How North Kept Its Word, Pulled Off a Coup

Olawale Olaleye

The tension that characterised the lead up to the APC presidential primary and the eventual denouement, have made it difficult to gloss over certain takeaways from the event.

For starters, nothing was certain till the time the show started proper and the fluidity of events ushering in the exercise, had created apprehension across the board with everyone on tenterhooks. This was understandable since APC is the ruling party.

Thus, while the fear that the north was not ready to relinquish power was palpable and creating avoidable backlash, the seeming unpredictability of President Muhammadu Buhari, had further compounded the situation, as much as the perceived hypocrisy of the APC National Chairman, Abdulahi Adamu, became a worry to contend with.

But the north proved it was credible after all, and closed the deal on its honour. This, ironically, was contrary to assumptions about alleged northern predilection for ethnic politics within the context of national growth and development.

In 1993, when the late MKO Abiola, ran against a prominent northern son, Bashir Tofa, the north recognised the contributions of Abiola to their growth as a people and that of the nation in general and promised to go with him. They did not disappoint Abiola and voted for him en mass. They kept to their words.

Sadly, the military junta of President Ibrahim Babangida stopped Hope ’93, Abiola’s dream, a development that created chaos in the country for about five years. But, when the opportunity to make up came, the north did and conceded to south what they thought was south’s.

A few years after, there was a situation in the country, when a sitting president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, died in office. But before he died, his long period of sickness had crated power vacuum, which almost set the country on fire. Again, although with constitutional compulsion, the north cooperated and supported Yar’Adua’s deputy, Goodluck Jonathan to step in.

In the election that followed in 2011, when they thought their turn in power had been unduly cut short and insisted another northerner must run to replace Yar’Adua, they later shared the understanding of some prominent Nigerians, pandering to the mood of the nation and allowed Jonathan, a minority from Ijaw, in South-south zone, to run and he did win with staggering votes.

The apparent logjam at the Tuesday APC presidential primary was again, about north and south as well as their right and turn in power. The south insisted there was an understanding that power would come to it after President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years, when they consummated the merger in 2013.

Yet, there were fears that the north was reluctant to letting go. This heightened tension, and compounded the road to reconciliation until the north showed up with its dignity intact by taking a position that supported the idea that power must shift back to the south.

Therefore, contrary to what might have become a widely held belief that the north is rigid, when it comes to politics and largely ethnicised considerations, instances such as these are sincere reminder that such postulations are unfounded, but concocted about the north to suit certain narrow narratives.