Nigeria has always had a peculiar football structure in that all clubs are controlled by government departments and have operated without a grassroots involvement. When ECN ruled the local scene, the members of the team were employees of that corporation and only played football on the side so that the fortunes of the club were tied down with those of ECN, just as was the case with the Railways, Ports Authority, PWD (Public Works Department), Police, and lesser clubs which were sponsored by and affiliated with government institutions. From time to time however, private companies or individuals stepped in to float football clubs and these were viable as long as their proprietors retained an interest in those clubs. Perhaps the most famous of these clubs were Leventis originally based in Lagos but later shifted base to Moniya, a suburb of Ibadan, Stationery Stores which took Lagos by storm in the middle sixties and became the darling club of the fickle Lagos fans who transferred their allegiance, such as it was, en masse from ECN to the new boys on the block. Stationery Stores was a team which played a scintillating brand of soccer which betrayed the professional status of their players. The team was coached by ‘Eto’ Amechina who insisted on a brand of soccer which until then was associated with the Brazilians before their football was bastardised by the introduction of the pragmatism of European football. Unfortunately for Nigerian football, the proprietor of the club, Adebajo was not blessed with long life and departed the scene long before his football philosophy took hold in Nigeria. There were a few teams in this category but the one most worthy of mention was Amukpe FC, a team based in the village of Amukpe near the town of Warri. This team, sponsored by a Syrian came out of nowhere to win the Western Region Challenge cup in 1962 and came down to Lagos to take part in the finals of that year’s Challenge cup. I had the privilege of seeing the team arrive for their semi-final match against the Police.  In keeping with simplicity of those days, they arrived in Lagos on the morning of that match in three Peugeot station wagons having travelled overnight from Amukpe but this did not stop them from giving the much vaunted Police team a big fright losing the match by a paltry one goal margin. Several of those giant killers notably Jerry Azinge and Sammy Opone were snapped up by Lagos clubs and became the household names they could only have dreamt about had they remained in the backwoods of Amukpe.

In those days, the Challenge cup competition was a massive affair which captured the imagination of football fans all over the nation. The competition was played on regional basis with the regional champions coming to Lagos for the final shootout at the iconic KGV stadium. Every schoolboy in Nigeria followed the competition avidly none more avid than I. The teams were representatives of towns and in those days, Port Harcourt with their compliment of Onyes (Onyeali, Onyeado, Onyewuna, the master dribbler), Kano, Ibadan and various Lagos teams were prominent. Also prominent were successive teams from Jos which had the unalloyed support of all uncommitted football fans from all over the nation,  not only for their beautiful football but for their heroic failures as until now, no team from that town high up on the Jos Plateau has ever had the privilege of taking home that coveted trophy. With the current debased status of that competition, winning it now would be a serious anticlimax and a mockery of those past failures.

Read Also: Football induced memories

For all its popularity, football has hardly ever penetrated the consciousness of Nigerians in the same way that it has done in other parts of the world and indeed some other African counties. This is why only two Nigerian clubs, Rangers FC and 3SC have lived long enough to celebrate their respective fiftieth anniversaries and even then, neither club is as celebrated as it was in the heydays of their successes as African champions and serial winners of local club competitions. Now, they are just going through the motions as their respective  fan base has shrunk to close to nothing.  Their fitful sponsors are state governors who seem always to have weightier matters on their confused minds so that these once mighty clubs has been reduced to the status of orphans. This is not the case with football clubs in other African countries, specifically Ghana and South Africa to give two pertinent examples. The oldest football club in Ghana is the Accra based Accra Hearts of Oak which was founded in 1911 and since then has been building a following which is why it still attracts crowds of forty thousand spectators to their home games. Their bitter rivals, Ashanti Kotoko based in Kumasi has been going strong since 1935 and is still winning trophies and pulling in crowds into its Baba Yara stadium, the same stadium where Nigeria has never won a match against Ghana. Over in South Africa, there are two teams based in Soweto and their rivalry is so fierce that the Soweto derby is as hotly contested as any of the famous derbies all over the world. Orlando Pirates was formed in 1937 whilst her bitter rivals the Kaizer Chiefs started off in 1970. Over in Durban, the AmaZulu football club has been in existence since 1932 and is still one of the top teams in the South African league. This situation exists because these clubs are not sponsored by any government department and have a solid fan base so that several generations of the same family can support their team and pas their support on to future generations. In contrast the Nigerian football cemetery is full of clubs which had their few seasons under the sun and died, un-mourned, unsung and no longer remembered except by confessed fanatics like me who for no discernible reason, cherish the past. My romance with ECN could not go far beyond the ten years when the Electric Corporation of Nigeria considered their exciting football team worthy of continued support.

