No, To Divided Nigeria …Again, Addressing Ciroma’s Threats

Last week, this column virtually begged Mallam Adamu Ciroma and his co-travellers under the  aegis of Northern Elders Political Forum to check their vexatious vituperation that are capable of dividing the nation along North-South lines. It would not be the first, and from all indications, not the last.

Only last week, Mallam Ciroma, in an obviously sponsored news report repeated his earlier annoying warning that should President Goodluck Jonathan continue with his presidential election bid, picks the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) ticket and eventually wins the election, he would see a Nigeria that would be too ungovernable.

Since Jonathan viewed Ciroma’s warning for what it truly was, hues of a dog in a manger, and went ahead to declare his intention to contest the presidency, Nigerians have not slept with both eyes closed. Infact, it has become the senior citizen’s pastime to pretend to speak for the entire North, on an issue he should know  lacks merit and is no longer contemporaneous, using on tabloid and another on virtually daily basis.

For instance, the issue of zoing within PDP started as a normal debate, first questions on the existence of zoning, then, its constitutionality and later, whether or not President Jonathan has a moral right to contest . So disturbing were the divisive comments, threats and outright campaigns of calumny against Jonathan that many feared that the project might be enjoying the blessing of the entire North, and Ciroma, the arrow-head, spokesman and ultimate defender of the entire Northern political interest.

But when the PDP eventually debated the issue, at the highest level, the National Executive Committee (NEC) where, all the legitimate six geo-political zones were represented, the ruling party decided that nothing in its books forbids Jonathan to vie for the office, then and now.

That position, which received wide commendation, even from among Northerners, came after countless gang-ups spearheaded by the same Ciroma in a desperate attempt to tilt the party’s ruling in his favour.

As it is today, so were the  threats, appeal to Northern unity, fear mongering and pursuit of everything except national unity.

But long after the NEC took a stand on the issue, a decision which revealed that Ciroma and his ilk were indeed paper tigers, generals without troops and infact voice of themselves not the entire North’s being the bad losers that they are just wont let go. If they were who they claimed, leaders of the North, on whose behalf the gang-ups were hatched, with the familiar huge Northern members, the PDP would have decided otherwise.

Why was it difficult for the Ciroma’s to see that they were indeed on their own? And still are? That even the Northerners know and believe that if their  own had utilized the many years they monopolized the headship of state, the average Northerners would have little to cry over? That all this clamour for one-North was just about one thing- their large pockets?

This is why I consider it most despicable that months after the PDP decided on the zoning issue, based on which President Jonathan has indicated not just willingness but readiness to contest as did many others, some people are still talking of zoning as their only known justification to grab the presidency of a country that clocked 50 years October 1, this year

So nauseating are the campaigns of calumny and the issue-less criticism of the Federal Government that President Jonathan was recently forced to break his long silence on the issue, when he cautioned Mallam Ciroma against ‘playing God’ because, my fate is in God’s hands in 2011’.

For the first time, the President accused the former Minister of Finance, former Central Bank Governor and former Managing Director of New Nigerian publication among many others plum jobs of playing divisive politics” in run-up to the  2011 presidential polls.

In speaking through Director, Media and Publicity of Goodluck/Sambo campaign Organisation, Sully Abu, the President said he kept quiet over Ciroma’s campaigns against his legitimate aspiration because of the respect he had for the elder statesman, one he expects would help build the country by shunning ethnicity.

Part of the statement said, “the reluctance was derived from our utmost respect for him as an elder statesman, a party grandee and a man to whom this country has given a lot. The least the people of Nigeria expect from a man of his status is to help build the country and help repair any ethnic and sectional fault lines that may exist.

“But alas, Mallam Adamy Ciroma has taken on a rather divisive role, insisting that he is speaking for the North, he has been playing the politics of division and in way which would not edify the country’s unity. Those insistence flies in the face of overwhelming evidence of the yearnings of all Nigerians, including those Mallam Adamu Ciroma said he is speaking for, to see change in the way this country is governed and especially in their material condition.

“Indeed, every available indication is that our people are sick to death with the divisive politics of yesterday and those who have been responsible for the country’s under-development and regression.

“No one should delude himself that he is speaking for the North or any other part of the country for that matter, unless they are willing to go along with the people’s yearning for change, fundamental change”

Simple. But does it really require a statement of this kind to wipe a Ciroma’s prejudices, an innate desire to perpetually remain close to the corridors of power? For the umpteenth time, I ask, what again does Ciroma want from Nigeria, considering the lot Nigeria gave him?

Just one man , former Governor of Central Bank, twice Minister in charge of Finance, and later Agriculture and earlier Managing Director of the New Nigerian Publication.

How many Northerners had such opportunities like himself? Why did they not demonstrate the craze for zoning then, even among his people?. Why did he not for instance say, one is enough let the positions go round?

In fact, where was he when the North, comprising North Central, North West and North East, together monopolised the headship of the Nigerian state for 38 years, three months and nine days out of the 50 years Nigeria recently celebrated.

Since Ciroma will not stop his dog in a manager approach to politics, perhaps a repeat of last week’s cursory tenure census would help.

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.

My Agony is that more than thrice, the same Ciroma attempted to get the presidency by election and failed, but now believes that he could give away to the North what he does not  have and could not have, when he tried.

Why is that?