In truth, nobody expects habitually wheeling and dealing politicians to be averse to opportunism or to pass any strict tests of moral hygiene. But Tinubu’s brazen tribalism is confounding. Some say Tinubu has only revealed his true colours. But for some of us who saw some good in him, his industrial-scale tribalism is concerning. Because such crippling myopia could be a consequence of a more fundamental moral depreciation. In multi-ethnic African nations, rabid tribalism is always a recipe for stagnation and instability.
The last time I wrote about this tragedy, which I now call Tinubu’s Terrible Tribalism, I had asked: Is Tinubu settling scores? Because the president’s naked embrace of Yorubacentricism after a lifetime of railing with his kinsmen against Hausa-Fulani hegemony could only have been inspired by vengeance.
But such undisguised and unbridled vengeance in his first term against the North, whose votes he must secure for re-election, would be foolhardiness. The focus on the North isn’t to understate the treachery other zones feel but to emphasise the political irrationality and moral hypocrisy of Tinubu’s tribalism. Tinubu might be arrogant and occasionally temperamental, but he is a consummate schemer. The idea that he can allow self-indulgence to blind him to basic political calculations is a little preposterous. So why is Tinubu relentlessly perpetuating a Yoruba hegemony so early in his presidency?
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It’s doubtful even that the mercurial Sunday Igboho, saddled with the responsibilities of a president, would have relegated statesmanship and national cohesion to this extent in pursuit of an apparent ethnic championship. Igboho, being less cunning and presumptuous might have been more sensitive. The reality is astounding, so it bears repeating. All critical instruments of coercion are effectively in the hands of one ethnic group. A Yoruba is president. A Yoruba is the Chief of Army Staff. Yoruba is the Inspector General of Police. A Yoruba is the Director General of the State Security Service. A Yoruba is the EFCC chairman. A Yoruba is the Chief Justice of the Federation. A Yoruba is the Attorney General of the Federation. A Yoruba is the Comptroller General of Customs. A Yoruba heads Immigration. The Chief Justice is not the president’s appointee but shouldn’t the Yoruba headship of two of the three arms of government make Tinubu worry about imbalance? Even if the Yoruba had conquered Nigeria, wouldn’t they have been more magnanimous?
A few commentators have argued that having come to the throne majorly through self-help and against all odds, Tinubu perhaps feels entitled to do and undo. Expanding his Lagos dynasty and imposing it on the entire country might be, for him, his natural progression. But perhaps that portrays Tinubu too much as a Tarzan. However, Tinubu’s politics, read benignly, conceives good governance to be dependent on a guided continuity. For him, democracy means benign Babasopecracy (patriarchal autocracy). It doesn’t matter if it is forced to masquerade and run around as a liberal multiparty democracy. So what others see as opportunistic self-aggrandising godfatherism aimed at entrenching a private political dynasty using Yoruba as mere building blocks, he possibly sees as progressive politics. While an obsession for an expanded dynasty coheres with Tinubu’s political history and explains in part his carefree tribalism, nothing in this dynasty concept precludes shrewd calculated inclusiveness. Allowing pliable folks from all parts of the country to occupy critical security positions to hoodwink the populace would have provided a necessary smokescreen. But Tinubu has chosen to be explicit.
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Yoruba is only one of them, though it constitutes about 20 per cent of the national population. A Yoruba is the Minister of Finance and Coordinator of the Economy. A Yoruba is the Oil Minister. Another Yoruba is the CBN Governor. A Yoruba is the Minister of Blue Economy. Yet another Yoruba is the Minster of Digital Economy. A Yoruba is the Minister of Solid Minerals. A Yoruba is the Minister of Trade and Industries. A Yoruba is the head of FIRS. A Yoruba is Managing Director of Bank of Agriculture. A Yoruba is Managing Director of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF). Another Yoruba is the Accountant General of the Federation.
Nigeria has six zones. Yoruba is primarily one zone. Nigeria has over 250 ethnic groups. Yoruba is only one of them, though it constitutes about 20 per cent of the national population. A Yoruba is the Minister of Finance and Coordinator of the Economy. A Yoruba is the Oil Minister. Another Yoruba is the CBN Governor. A Yoruba is the Minister of Blue Economy. Yet another Yoruba is the Minster of Digital Economy. A Yoruba is the Minister of Solid Minerals. A Yoruba is the Minister of Trade and Industries. A Yoruba is the head of FIRS. A Yoruba is Managing Director of Bank of Agriculture. A Yoruba is Managing Director of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF). Another Yoruba is the Accountant General of the Federation. The Yoruba hold the most critical positions, not just in the security and law enforcement sectors but also in the economy. The Yoruba may be the smartest Nigerians, but the gap isn’t this wide. Therefore, any attempt to sell this perfidy as meritocracy is political Yahoo-Yahoo. The abject and comprehensive servility of the National Assembly should be proof to Tinubu that many other Nigerians are as willing as the Yoruba to worship Tinubu, to sing On Your Mandate while lying face down at his feet. If so, why is Tinubu’s Tribalism so headlong, so relentless?