With ECN Football Club in terminal decline, I had no choice but to go out in search a suitable replacement if only to plug the hole in my heart. Then, unlike now there was very little football on television and at that time the only football programme I could tap in to was a highlights package of English league matches which had been played more than a year before they were brought to our television screens in Lagos. The matches were very old but because there had been no news of them before they were broadcast, they retained a compelling freshness which made me sit down in cheerful expectation every Monday night according to the programming schedule of the one available television station in Lagos. A few people reading this would have worked out that I am talking here of a time around the end of the sixties but for those who have not been able to read any of the clues provided, I can confirm that I was writing about the period immediately following my release from the secondary school in 1968. In the wake of that important occurrence, I had a gap period of a little over nine months to navigate through before presenting myself in the precincts of any university to which I had been admitted and so I had the time and the opportunity of tuning in to watch matches from the English first division.

At the end of the 1967/68 season, the Manchester City Football Club had, unknown to me at the time, won the English First Division championship. Because they were champions, many of their matches from that season were often featured on the highlight package available on Lagos television a year later. That programme was compelling viewing for me which is how I was introduced to the all conquering Man, City team with the irresistible attacking trio of Bell, Lee and Summerbee. They blew me away and I could not get enough of them and this is why more than fifty years later, I still cannot get Manchester City out of my head. Later on, my addiction to this team had the logical consequence of attracting me to the city of Manchester. After graduating from the University of Ife in 1972 I was employed as a Graduate Assistant in my alma mater and given the opportunity of sponsorship to any university to which I could gain admission for postgraduate studies. Manchester University then and now is one of the most prestigious British universities outside Oxford and Cambridge and that is one of the reasons why I applied to it for admission but just as compelling was the fact that it was home to the Manchester City Football Club and living there meant that I had virtually unrestricted access to what in my mind I had begun to call my team, the place of refuge after the distress caused by the fall from grace of my first love the exciting ECN FC of Lagos. I spent three years as a student in Manchester and throughout that period, I enjoyed many happy hours at Maine Road where MCFC played in those days, being entertained royally by a team which at that time as now, played an intoxicating brand of football which kept me enthralled and explains why they still set my ageing heart racing.

My long term support of Manchester City has certainly not been a frolic, far from it. For the first decade of my journey with the Cityzens was uniformly enjoyable as they were one of the power houses of English football and had the other Manchester team and inveterate enemy constantly in their rear view mirror. Then, slowly but inexorably the situation changed and then we were the underdogs and as fortunes rose in the other half of Manchester, the sky blues began to the slide right down to the third tier of English football. We were not just sliding down but Manchester United was climbing up to the very pinnacle of football glory, winning trophies foreign and domestic with heart breaking regularity. We were not even in the same league and so did not have the opportunity of derby games which we had been known to win against all the odds occasionally. Even through those darkest of days of collective despair, we kept the faith and since our club was still alive we held on to the hope that the glory days would come back, in the same way that football fans all over the world hold on tenaciously to their optimism about their club even if the cloud hanging over their club did not have any discernible silver club. Hope is however ruthlessly expunged when the object of affection and loyalty is suddenly no longer available. Manchester City has survived all manner of vicissitudes over the last one hundred and forty-two years and is not likely like ECN to just disappear anytime soon. That the team is now once again a powerhouse of world football is an icing on the cake for her loyal supporters and I for one cannot wait for the next season to begin so that we can continue our secure domination of the English Premier League.

By now, a number of  political parties would have concluded on who would bear their presidential flags in the forthcoming general elections come 2023. Now, while a number of these parties have succeeded in meeting INEC’s rescheduled deadline. It is obvious that except there are a few upsets, the forthcoming elections, particularly that of the presidency would be at most a two party race, not even  Peter Obi’s move into the Labour Party, will help change much. However, we are sure that Nigeria and Nigerians will experience a new high within our political process, one the country can hopefully build upon for a better polity.

