect Americans to vote him into the White House for a second time? He will not even be allowed to pick nomination forms for the Democratic Party primaries.
Babangida is a great war strategist and tested scholar of Sun Tzu and Karl Von Clausewitz. The 2011 electoral battle will be won on strategy. The candidate with the better strategy will carry the day.
While Babangida is spoiling for outright war as a General with propaganda, deceit and wild promises and winning a few journalists and the Igbo over, President Goodluck Jonathan is using dialogue to win strategic personalities over to his side. By now Babangida should have known that the greatest general is the one who wins the war without firing a shot. At the end of the day, whoever wins the election must ensure that Nigeria’s core strategic interest must remain without blemish.
—Ben Nanaghan writes from Lagos. E-mail: [email protected]