Tag: BUHARI

Trying to pretend that there is no wing of the northern elite that is opposed to Buhari’s candidacy and may thus be interested in sponsoring opposition to his anti-corruption policies and programmes is being deliberately myopic

Fear of progressives or of progressive ideas by individuals and groups obsessed with reactionary or conservative ideas has been a part of human organisations from time immemorial. The tension since the beginning of human history between conservative (originally known as feudal) forces and liberty-oriented individuals (generally known as progressives) is still evident in many societies of today. For as long as there are people who identify with ideas that seek to promote and protect the interests of the people at large while there are others who remain fixed to the position that it is only the personal or class interests of the few with various forms of advantage that should dominate majority with the power to determine what benefits should be given to the masses from the common wealth in any society, there is bound to be morbid fear between the two groups. It is usually the few individuals with the advantage of power in politics, economy, and society that generally appear more afraid of those cultivating new ideas than the other way around. But in cases of successful revolutions championed by those on the side of progress, such progressives quickly learn that the fear of reactionary forces is the beginning of wisdom.

Those who were around to witness the political history of the country and those who have had opportunities to study the country’s political journey since independence ought not to be surprised when Chief Bisi Akande made the following observation: “Most northern elites, the Nigerian oil subsidy barons and other business cartels who never liked President Buhari’s anti-corruption political stance are quickly backing-up the rebellion against the APC with strong support….While other position seekers are waiting in the wings until Buhari’s ministers are announced, a large section of the South-West sees the rebellion as a conspiracy of the north against the Yoruba.” Many persons and organisations, including the north’s apex socio-cultural organisation, the Arewa Consultative Forum, have castigated Chief Akande for making inflammatory statements and for attempting to return with this statement, despite his contributions to the building of a pan-Nigeria political party in APC, to the politics of ethnicity and religion. The ACF said authoritatively that “the era of tribal and religious politics or inciting one tribe over [sic] the other has no place in our present political focus.”

As expected, people have lined up in the last two or so weeks behind or against Chief Akande for his statement or assessment of what went wrong with the election of National Assembly officers about a month ago. What is missing in the reactions of individuals and associations to Akande’s statement is the courage to ask pertinent questions before attacking the messenger. One of such questions should have been about whether there is a stratum of the elite in the north and other regions that is mortally opposed to Buhari’s anti-corruption stance and his ethic of change of the manner Nigeria is governed.

Without mincing words, there are and have to be members of the elite in the north and south who are not comfortable with Buhari’s electoral victory and citizens’ mandate to him to work towards change of governance philosophy and style in the country. From the infancy of modern politics in multiethnic Nigeria during and after colonialism, there has always been a stratum of the elite class in all the regions with unmistakable aversion for modernity and change. In the 1940s for example, a strong group of traditional elite in the north unapologetically stood against calls for political independence from colonial subjugation, apparently for fear that sending British colonisers away would diminish the power and influence of the core of the north’s traditional leadership.

Even in the west, now referred to as south-west and some sections of the south-south, there were persons who considered themselves cultural leaders who campaigned overtly and covertly against the introduction of free primary education when Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his Action Group party launched the policy of providing access to members of all social classes in the western region to acquisition of knowledge that could accelerate the process of modernisation. It was such opposition against reducing the barriers to change and equality that explained why the northern region looked away from copying the experiment in free universal education in the west after Awolowo’s progressive politicians overshadowed their conservative counterparts in the region with large support of the citizenry.

Similarly in the second republic, conservative members of the elite in the north and the south in the NPN tried to justify the denial of access to universal education to citizens by insisting that there should be no universal education until the country was in a position to provide ‘qualitative education,’ as if access and quality were mutually exclusive. The entire country is suffering today for the denial of education to millions of children in the north when the Unity Party of Nigeria, a progressive political party, pleaded with citizens that no amount of learning was useless. Most of the young people in the army of Boko Haram terrorists today must be children or grandchildren of Nigerian citizens in the north that were denied access to modern education in the first and second republics in particular. The current push by the international community for a total approach to the problem of Boko Haram certainly includes a recognition of decades of marginalisation of the masses in a region dominated by elites with little confidence in universal education, one of the pillars of political and social reform.

Just as there were conservatives or reform-averse individuals in the north and the south in the pre-independence era, so were there agents of reaction and reform in both sections of the country in subsequent republics. While the NPC was the dominant political group in the north at the time of the 1959 election, so was there NEPU of Malam Aminu Kano. In the second republic, the dominance of change-resisting NPN in the north was countered by a change-promoting political party also led by Aminu Kano, the PRP.  Alhaji Balarabe Musa and Abubakar Rimi won gubernatorial elections in Kaduna and Kano under the PRP.  Both agents of change then served as governors until the wheel of impeachment at the instance of the conservative wing of the northern elite removed Balarabe Musa from office. There were many intellectuals even in the southwest who believed that the UPN was not progressive enough for the problems confronting Nigeria and thus chose to register as members of the PRP. Just as the north had fire-eating enemies of change then, so did the region have change-promoting activists and intellectuals. For example, Bala Usman compared favourably with his radical counterparts in the south: Segun Osoba (the historian, not the journalist) and many others.

Even in the third republic, the nation’s political space was divided into two: ‘a little to the right and a little to the left.’ The candidate for the right emerged from the north while the one for the left came from the south. It is only in 2015 that the candidate for the presidency on the platform of progressives is a northerner, an unmistakable member of the northern elite that Chief Akande referred to as producing most of those who sponsored the controversial election of officers in the National Assembly. Clearly Akande’s use of northern must have been in terms of geography, rather than ethnicity or religion.

Reducing Akande’s argument about the role of conservative forces in the crusade against change (after the election of Buhari as the nation’s agent of and for change) to ethnic or religious distraction does not help matters in any way. It smacks more of intimidation of the first chairman of APC who Buhari himself has referred to as a major builder of the party. Even though northern elite in general asked for a northerner to succeed Jonathan, it is not unexpected that Buhari’s coming to power on the platform of change, reform, and improvement may not please all members of the northern and southern elite. Trying to pretend that there is no wing of the northern elite that is opposed to Buhari’s candidacy and may thus be interested in sponsoring opposition to his anti-corruption policies and programmes is being deliberately myopic.

If our children are to have proper political education, no individual or group should deny the existence of some elites in the north and in the south and of their power or influence to scuttle the process of change, especially when power is in the hands of a progressive, whether he or she is from the north or the south. Ideological differences have always been a part of the country’s political culture and no amount of effort to occlude this fact can lead to reform. Conservatives and progressives must have the courage to identify public with their political stance, and no group should seek to benefit from the regime of change from shielded enclaves of reactionary forces in any part of the country while denying the existence of reactionary forces. Most modern countries of the world use ideology to structure their political conflict and competition for power. Majority of Nigerians opted for a progressive political party in the March/April elections and those who are behind neutralisation of the party of change need to be exposed so that citizens can take proper note.