A friend, an attorney, who may prefer to be anonymous, recently expressed his reservation, albeit with a hint of regret, about a call made by this column, a few weeks ago, that restructuring of the Nigerian polity should be in the manifesto of presidential aspirants who may transform into presidential candidates in 2023.
The political structure of Nigeria as prescribed by the 1999 Constitution, a clone of the 1979 Constitution, constrains and prevents Nigeria’s economic and social progress. It is also an unfair document that is not from the hearts of Nigerians, no matter the claim of General Abusalami Abubakar, who signed the enabling decree of the Constitution, to the contrary.
The argument of this patriot, though uncomfortable, is that no presidential aspirant or candidate dare discloses his true attitude to restructuring the Nigerian polity because the Northern Nigerian political establishment won’t entertain thoughts or hints of restructuring.
This is because restructuring, which could upset the applecart of the Northern Nigerian political establishment, is certainly not in the interest of the Northern Nigerian oligarchy that thinks its interest is supreme to any other interest, and that the interest of Northern Nigeria should even be the national interest of Nigeria.
So, whoever Northern Nigerian political establishment suspects has an intention contrary to its interest won’t get a chance to be Nigeria’s President. From anyone with such a dangerous idea, the Northern Nigerian political establishment will withdraw its political support and votes.
Section 134(5) of the Constitution provides that “In default of a candidate duly elected (with at least one-quarter of votes in two-thirds of states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory) the Independent National Electoral Commission shall, within seven days of the result of the election… arrange for an election between the two candidates… and a candidate at such election shall be deemed to have been duly elected to the Office of the President (even) if he has (only) a (simple) majority of the votes cast at the election.”
In other words, a simple majority, which Northern Nigeria holds as a trump card in any election, could swing the election results to whichever direction the Northern Nigerian vote dictates. And that will be final, legal and binding.
This attorney, probably the gold standard of civil society activists in Nigeria, suggested that the best that citizens of other regions of Nigeria, who want restructuring because of their belief that they are marginalised, could do is to hope that a candidate from their region becomes president of Nigeria and steer the wheel of Nigeria’s commonwealth to the advantage of their region.
The Yoruba say that even the lunatic turns the curve of the hoe towards himself to justify the expectation that every Nigerian president, or governor, should have no compunction in diverting national resources toward himself and his region.
Nigeria’s President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), who established the Transport University in his hometown, Daura, built a railway line to Maradi in the Niger Republic where he has first cousins, appointed heads of most security agencies from his region and suggested to Jim Yong Kim, former President of World Bank, to skew projects to Northern Nigeria, is a perfect exemplar of this model of governance.
He could not have exhibited more brazen and barefaced self-interest or nepotism and sectionalism than that. His is an open, unabashed, demonstration of narcissism of the highest order and a crass exhibition of opportunism.
Any Yoruba who is angry with President Buhari for sectionalism should remember indigenes of Ife, Ipetumodu, Modakeke, Lonigbo and environs, who are currently protesting the appointment of Prof Simeon Bamire as Vice-Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University because he is from Oyan town of their Osun State.
The same clannish argument was deployed to deny pioneer Vice-Chancellor of University of Lagos, Prof Eni Njoku, an Igbo, a second term and Prof Saburi Biobaku, a Yoruba, was appointed in his stead.
The arguments said to be advanced by Northerners, that the Kano-Maradi rail line should be completed by a president of Northern Nigerian extraction before the election of a “sensible” Southern Nigerian president that may, with his rational linear reasoning, knocks off the project, sounds plausible.
This thought or action reminds one of the cheeky retorts of a late presidential friend, Isa Funtua, who said that some people want to turn governance in Nigeria into “Turn-By-Turn-Nigeria-Limited.” Well, the idea of zoning the presidency of Nigeria confirms Funtua’s jibe.
The rail line to Maradi, obtained at the cost of nearly $2 billion loan, is going to service the Nigerien economy of $13 billion Gross Domestic Product. The traffic won’t be able to generate the cash flow to repay the loan on time. Yet, the burden of that debt will be on all regions of Nigeria.
Why Nigerians must bear the debt burden for another nation can only be explained by the reasoning of President Buhari who argues that the artificial borders of African nations are the doings of the metropolitan powers who carved Africa to suit their interests at the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference.
Even former brass hats of President Buhari’s military infrastructure diverted national resources to their home states: Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, former Chief of Army Staff, took Army University to Biu, his hometown in Borno State.
Air Marshal Sadik Abubakar, former Chief of Air Staff, a native of Azare, took Air Force University to Tafawa Balewa in his home state, Bauchi, just as President Buhari caused a naval base to be established in near-arid Kano State. Well, some in the military have explained that not all naval bases are necessarily maritime facilities.
President Buhari’s argument about artificial borders is reasonable though. But how he didn’t think that a rail line and a gas pipeline going westward into the relatively bigger economy of the Economic Community of West African States would be more profitable is a bit of a puzzle.
Citizens of South-West Nigeria, who blame President Olusegun Obasanjo for failure to fix the Lagos-Ota Expressway and others when he was in office, gnash their teeth at President Buhari’s brazen show of regional sentiment. They swear against President Obasanjo under their breath. You’ll probably understand that the word, swear, is a euphemism for curse.
It’s a wonder that President Obasanjo, known as “Ebora Owu” (Owu enfant terrible), is still walking the face of the earth despite the hot and harsh ash of ill-will poured on his person because of his failure to fix the Lagos-Ota Expressway in his backyard. To borrow a thought from the cosmogony of the Igbo of Nigeria, his “chi,” or personal god, is working for him.
If federal projects will be executed from the point of the ethnic and regional bias of the president of Nigeria, it will be better to work out a timetable for each geopolitical zone to assume power and exercise the prerogative of the office of the president to favour only its own interest.
Some think realpolitik is a system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations. When people say only their permanent interests drive their thoughts or actions, they mean that the end justifies the means and not some moral preachments.
The learned attorney added that only if Nigeria’s political aspirants drop their manifestos at the altar of realpolitik would the Northern Nigerian political establishment endorse them for President.
