- By Kene Obiezu
Sir: Mohammed Ali Ndume is an angry man. The senator who represents Borno South Senatorial District is angry with President Tinubu. He is irked by the decision to relocate some key government offices under the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria to Lagos.
Lashing out on Channels Television, he accused’ Lagos boys’ of misleading the president. He warned of political consequences.
Ndume presumably spoke for the North. But it is not like the North is without a voice. Vice President Kashim Shettima is from the North. He is Ali Ndume’s kinsman. His government succeeded that of another of Ali Ndume’s kinsman, Muhammadu Buhari. In closing his eyes to these, and chiding ‘Lagos boys’, Ndume rattled a cage of angry birds.
Doyin Okupe has rebuked him publicly. There will be many private rebukes. There will also be praise for a man who has suddenly found his voice as the defender of the North. The Arewa Consultative Forum agrees with him.
Maiduguri, Ndume’s home territory, was once the playground of Boko Haram. Ndume bristles, but only when it is convenient. He has previously railed against Nigerians for faulting the size of pay packs available to legislators.
If Ndume thinks the North is superior to other parts of Nigeria, the other parts of Nigeria do not accept any inferiority.
If he is being honest, he should recommend that government offices be moved to other parts of the country from the North. He has made it look like the Nigeria belongs to the North. He indirectly insists that everything must be concentrated in the North.
By his words he evokes memories; of Nigeria’s struggles as a country; of its sharp divisions along ethnic lines.
Read Also: Shettima woos more support for administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda
Ndume must exercise restraint. Nigeria’s corpses are easily exhumed. Her ghosts are not easily exorcised. Ndume should know that. The North’s lion share of Nigeria’s resources is indubitable. It is only restraint that is saving the country.
If everyone who feels short-changed in Nigeria begins to freely issue threats, the country may just implode.
Nigeria neither belongs to the North or to the South. Neither to Abuja or Lagos. It belongs to every Nigerian. Equality is non-negotiable.
Ndume should know that.
It is worth remembering that it takes only a spark to start a fire that jars of water cannot quench.
It should never become demonstrable that Nigeria is being divided along regional lines.
If that mistake is made, the deluge of demands will bury Nigeria.
Ndume of all people should know that hyperventilating over every perceived regional slight is not the way to go.
•Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com