The People’s Democratic Party, PDP produced an Atiku Abubakar, a Fulani from the NorthEast and one time Vice President of the Federation. A perennial presidential aspirant cum candidate since 1993, Atiku’s decision to run for President this time around portrayed him as one without principles and desperate for power. This same Atiku had in 2011 insisted on the zoning of the presidency  to the North in order to maintain the sacrosanctity of PDP’s zoning arrangement. He had even contested the primaries suffering a resounding defeat at the hands of the then incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan. Matter of fact, Atiku’s decision to quit the PDP  for the  APC was borne on the body language of Jonathan to again seek another term  in office. He however criss crossed back to the PDP, picking up the ticket but losing again to the incumbent in President Muhammadu Buhari. This time around, Atiku withstood every sensible and just clamour for the PDP to zone the presidency to the South, following the near completion of President Buhari’s eight years in office. Sadly, Atiku was to have his way beating Nyesome Wike, the present sitting Governor of Rivers State at the PDP’s convention. Atiku’s emergence was due to the lack of Southern Solidarity as SouthWest and South South delegates allegedly cast their votes for Atiku. Not even the maverick like decision of Governor Tambuwal to step down for Atiku pricked his Southern counterparts, they sold Governor Wike out and ended the hopes of the PDP producing a Southerner for President.

Read Also: APC: The heroes of presidential primary

For Governor Wike, history will be kind to him. Wike was the brave face of the South in that convention, even though he lost due to the evil machinations of his Southern counterparts. Unlike some politicians who much preferred to chicken out of the race a few days to the primaries after grandstanding at some mausoleums, Wike, became the symbol of the South in the PDP attempting to match Atiku, man to man.

The PDP primaries witnessed a heavy dollarizarion of  the process as a majority of the party’s aspirants engaged each other in an all out scramble for the votes of their delegates, a sad reminder that our democracy is still the play thing of the rich and mighty.

The primaries of the Labour Party was to follow suit, and with the entry of the former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi into the party, following his chickening out from the PDP’s race on the alleged story that the process had been heavily monetized. Yet in his bid to portray himself as a saint with one watch and two shoes, our Hong-Kong /China  exponent forgot how he nicked the APGA ticket in 2003, supplanting in a manner even the Medici’s would be ashamed of the would be winner of that primaries in the person of Chief Ralph Okey Nwosu, the current National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress, ADC.

Even at that, I can boldly say that Obi’s decision to quit the PDP was a political blunder, his name on the PDP ticket would have bolstered the party’s chances at the polls and would have dealt a more serious blow to the APC’s desire to retain power. Obi’s choice of the Labour Party makes him a king in a small fiefdom as elections are not won on the platforms of social media or on ethnic rabble rousing. Elections are won via party structures, which are built over the years and political climes like Nigeria, have not afforded media creations or myths like Obi the opportunity to blossom beyond their immediate spaces, the likes of Azikiwe, Awolowo, Aminu Kano and Nuhu Ribadu are classical example. Even the incumbent in Muhammadu Buhari experienced such trends until the formation of the All Progressives Congress which had a national outlook.

The biggest upset did not occur in the two political parties but in the small ones, with a Kingsley Moghalu losing to an unknown Dumebi Kachikwu. Moghalu, who had featured brilliantly in the 2019’elections was hoping to do an encore in the 2023 elections  only to lose to Kachikwu who happens to be the younger brother to Nigeria’s former Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu.

The Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) deadline for political party primaries ahead of the 2023 general elections was on the 9th of June. None of the major registered political parties has a female candidate. The two biggest and possibly most viable political parties, the ruling All Progressives Congress  (APC) and the main opposition  Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) both have former Lagos state governor, Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu and former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar respectively as their flag bearers.

While the horse-trading and lobbying are going on in all the parties, women seem not to be of any serious consideration even as Vice Presidential candidates.  It is still the same old style of male near or total monopoly.  This again, portends a long way to inclusiveness in the Nigerian political scene. Sadly with the exclusion again comes more of the same or even worse as that nurturing, that intuitiveness, that gift of creation and empathy to care remain elusive in a country that is today the poverty capital of the world.

