Our attention has been drawn to the activities and pronouncements of the Governors of Adamawa, Jigawa, Kano and Niger States who have been going round the country inciting tension and division with the obvious intention of destabilizing the government of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. The objective of these activities, as they themselves trumpeted is to get a “northerner” by which they mean Hausa Fulani, replace President Jonathan in 2015, or even by any means possible.
After meeting with Rivers State Governor Mr. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi in controversial circumstances aimed at inciting tension between the Niger Delta and other parts of Nigeria, the group proceeded to Abeokuta to see General Olusegun Obasanjo and therefter to Minna to meet with Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalam Abubakar to “report” President Goodluck Jonathan. They reportedly asked the two Generals to intervene in a way that will make “our dreams become a reality”. General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, the man who annulled the June 12 elections and championed the northern consensus programme that excluded Dr. Sarah Jibril, thereafter declared them patriots for their actions.
It is obvious to see the direction these people are coming from. Like Ango Abdullahi and a few others crying themselves hoarse about “it is the turn of the North(arewa) in 2015” it is inconceivable and totally unacceptable to them to be out of power “for so long” . As far as they are concerned only them should rule Nigeria, notwithstanding the fact that the Hausa Fulani North have had as President and Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa , Alhaji Usman Aliyu Shehu Shagari, and Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar Adua. They have had, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Alhaji Namadi Mohammed Sambo as Vice Presidents.
General Obasanjo of the South West was President for eight years, and Yar ‘Adua’s eight years would not have been debated if God had not ruled otherwise by allowing the cold hands of death on May 5, 2010 to snatch him away from us. Yar’ Adua’s erstwhile Deputy, from one of the many minority ethnic groups naturally contested and, thanks to the support from his native South South, South East, Middle Belt and South West, won the 2011 Presidential Election. This is the first time Nigeria’s Leader has emerged from the South South.
For Aliyu Muazu Babangida, the man who voted against President Goodluck Jonathan during the PDP Primaries and in the 2011 general elections, Jonathan should not have been elected in the first place and anything done to get him out as quickly as possible is patriotism, hence the desperation. It would have been funny were it not so rude, incorrect and based on a flawed understanding of the dynamics playing out in Nigeria today.
Secondly the patriotism which these gentlemen were adorned with by General Ibrahim Babangida must be based on the recent “disgrace” they meted out to Governor David Jonah Jang. Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the former Right Honourable Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, when Babangida was military president gloated that they played politics on Jang and President Jonathan, when he, Kwankwaso at a meeting presided over by Aliyu Babangida, and attended by other northern Governors, nominated Jang as consensus candidate for the NGF chairmanship only to dump him a few hours after.
Hapless Jang, who had no intention of contesting for the chairmanship of the NGF, was left stranded? or so they wished.How will this not be patriotism to General Ibrahim Babangida? During Babangida’s transition to civil rule programme General Yakubu Gowon had the same Jang treatment meted to him when he was asked to start his option A4 presidential bid from Zaria.
What is more? Kwankwaso gleefully related what happened to the media and said they wanted to teach Jonathan politics. To nominate someone who was not interested in an office with the intention of disgracing him shows how honourable Kwankwaso really is. And Jang’s constituency, the Middle Belt, is supposed to be amused by such a shoddy treatment of our own? We are supposed to nod our heads enthusiastically when the establishment cries “there is only one indivisible north”! Besides, can these Honourable men whose words don’t mean anything to them be trusted when they speak of one north? How will you know when they want to teach politics and when they are telling the truth?
A section of the North overwhelmingly voted for Buhari in 2011. As a matter of fact Kwankwaso in Kano printed campaign posters with the pictures of Buhari superimposed on them. Aliyu Muazu and Murtala Nyako voted for Buhari in the 2011 elections. The President got about 18% of the votes in Kano. Yet President Goodluck Jonathan has bent surprisingly backward to accommodate and make them the mainstay of his government. The fact that they nominated most ministers and senior political appointees has not satisfied them. They are working assiduosly hard to throw him out before the end of his tenure.
We reaffirm our position that post-Goodluck Ebele Jonathan presidency is for the Middle Belt. We in the Middle Belt do not agree with the agitation that power should leave the Niger Delta now. By the natural reconfiguration of the zoning formula as a result of the natural death of President Umaru Musa Yar Adua, the Niger Delta is still supported by the Middle Belt to conclude its eight year tour of duty. It is significant to note that the artificial security challenges created by those who said that they would make the country ungovernable are being addressed; the railway lines which stopped working during the administration of General Ibrahim Babangida have slowly but steadily started to work; massive power transmission lines are being installed across the country. In terms of performance therefore, those persecuting Jonathan cannot claim to have performed as much as he has let alone say better.
On Governor Amaechi and the orchestrated tension in Rivers State, we wish to align ourselves with the advice given to him by Yinka Odumakin, and echoed by the South South Peoples Assembly; We wish to remind him that those who ride on the tiger back end up in its belly. Those who are clapping for him now to weaken and or undermine President Jonathan love him only to the extent that he keeps undermining Jonathan. Not long from now they will give him the Gowon, Abiola and Jang treatment.
Amaechi and his cohorts should remember how the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) used Akintola to weaken Awolowo’s support base in the early 1960s; The people of South South are not so unwise calculators that will prefer the number two position of Governor Adams Oshiomhole or Rotimi Amaechi to the number one? Come on!
We wish to remind the South South citizens that the Northern agenda, as championed by these Governors, is to use a southerner to destroy a southerner and nothing more. These characters lauded as patriots are but cheap traitors running an unpopular script that is doomed to fail.A word is enough for the wise.Abi-O.
Honourable Aminu Zang
Member, House of Representatives –1993
For the Secretariat
