It is a season of anger. As institutional fighting replaces bargaining and compromise, cherished values of the democratization process; anger takes control of all: the federating nationalities, the power addressees, election losers, those short-changed by the system: kidnappers, bandits, armed criminals, herdsmen and farmers with everyone playing the victim. There also those past leaders who led us to this sorry pass showing their own anger by sowing seeds of discord and divisiveness. There are of course our frustrated angry youths who without proper articulation of Nigeria’s crisis on nationality last week angrily declared a day of rage for the take-off of their now aborted revolution to take over the country from democratically elected President Buhari.
It is not as if there had not been periods of anger in our land in the past. In 1953, as a result of the insult hauled at northern leaders over their rejection of Chief Anthony Enahoro’s 1956 motion for independence, Ahmadu Bello had sworn when next he was coming to Lagos, he would come with his sword. Chief SLA Akintola’s subsequent attempt to mobilise northern Kano youths for his AG party’s support ended in Kano 1953 violence which left 46 dead and over 200 wounded. But at the end, reason prevailed among leaders whose strained relationship caused the anger. They sat down to negotiate Nigeria’s future and came up with a working constitution. In the spirit of give and take, they inserted a safety valve in form of non-interference clause in the affairs of federating regions to prevent the take-over of the country by the north with advantage of land space and population. If that arrangement failed in 1962, it was as a result of brinkmanship of Ahmadu Bello who celebrated the takeover of the country by giving a horse to Zik and a copy of the Quran to Balewa, the prime minister while expressing satisfaction for handing over the country to his two trusted loyalists. And when Zik fell out of favour after the constitutional crisis of 1964, he was promptly replaced with Chief SLA Akintola, who in turn received a gift of a sword from Ahmadu Bello.
The difference between then and today is that we are confronted with poverty of ideas. Our past ill-equipped leaders who by their acts of commission or omission between 1975 and 2015 reinforced Ahmadu Bello’s ‘mainstreaming’ agenda are the same people fuelling the institutionalised fighting currently going on in the country. Instead of sitting down to negotiate our defective structure, they are busy demonizing Buhari, a mere symptom of our crisis of nationality. Unfortunately, our youths who should know better have forgotten that it was Babangida who after fraudulently declaring ‘for their tomorrow we sacrifice our today” introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme that turned Nigeria to importer of the labour of other countries leaving today’s youths to roam the street without job. Our social media tigers who have no knowledge of yesterday do not know that it was Obasanjo who after declaring that “youth constitute Nigeria’s only hope for a real future”, took off from where Babangida stopped, selling off through ill-implemented privatization programme, public enterprises set up at a cost of over $100b by our founding fathers to take care of the less privileged, build a foundation for a middle class and guarantee an egalitarian society, for a miserable $1.5b to the members of the political class. The angry youths probably don’t understand that Obasanjo, Atiku and other government officials under-funded our universities that once compared favourably with the best in the world in order to pave way for their high fees paying universities. Since many hardly read, they probably don’t understand these angry past leaders came up with government monetization policy that allowed them to share prime properties dating back to colonial period kept in their custody for our children yet unborn among themselves, their family members and their in-laws. If there is darkness in the land, the angry youths are not asking why those who allegedly spent $16b on the power sector generated only darkness. While our teaching hospitals remain consulting clinics, they are not asking those using them as pawns why huge contracts for the refurbishment of the teaching hospitals were awarded as patronage to party stalwarts who ended up supplying obsolete equipment. If President Buhari is now borrowing money to construct standard gauge railway lines, our angry youths did not bother to read about how a section of the media celebrated what was described as ‘a railway revolution’ when all the late Samuel Ogbemudia did was to repaint some old railway coaches.
Of course President Buhari can do better. He was after all elected because of the above betrayals by his predecessors in office. But the response to his imperfections is not anger but strategic thinking and planning. Inpatient Sowore did not take pains to digest what the late Dr Okadigbo described as the ‘arithmetic of Nigeria elections’. He did not also take pains to find out why Chief Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello, both celebrated for their successes as regional premiers started as at the local government level .But all the same, Sowore and others who have never been registered members of political parties, contested elections or demonstrated proper articulation of Nigerian crisis of nationality thought they could defeat President Buhari who as a result of his cult-like followership among the northern masses, secured 13million votes during each of his three previous outings as opposition candidate.
Sowore and his angry youths who after failing to achieve their objective through the constitutional process, threatened to take over power by force did not bother about history. Our current defective federal structure works in favour of any candidate supported by the north. That was the case in 1964, 1979 and 1999 when the north arrogantly chose Obasanjo as Yoruba candidate and elected him president without Yoruba vote. Experience since the birth of the fourth republic has also shown that constitutional amendment not supported by the north cannot sail through the National Assembly, state houses of assembly and the 774 LGAs.
Sowore did not also attempt to take advantage of the experiences of his illustrious Yoruba forbears who have been in the forefront of the struggle for a restructured Nigeria since the end of the civil war. Besides the old guard represented by Pa Ayo Adebanjo, his children, Bola Tinubu, Segun Osoba and Wale Oshun, Professor Akin Oyebode recently disclosed to close friends that the Yoruba were the only group at the Jonathan 2014 Confab armed with about 400 page document to support restructuring. Professor Bolaji Akinyemi who was also a member of the confab not long ago said Buhari, because of his massive support in the north, is perhaps the only northern leader uniquely placed to convince the northern political elite that by acceding to restructuring, the north would not be committing political suicide. Governor Fayemi also reminded Yoruba social media tigers and others calling for Yoruba withdrawal of support for the Buhari administration on account of his body language on restructuring that ‘Yoruba alone cannot effect restructuring of Nigeria’.
By his demonstrated impatience and contempt for Yoruba traditional leaders and Yoruba political office holders, it is doubtful if angry Sowore understands Nigeria’s crisis of nationality can only be resolved through debates, dialogue and bargaining. His temporary incarceration one hopes will afford him an opportunity to reflect on the futility of his reported suicide threat which according to Fela Kuti will amount to “dying wrongfully”, a crime DSS say it is trying to forestall by his detention.
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