Ironically, women are the major victims of the poverty men inadvertently create through the exclusion of women, the youth and those living with disabilities who when their potentials are deftly harnessed can improve the economic indices of a country that is almost at the edge of the precipice.

The Roundtable Conversation seems to have prophetically predicted that given the outcome of the annual party conventions of the two biggest political parties, the APC and the PDP, the chances of women being in the mainstream of political relevance might be a mirage at least in the next phase of Nigeria’s democracy.  Predictably, the chips are down as the primaries have been concluded and the women remain largely incognito except being elected as Women leaders and as delegates whose job invariably stops at mobilizing fellow women.

The Roundtable Conversation sought the views of veteran journalist and Civil and Gender Rights advocate, Kadaria Ahmed. We wanted to know how she felt watching the APC and PDP primary elections and the fact that no woman was able to clinch any of the parties’ tickets. To her, one thing stood out as she ran her radio commentary during the conventions. There were a lot of female delegates especially from the Northern part of the country.  So it was ironic that the men were happy to coerce the women to come and do their bidding but never see them as good enough to win political tickets. The question then is, if women are good enough to be delegates, why are they not good enough to be voted for?

What the men in politics in Nigeria continuously fail to understand is that the choreographed absence of women on the political field has a direct correlation to the state of the economy, the fundamental problem of the Nigerian state. The men do not understand that excluding more than half the population can never give an optimal performance that can aid development. Its like a man fighting with one hand tied behind his back.

Development agencies and researchers have discovered and often published their findings that there is no way any nation that excludes women in its political economy can make progress. Women especially with education and the internet in this age are qualified, ready and as good if not even better than men in leadership and governance . There is a direct link between the near absence of women in governance and the dire economic state of the country. It is laughable that men somehow assume there is a miracle that can happen when they disenfranchise about half of the population.

Women are as able and as competent in policy development and execution if not even better in many instances than the men. If as it appears for now none of the major political parties is going to field a competent female Vice President, it is going to be their loss and that of Nigeria. Nigeria might sadly continue to grope in the dark until the men in the political space realize that they cannot clap with one hand.

Kadaria believes that Nigerian men seem to forget that being divinely created as men and women goes beyond the physiological and reproductive differences. The two genders have their strengths and weaknesses which when properly harnessed lead to development that stabilizes the socio-economic standing of a country. Women are gifted with empathy, care and patriotic diligence from the home to the public space. Most nations that try to relegate women to the background  through forced illiteracy are always at the lowest rung of development.

To her, education of the girl-child must be paramount and as the men grandstand and monopolize the political space they must see their efforts as futile if the women are not really empowered to be integrated into the leadership structure. It is a shame that that the Northern areas of the country have very low literacy rates and this is where those in leadership must begin to have some introspection. Education is the foundation of development because an educated woman is better empowered to raise better educated kids and she is in a better position to be maximally productive as a citizen.

There must be balance in the affairs of humans. Leadership is not an exclusive preserve of the men. Each gender is endowed with qualities that the other do not have so complementarity is key. Empathy is a great quality in humans and women are imbued with that. It enables them see issues of care and peace from a perspective men often lack and that explains why the world seems to be in perpetual chaos as men in leadership always stir conflicts and wars. There is a different style when women are in governance. The masculine was created to balance out the feminine and once there is imbalance, there is a huge problem that never goes away until the balance is achieved.

The Roundtable finds it very ironic that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the revised National  Gender Policy sometimes in  March but nothing concrete has happened. The policy is aimed at promoting gender equality, good governance and accountability across three tiers of government and social accountability for the vulnerable in the country.

With the way the Nigerian political space is structured, we daily see the Agenda 2030 which says, “Leave no one behind” as a mirage if women continue to be outsiders in policy issues because the political party structures give women no chance of growth structurally from the cradle to grave. Nigeria is signatory to many international treaties and agreements including the Beijing 1995 35% affirmative action that has not totally been actualized at any level of government.

The hypocrisy of the men in the National Assembly that threw away the Bill proposal for additional legislative seats across states and the national assemblies still point to the structural thoughtlessness that has bedeviled the nation and stagnated development.  The legislative arm is a strong pillar that gives voice to citizens through their representatives. It is sad that in some state assemblies in the country there are no women which  means that the men are left to decide the fate of a voting demographic that often outnumber the men.

