Fatal Appetence For Power …Northern Leaders’ Threats, Unrests

One African proverb, I have been reluctant to agree with since my adulthood, is that which goes: ‘If the Owl cried at night and the baby dies in the morning, who killed the baby?’, meaning, there’s no use looking elsewhere for reasons for cause of the baby’s death beyond the Owl’s cry.

Ironically, as a little boy, my headmaster, Late Mark Ajebu had also warned us repeatedly against jumping into hasty conclusions, in the words, ‘Believe half of what you hear and none of what you see”. That too I have come to perceive as reasonably extremist, even atheistic, because it tends to undermine the very essence of all religions – Faith, the belief in something not seen, which infact is the beauty of the reverence, love and devotion to a Supreme Being, known to Christians as God, to Moslems as Allah, and to traditional African religionists of Ijaw extraction, particularly Okrikans as Chinboboroma.

My quarrel with both lines of thought also affects my every day business of minding others’ business – Journalism, which naturally demands of me, sound judgment, thorough analysis and unbiased conclusion.

Of both the thought that offers the more appeal to my profession is that which discourages premature conclusion of guilt, based on assumptions and precedents. For, instance, if a youngman is found on his friend’s wife, mouth-in-mouth, days after rumours of a questionable liason-between both, would any no jury absolve such unlucky youngman from blame?.

Who would ever accept as the truth that the accused might well be engaged in reviving a fainting woman, using the mouth-to-mouth respiration tactic?

That is why I often add little or no value to coincidences. But the  not long ago, threat by some Northern Political Elders to make Nigeria ungovernable, should President Goodluck Jonathan go ahead to contest the Presidency on the platform of the People Democratic Party (PDP), and wins the ticket, and recent happenings in the once relatively peaceful Nigeria, strike a very dangerous co-incidence.

Writing on, The zoning Debate and its Fall-out”, on ThisDay newspaper of Friday, October 15, 2010, Yusuph Alaniyou (The Polity), urged Mallam Adamu Ciroma  “… to ensure that the debate over who gets the PDP ticket does not degenerate to a North-South crisis,” and went further to admonish the one-time Editor and later Managing Director  of New Nigerian Publication, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Minister in charge of Finance and Agriculture at various times, “…to avoid being part of a sponsorship of a group which issues incendiary statements or makes comments which underline only the faultlines of our society, no matter the provocation by the other group”.

What the columnist should have added was, if only one man in a country of about 140 million, (some 100 million at that time) could occupy such choice positions, without zoning some to others, what moral justification does the Pan-Northerner nay, Nigerian have to be too religious about zoning and rotation?

By the way, “if the PDP included a provision in its constitution that all elective offices and party positions shall rotate between the various zones and areas which make up the constituency to achieve a sense of equity and balance”, as the writer averred, how has the South-South geo-political zone, where Jonathan hails from, disobeyed the rule, by his singular appetence to contest the 2011 Presidential elections?

But which geo-political zones are we talking about in Nigerians today? Are they North Versus South? Or North-East, South-East, North-Central, South-West, North West and South-South? The first option, methinks died or should die. with the 1914 forced Amalgamation, which subsequently produced three major regions – Northern, Western and Eastern  before adding a third, the Mid-Western region.

Was if not after that arrangement that one-time Head of State General Yakubu Gowon created 12 States, before the steady increase to 36 that Nigeria today knows?

If therefore, for administrative convenience and regional cohesion, six geo-political zones were created, and today in use if even for mere reference purposes, why should the election of a President send us back to the Pre – 1914 days when, it was either the North or the South?, Or as appurtenant to that, insist that unless power returned to the North, aggrieved Northern political tin-gods under the aegis of the Northern Political Forum, would make sure Nigeria is made ungovernable for Jonathan to lead?

Even with those threats, I was one of very few Nigerians that refused to tie the October 1, twin bombings in Abuja to political savagery, which careless public speeches earlier made by the Northern group, should naturally attract, because as I said earlier, I do not subscribe to the suggestion, that since the baby died in the morning immediately after the Owl’s cry that eve, it must be blamed for the child’s death.