While refuting revenge as a motive for Tinubu’s Terrible Tribalism, I had wondered about the virtue of the entire NADECO and Afenifere enterprises of the 90s and early 2000s. Perhaps we had all been deceived into jumping onto a duplicitous wagon for group vendetta or ethnic actualisation, rather than national liberation. That attempt to interrogate the original authenticity of Afenifere because of the startling repudiation of its core principles by one of its champions provoked the former Afenifere leader, Ayo Adebanjo, who sadly died recently. In response to that article, Adebanjo had disowned Tinubu and disagreed vehemently that Tinubu was promoting any genuine Yoruba interests. He said Tinubu’s tribalism was dangerous cronyism, a patently self-serving adventure by a wolf in sheep’s clothing to turn Nigeria into a one-party state and become its life president.
In his response to that article, a former Minister in the Jonathan administration said he was baffled by the scale of Tinubu’s Tribalism, which he believed was borne of triumphalism. He wondered why Tinubu was recklessly alienating people of other tribes who were starting to respond by switching off, becoming apathetic, in many government institutions. He wondered how embracing only a section of the Yoruba, instead of the entire South, would help the president, assuming he had something deep-seated against the North and wanted to call its bluff. My response was that besides triumphalism, Tinubu wanted to conscript the Yoruba emotionally to protect and preserve his presidency as a Yoruba project. In addition to their block votes, which might compensate for some of the inevitable losses up North, the Yoruba intelligentsia, if pushed into ethnic defensiveness by any indiscriminate anti-Yoruba sentiment by the other groups, could become the formidable and validating voice to legitimise and promote him, his second term ambition, and possibly any life presidency ideas, no matter his performance. In other words, Tinubu could be banking on the benefits of becoming synonymous with Yoruba, arguably the country’s most enlightened clan.
Now, Tinubu is cheerfully concentrating power in the hands of one ethnic group. It has become his obsession. Now, Tinubu no longer remembers the positions and appointments that defined lopsidedness, which made him and his friends cry about Hausa Fulani’s hegemony. They now say all positions are equal. Perhaps Tinubu thinks Nigerians are cows.
Many years ago, Tinubu was an apostle of Sovereign National Conference. The SNC, that vehicle of inclusion, was supposed to transport ethnic nationalities to a people-oriented constitution to enthrone freedom, equity, social justice and prosperity in the nation. The SNC was the gbogborise fermented in Yoruba land, which must be administered to Nigeria, or it would inexorably perish. Then, Tinubu had said the cracks in the foundation of the nation demanded a fundamental overhaul. Those days, he regarded the unity of the country as desirable and negotiable, rather than inviolable and sacrosanct. Now, Tinubu regards that unity with callous levity. And perhaps any noisy agitation for a Sovereign National Conference now could easily be treated as treason.
For so many years, Tinubu and his political associates demanded true federalism, underlined by resource control and the devolution of powers. Those days they seemed the most principled politicians in Africa. They wanted decentralisation to curb the prevalent national ailment. That ailment was stagnation and inequity and the reign of mediocrity. Unavoidably, they wanted an end to Hausa Fulani hegemony. Now, Tinubu is cheerfully concentrating power in the hands of one ethnic group. It has become his obsession. Now, Tinubu no longer remembers the positions and appointments that defined lopsidedness, which made him and his friends cry about Hausa Fulani’s hegemony. They now say all positions are equal. Perhaps Tinubu thinks Nigerians are cows.
In truth, nobody expects habitually wheeling and dealing politicians to be averse to opportunism or to pass any strict tests of moral hygiene. But Tinubu’s brazen tribalism is confounding. Some say Tinubu has only revealed his true colours. But for some of us who saw some good in him, his industrial-scale tribalism is concerning. Because such crippling myopia could be a consequence of a more fundamental moral depreciation. In multi-ethnic African nations, rabid tribalism is always a recipe for stagnation and instability. Any concentration of power in a single ethnic group is always a disservice to the tribe and country. That Tinubu cannot foresee this ruin is worrisome. That he can, uninhibited by conscience, and with defiance, choose this course is pitiable.
Ugoji Egbujo writes from Abuja.