Given the situation under review, it is fair to see the Nigerian political class as those that try to symbolically cut their nose to spite their face. How can the political exclusion of women continue in this way and we expect changes to happen? There is the valid saying that doing the same thing every time and expecting a different result is very delusional.

According to Kadaria, there seems to be an attempt to muscle out women and push them back to the 18th century. The gender policy was based on research and those that put the policy together know the value. The women do not just want the regular tokenism. There are very competent and ready women to contribute to nation building. There must be respect for the gender policy.

The fact that men control the party structure has been the albatross for women. Democracy is about political parties and if women in Nigeria are disenfranchised ab initio, no miracle can happen. Electoral processes must be made free and fair and no huddles should be placed before women.  There must be a level playing field. The idea of mouthing ‘free or subsidized nomination forms for women’ is not a sustainable panacea. There are competent and charismatic women who have been bullied, beaten and even killed in the political field just because of their gender.

The intimidation of women at the intra-party level is the main reason most women do not participate in politics and this must change if we want development. Again the idea of scapegoating the few women that have been in governance as the benchmark for all women is a socio-religious victim-blaming that must change. It is just a way of intimidating women out as though only saintly men have been in governance.

The Roundtable Conversation would call the attention of Nigerian male politicians to the fact that some super qualified women that have been in the Nigerian space and bullied by the men are all well accomplished and now operating at the global level; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Arumah Oteh, Yewande Sadiku, Amina Mohammed and a host of others. While they are applauded at the global stage, they would have been of better value directly to Nigeria. Charity they say begins at home but will the men in the political space realize this?

The dialogue continues…

There’s this theory we call the theory of the reality tunnel. The reality tunnel is a theory that, with a subconscious set of mental filters formed from beliefs and experiences, every individual interprets the same world differently, hence – “Truth is in the eye of the beholder”. It is similar to the idea of representative realism, and was coined by Timothy Leary.

According to the theory, humans see the world through the filters of their experiences and beliefs. Upbringing, education, all the joys and failures that have ever happened to us are the building material for the tunnel of reality. And that’s why people react differently to the same things.

Take Leonardo da Vinci’s legendary painting, “Gioconda.” As you look at it, one person will notice the enigmatic smile, another will notice the mathematical perfection in it. And the third will see a complete woman without eyebrows. And none of this trio is wrong – they all live in their tunnels and sincerely believe they are right.

And all because, according to the theory of tunnels, there is no single truth. And cannot exist. Escaping from your tunnel is difficult. It is like a well-trodden path: comfortable and familiar.

Each exit from the tunnel is unusual, dangerous and unpleasant – but it’s in these moments that real creativity happens, in these moments, you can become a creator who creates a completely new, unique reality. Nigeria is at a verge; 2023 presents an opportunity, and a new reality.

Looking out across the rolling wooded acres of Arlington National Cemetery, with its hundreds of thousands of white stones in perfectly ordered rows, brings an assortment of emotions that are impossible to escape. Sadness. Desolation. Pride of country. Anger over so many lost young lives. The stones represent tremendous loss as well as the gift of freedom we are able to enjoy.

Arlington National Cemetery is a United States military cemetery located across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., in Arlington County, Virginia. Within its 624 acres, over 400,000 active-duty service members, veterans, and their families have been buried. In addition to the military heroes, Arlington is also the final resting place for a select number of presidents, astronauts, senators, and Supreme Court justices. Founded during the dark days of the Civil War, the cemetery now contains the remains of military personnel from every American war — from the Revolution to Iraq and Afghanistan.

But what about those of us who have never been called upon to lay down our lives in battle? Is the whole concept of “sacrifice” something for others and not for us? No!

Sacrifice isn’t just some dramatic final act of heroism. Sacrifice is also laying down our privileges, benefits, and pleasures for the good of someone else.

Nigeria and Nigerians are torn deeply by terrible segregated, divided, dichotomous, ethnic and religious schisms. The nation has as much as one million tunnels of reality, with barely a handful willing to make a sacrifice for a new reality.

Again with 2023, our propensity to think as easterners, westerners, northerners, middle belters, all depending on the turns of event, comes to bear.