But recent security breaches in parts of the North, particularly Borno and Bauchi States appear to me very dangerous coincidence to ignore.

Last Thursday,  for instance, there was pandemonium and tension in Bauchi as residents scampered for safety following information that men suspected to be members of the fundamentaitst Sect, Boko Haram, had shot and killed a Mobile Policeman attached to the private residence of the State Commissioner for Special Duties, Dr. Musa Mua’zu Badara.

That incident came barely a month after the Bauchi jail-break by members of the dreaded group which had led to the escape of 157 inmattes, mainly its members, awaiting trial, only for some returnee members, to set on fire, parts of the prison. On Tuesday, the group had bombed a Police Station in Maiduguri. Sadly, it is on record that since the Abuja bomb-blasts, up to the daily reported instances of mayhem being unleashed on society by the Boko Haram Sect, not a word of condemnation or condolence has been heard of the Mallam Ciroma-led Northern Political Leaders Forum. Is it in tacit confirmation of pre-election steps earlier harshed to make Nigeria ungovernable for a Jonathan victory?.

Why is that? Is Nigeria’s Presidency an exclusive Northern heritage which a few must choose to give-out temporarily at will and insist on its early return? When will the so called apostles of zoning sit-back, retrospect a while and take a thorough tenure census of the Presidency from 1960-date?

If they did, they would realize that in the spirit of rotation which they appear to be championing eagerly, the result will end in favour of the South-South and South-East geo-political zones, since the latter has enjoyed only about five or so months through Late General Aguyi-Ironsi as head of State, and the former, barely living out late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s Presidential tenure, through President Jonathan

Why then should anyone from the other four geo-political zones, lay stronger claim to the Presidency if indeed it is a Nigerian Commonweqalth and not just a Northern Play thing?

In his book, Nigeria: The Way Forward Erefagha Ezekiel-Hart attempted a cursory tenure Census on Inter-Zonal Rotation of the Nigeria Presidency from Independence to May 29, 2011, in hope Yar’Adua would live to that day. In that attempt, Ezekiel-Hart writes, “During the period the county has been ruled as follows.

i.          Middle Belt-Zone (North Central) Gowon + Babangida + Abubaka = 17 years, 11 months, 20 days.

ii.         North East Zone  Balewa + Abacha (Akanun) = 9 years 10 months 6 days

iii.        North West Zone: Murtala + Shagari + Buhari + Yar’Adua = 10 years, 5 months, 13 days

iv.        South-East Zone Aguyi-Ironsi = 6 months 14 days (Azikiwe was a ceremonial President with Executive Powers)

v.         South-South Zone  No ruler = 0

vi.        South-West Zone Obasanjo + Shoneikan + Obasanjo = 11 years, 9months 6 days.

Added together as whole between North and South, as apologists of zoning insist, the outcome will even be more annoyingly in favour of the South, than the North.

For instance, the three geo-political zones in the Northern area according Ezekiel Hart’s account have produced Headship of the Federation a whooping nine times spanning 38 years, three months and nine days as against the South’s four, spanning 12 years, 3 months and 20 days, that is, if it is understood that Jonathan is serving Yar’Adua’s tenure which should terminate, May 29, 2011.

Going by these facts, how could any Northern Political element accuse President Jonathan of breaking the same structures that made him President? Or could it be those that attempted to stall his Acting Presidency, they meant, before Nigerians found God’s Hands in the Nation’s Political affairs.

This is why, even if I chose not to take seriously, their threats to destabilize Nigeria in the event of a Jonathan electoral victory, many Nigerians, particularly older ones who had suffered years of the similar greed would prefer otherwise and by extension the name-calling that surrounded the Abuja blasts.

My Agony is that try as I have to discountenance the parable of the Owl and the dead baby, events unfolding daily, and which border on insecurity now force me to have a re-think because the occurrences are indeed very felonious even in their assumed  co incidence.

Let’s pray order Nigerians are wrong.