‘Northern’ plot against Tinubu?, By Wole Olaoye

Nothing activates the bubbly Nigerian passion like football and politics. The verdict of many commentators of southern origin was that from the outbursts of both the Northern Elders’ Forum and the Arewa Consultative Forum, the ‘North’ has not yet purged itself of what Southern leaders regard as its traditional arrogance. They wonder if Tinubu’s predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, could have been president without the votes of the South, particularly the South-West. 

Nigerian politicians fascinate me with their sheer inventiveness. Don’t write off any politician who still has breath in him. His dying embers can still trigger a conflagration. It was in that context that I decided to take another look at the recent threats by some politicians of Northern extraction to block President Tinubu from having a second term in 2027.

On 29 May, the Tinubu administration will be two years old — just two years, and some people are already bewailing the turn-by-turn tradition in our unwritten constitution which makes us rotate the presidency between the North and the South. Tinubu’s Northern predecessor, Buhari, was president for eight years.

The reason some of us can’t join Nigeria’s political jujitsu is because it is a very deadly sport with indeterminate rules. As soon as one begins to celebrate our seeming cohesiveness and encouraging handshakes across the four cardinal points of the River Niger, gbam! A massive shock jolts you back to reality reminding you that our middle name is atavism.

North as Kingmaker

“Tinubu could not have been president without the support of the North”, said Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, until recently special adviser on Political Affairs to the President in the Office of the Vice President, who has now resumed his role as the voice of the Northern Elders’ Forum. He argues that President Tinubu should not seek a second term, apparently because he thinks that Tinubu’s performance in the first two years has been sub-par. 

Baba-Ahmed’s missionary journey round the major media outlets was closely followed by a release by the Arewa Consultative Forum, declaring that the North will only support candidates in the 2027 general elections who are committed to protecting and promoting the region’s interests.

“Northern Nigeria will remain faithful not to particular politicians or political parties but to those who care about our regional interests and are willing to promote and protect them”, said the chairman of the forum’s Board of Trustees, who is also a former Minister of Power and Steel, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu. Predictably, Baba-Ahmed is also a member of the ACF.

Flexing his region’s political muscles. Dalhatu declared, “The North has 19 out of the 36 states, and we also have the FCT as a veritable component. We have a majority in the Senate, the House of Representatives, the National Economic Council, and the Council of State. The North occupies close to 75 per cent of Nigeria’s land area and about 60 per cent of the population.”

He went on to issue what many people in the southern parts have since described as an open threat: “In the next six months, the North will decide where it stands. If the rest of the country wants to join us, fine. If not, we will go our own way. One thing is clear: nobody can become president of Nigeria without northern support.”

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We all know how diverse Northern Nigeria is. We know, too, the various forces at play in that part of Nigeria. While we continue to pray that God intervenes in the mayhem going on between adherents of different religions and ethnic nationalities, in addition to the sheer criminality raging there, it is too presumptuous of any individual, no matter how many times he has enjoyed government appointments, to claim to speak for the entire north.

Arrogance

Nothing activates the bubbly Nigerian passion like football and politics. The verdict of many commentators of southern origin was that from the outbursts of both the Northern Elders’ Forum and the Arewa Consultative Forum, the ‘North’ has not yet purged itself of what Southern leaders regard as its traditional arrogance. They wonder if Tinubu’s predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, could have been president without the votes of the South, particularly the South-West. 

No part of Nigeria has an overwhelming majority over the others, meaning that in the same vein, no Northerner can become president without Southern votes. So, why divide the people on the basis of region of origin, instead of addressing pertinent socio-political issues such as the economy, spate of insecurity, political restructuring, etc.? 

“Enìkan kì í jé àwádé” is a popular Yoruba proverb, which could be translated as, “One individual can’t announce his presence by saying, ‘We have come’. I doubt if Mr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and his co-travellers have ever heard this. 

We all know how diverse Northern Nigeria is. We know, too, the various forces at play in that part of Nigeria. While we continue to pray that God intervenes in the mayhem going on between adherents of different religions and ethnic nationalities, in addition to the sheer criminality raging there, it is too presumptuous of any individual, no matter how many times he has enjoyed government appointments, to claim to speak for the entire north.

Agreeing with the above point, the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, has declared that the NEF does not speak for the entire North, describing the body as a political burden to the region.

Toeing Matawale’s line, another body, the Progressive Northern Elements, in a statement signed by its Chairman, Alhaji Ibrahim Mohammed Modibbo, said it was too early for the Northern Elders Forum to start finding faults in a president they supported to win an election.

“The Northern Elders Forum should know that an average Northerner is wiser now and can’t be cajoled to fight any Southerner in power as President. Our position is clear, we believe in any government or leader that will make the North and every other region better. Nothing less.”

On the flip side of the coin, the former governor also warned President Tinubu not to push people to the wall: “You see, the domestic cat fed on small chickens, but one day, the mother of the chickens stood up to the cat. Tinubu is that cat.”.. The word in town is that the Mother Hen has arranged a Peter Obi/El Rufai presidential ticket to ‘de-cat’ Tinubu in 2027. There are interesting days ahead!

Lamido’s Crystal Ball 

If anyone can plot how to unseat a political personage, given the dancing chess board that Nigerian politics has become, that person would be Alhaji Sule Lamido, former governor of Jigawa State and founding member of the PDP. If wishes were horses, Lamido would want his party, PDP, to be in power; but being a realist, he warns that the task of unseating Tinubu is not for opportunist rabble-rousers.

In Lamido’s view, “It is going to be difficult with Tinubu, with his hold on the country, on the economy, and his audacity to say this is where I stand…. Tinubu is very daring; he is his own creation. He is a self-made man, right from Chicago, what he went through on the streets. Look at how he was able to fight the Alliance for Democracy and Afenifere and then Obasanjo.” 

The former governor added: “At the APC convention, Buhari was against him but he defeated Buhari. What are you talking about? Don’t underestimate a man like that…  There is no Nigerian like Tinubu who has been there on his own. Every established political arrangement, every institution, he demolished them. Now that he is in charge, he is not going to be easy to deal with.”

Many enlightened people wish that the meetings of the Northern Elders’ Forum and the Arewa Consultative Forum were actually meant to address the almajiri problem in the North, youth unemployment, re-calibration of parasitic local government structures, the national economy, illegal mining, insecurity in the North and other problems militating against the people. 

I bet you, many of the itinerant campaigners are just one appointment away from disembarking from the protest train and retreating quietly to savour the perks of their new office. It will do them no harm to take Lamido’s advice. 

Peter Obi/El Rufai Ticket

On the flip side of the coin, the former governor also warned President Tinubu not to push people to the wall: 

“You see, the domestic cat fed on small chickens, but one day, the mother of the chickens stood up to the cat. Tinubu is that cat.” 

The word in town is that the Mother Hen has arranged a Peter Obi/El Rufai presidential ticket to ‘de-cat’ Tinubu in 2027. There are interesting days ahead!

The question is, do the desperate politicians threatening to turn day to night have the discipline, resources, moral suasion, vision and virtual death-wish to live up to their grandiloquence?

Wole Olaoye is a Public Relations consultant and veteran journalist. He can be reached on [email protected], Twitter: @wole_olaoye; Instagram: woleola2021