Every nation has countless tunnels or the other, if it is not the north vs south, it is versus blocs, religion or even ideological dichotomies. There are several reasons why such tunnels exist. Sometimes, it is a function of creation or political correctness like we have in the Nigerian case.

In our sensationalism, we have in every sense approached most problems sectionally thereby creating all kinds of unnecessary petty-culture-ethnic-religious-parapoism and bourgeois mentality in dealing with our national issues.

Tunnels and dichotomies are one that is used by political apologists as a socio-economic weapon. Apart from the positive, our dichotomy has been used to exploit and bamboozle the masses without major consideration being given to the dynamics of the law of development which in essence deals scientifically with the unity and struggle of opportunities and opposites.

Year 2023 provides in truth, a possibility for a social revolution that can solve our problems, be they political, economic or social. In this sense we need more than a free, fair and credible election. What we need is the progressive element (sadly that progressive element today is largely on paper only) to come together as a striking force. Because they have a revolutionary duty to this nation to help in striking a balance, to disabuse the thought pattern that has been built.

There is an ideology of hatred, one that props up again and again. This is a factor that reactionary elements within the system use in battling the progressives.

Year 2023 again exposes us to one thing and it is the national question. What is a nation? We cannot fully understand the implication of the drama of the delegates’ primary, the consensus drama, without answering the national question scientifically. In relating this phenomenon to our socio-political economic development, it is important to look at the historical development of our national question.

The national question “is a question of solving vital national problems of social development, abolishing national oppression and inequality, eliminating obstacles to the development of peoples, including achievement of factual quality and internationalism in national relations.”

The general elections and the road to it brings to question the concepts of “national character”, “national culture”, “national consciousness”, “national philosophy and psychology” all often used and discussed without carefully and critically understanding their contradicting class nature in antagonistic societies and their relative independence.

Nigeria should be a nation of a lasting historical community of people constituting a form of social development based on the community of economic life in combination with the community of language, territory, culture, consciousness and psychology. But are we?

Are we a nation of various ethnic groups moving towards greater realization of cultural togetherness, peace and stability for all?

The summary of this admonition is both a warning and a challenge: it is only fair and fitting to direct our critical analysis of the Nigerian political climate in the form of serious warning that all is not well. We cannot abdicate our responsibility to do and say what is right and choose which battles to fight on the premise of parochial locus standi. We need to come to grips with realities of the moment which point to the inevitabilities of the future, because time is running out, for us to initiate entry into a tunnel of social revolution. Are we ready?

• Dickson, PhD writes via <pcdbooks@gmail.com>

SIR: On Saturday June 4, on the same day Zakari Umaru-Kigbu, a former Federal Commissioner Nasarawa State of the National Population Commission was brutally killed in his house in  Lafia Nasarawa State and just hours before  the attack on St Francis Catholic Church Owo in Ondo State, criminals broke into the rectory of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Obangede, Okehi Local Government Area of  Kogi State and abducted  Rev. Fr. Christopher Onotu of the  Catholic Diocese of Lokoja thereby throwing the sleepy community into sadness and fear.

Early last month, the Catholic Archdiocese of  Kaduna  confirmed that its priest, Fr. Joseph Aketeh Bako, who was kidnapped from  the parish rectory at St. John Catholic Church Kudenda  where he was parish priest  had died in the hands of his kidnappers..

On May 25, two catholic priests belonging to the Missionary Society of St Paul and serving under the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto were abducted along with two boys serving in their rectory in Katsina State.

On May 29, the prelate of the Methodist Church In Nigeria Rev Samuel Kanu-Uche was abducted in Abia State along with two of his  bishops.  He was released only after the sum of N100 million was paid the kidnappers.

Kogi State used to know many attacks on innocent Nigerians. Multiple  cases of abduction on its roads were crowned by the horrific Kabba jailbreak of September 2021 to jar Nigerians awake to the biting reality that the confluence state was afire.

Just when it seemed some sort of solution had been found for the problem, bombs   went off in two different locations in Kabba within last month as if to announce that danger was still very much present.

Eyebrows were raised when Kingsley Fanwo the Kogi State Commissioner for Information said sometime in 2021 that the security partnership between the state government and Fulani herdsmen was bearing fruits while citing the example of how Fulani herdsmen captured fleeing inmates from the jailbreak in Kabba, and handed them back to the State government. It appears that the most vulnerable people of Kogi, those who live in those areas that are especially vulnerable because they are rural, remain starved of these fruits.

If insecurity ravages Nigeria today, it is because taking decisive action to confront the menace headlong is not the priority of the many political merchants, mercenaries and mediums Nigerians have had the misfortune of electing into office.  While the country burns, they prefer to amuse themselves with other things.

• Kene Obiezu, keneobiezu@gmail.com

To frame the epic coronation at the Eagle Square Tuesday night casually as Jagaban’s triumph is to omit one significant detail: a major detour in the movement of the forces of Nigeria’s history.

As 2,322 enervated party delegates began to disperse from the Abuja coliseum strewn with the shards of broken aspirations and the cadavers of decapitated dreams Wednesday afternoon, the one whose ramrod shadow would appear to loom larger over the nation’s political space is no other than President Muhammadu Buhari.

By one supreme act of statesmanship at a very tempting moment, it can now be said that the lanky infantry general from Daura has indeed earned a durable perch in Nigeria’s political history. Added to this historic spectacle is the novelty of a contender, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who chose to live out the true meaning of Ernest Hemingway’s words: to be defeated and not surrender is the ultimate victory.

The factor of tribe is, of course, never to be downplayed in succession rites. The truly discerning would not have missed the rather hideous rendition of this in the build-up to the the contest for the APC presidential ticket, particularly in the last three months.

Not a few became genuinely apprehensive when PMB’s name was being dropped repeatedly in the “anointed candidate” gambit in what had clearly become the last-ditch effort by a powerful syndicate to impose their will, however offensive to the nation’s delicate ethno-religious sensibilities.

Their message was in the name of tribe, packaged to seduce and mobilize a region against the rest. The incidence of Atiku emerging the flag-bearer of the opposition party ahead of the 2023 somehow became a perfect excuse to invoke base sentiments. With that spin, they thought they were making the task easier for Buhari, taking his allegiance for granted if only in the spirit of shared kinship.

Like true buccaneers, they continued to draw immeasurable oxygen from PMB’s accustomed taciturnity despite series of setbacks down the road. The “Mefy” racket had become a mess. The Goodluck Jonathan kite would not fly.

But it took the Monday declaration of National Chairman Abdullahi Adamu seeking to foist a “consensus candidate” amid flared adrenaline across the land for the proverbial masquerade to finally get stripped bare. In a display of honour and character uncommon in Nigeria’s history, Buhari unequivocally denounced the self-appointed tribe stimulated by a carnal desire to keep power in the north at all costs.

Earlier, in seething anger, they tried to throw the Chairman of the Presidential Screening Committee, John Odigie-Oyegun, under the bus after telling an uncomfortable truth. While submitting his report as chairman of the screening committee for the twenty-three candidates, the octogenarian did the honorable thing expected of his hoary hair — candour. Ten had been found unworthy. He honestly reported that they had sensed anxiety and saw the disturbing shadow of north-versus-south while chatting with the motley crowd that came for screening. He thus advised the national leadership of the party to be mindful of that sensitivity while taking final decision.

That apparently annoyed Adamu, ironically a beneficiary of re-zoning of national chairmanship from the south to the north recently. He would thereafter tell a bewildered nation that all the twenty-three were “re-qualified”. By fiat! It meant that Oyegun and others had laboured in vain!

So, on the eve of the final hour, the seductive trap was to lure PMB with the maiden of contrived “consensus candidate”. Had Buhari fallen for the temptation of the flesh, they probably would then proceed to consecrate him as the eternal patron saint of the tribe. But Buhari chose to be patriarch of the Nigerian nation. He realized the imperative of power shift to the South as a mark of honor, having benefitted from the same covenant in 2015.

In taking this noble step, Buhari probably also drew inspiration from the worthy example of Jonathan in 2015 in admitting defeat even before results were officially announced despite pressures from agitated disciples who seemed more frightened by the fear of losing unearned privileges than any concern for the continued survival of Nigeria. With that singular act, Jonathan tranquilised a tensed nation into peace so dramatically, to the shame of foreign doomsayers who didn’t see Nigeria existing beyond 2015 on account of disputed ballots. Such reciprocity of the acts of good faith across divides by succeeding leaders, it must be realized, is required in nation-building.

Just like Jonathan’s opportunistic disciples of 2015, today’s myopic tribesmen are obsessed with the anticipated spoils from the next polls; but Buhari has his eyes on the burden their descendants would likely bear in future. The President’s own kinsman from Katsina, Senator Ibrahim Abu put it most sagaciously: “If a Fulani man benefitted from a gentleman’s agreement in 2015 for power to shift to the north and some people in the north are now saying no more zoning in order to keep power in north, how do you think anyone will ever trust Fulani again in Nigeria?”

So, PMB put his foot down by disowning Adamu’s political equivalent of “test-tube baby”.  Being men of easy virtue, they misread the essential Buhari. Having befriended past autocrats or flirted with any government in power all their lives in pursuit of bread and butter, they were incapable of appreciating the huge price Buhari had paid in history to be fondly called the “Mai Gaskiya” (the Truthful One) by the ordinary folks across Arewaland. It is a good name earned from contentment, honour, fidelity to certain principles and a gene to stay loyal to true friends.

By time the body of 13 northern APC governors added their weighty voice through a disclaimer against the retention of power in the north after PMB, there was no more hiding space for the tribesmen. They were completely isolated. It turned out that the man they desperately wanted to impose as “consensus candidate” on the nation in the name of the tribe was not worth more than miserable 152 votes! Meanwhile, a colossal scheme of chicanery had already been activated across the media space, coordinated by a coterie of hyperactive political contractors.

With this gesture, Buhari has also scored a moral victory for APC by projecting it as a party sensitive to the sensibilities of all ethnic stakeholders. Unlike Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where sheer lust for power led Atiku, the “candidate of habit” (apologies Dr. Tunji Dare), to orchestrate the jettisoning the idea of zoning to prepare the ground for his procurement of the party’s presidential ticket for the second time through a dollars bazaar, in clear contempt of the people of southern states which yet constitute the majority in the party.

Truth be told, Igbo should lay greater claim to the presidency in PDP to which they had maintained Catholic fidelity since creation. Most voted PDP in 2015 and 2019. But with the dollar rain at two consecutive primaries, Atiku has continued to hijack Igbo’s political birthright, inflicting on them the indignity of being sentenced to the status of perpetual “running-mate”.

Even more remarkable is the uncommon neutrality Buhari displayed in the process leading to the emergence of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as flag-bearer. It is a masterclass in moral leadership. If he truly had any favorite, there is no proof such individual was given an unfair advantage in the two-day exercise. Rather, he encouraged everyone to buy forms and even indulged some ministers who seemed to have originally set out to play “lotto” on the assumption that they could vie for the ticket while keeping their offices. Even after organizing an elaborate “send-forth” for all formally, those who had a rethink, obviously now persuaded that “a bird in hand is better than a thousand in the forest”, were still warmly welcomed back to the cabinet.

This is in sharp contrast to the model of power transition we witnessed under Obasanjo when the sanctity of the Presidency was willfully immersed in the squalor of electoral sleaze. From his atrocity of attempted third term (and potentially life presidency), Obasanjo freely abused office by not only deploying state institutions like EFCC to hound dissents within PDP into accepting his stooges, but went the infernal distance of getting INEC to declare results so outlandish in fakery, so scandalous in scale that the supposed beneficiary, Umar Y’ardua, could not but express public shame and sought atonement by proceeding to institute electoral reforms.

Perhaps, the supreme irony is best captured in a viral tweet by Festus Keyamo, SAN on Wednesday: “OBJ are you watching? The kind of leadership OBJ failed to give @OfficialPDPNig in 2007 is what PMB just provided for the world to see: complete transparent process to pick a possible succesor; no IMPOSITION, NO INTERFERENCE; who’s the democrat now? Congratulations @officialBAT.”

Overall, while it must be conceded that it remains the prerogative of future historians to attempt a valid portraiture of Buhari with the benefit of full facts, the point that must never be lost is that the General is introverted and trusting of those he permits into his orbit. It is clear many have abused that privilege by either trading with his name in dark places or flaunting same as license for evil. As a leader, he is left to bear the burden vicariously.

• Odion is the Senior Technical Assistant on Media to the President (OVP).