As the North Mourns

by Okey Ikechukwu

Does President Bola Tinubu have the right, and duty, to make appointments; in the exercise of his powers as president? The answer is yes! Is it his prerogative to determine whom to give what position in government, to the extent that he deems such a person qualified to hold the position? The answer is yes! Is he also duty bound to respect some stipulated provisions for such appointments, given the religious and ethnic plurality of the nation? Again, the answer is yes!

We must also ask whether individuals, and groups, who are dissatisfied with his appointments free, and even duty-bound, to raise observations, complaints and objections. It would still be a resounding “yes”! Are such persons best advised to be guided in their reaction by the constitution, political practice and a sense of history. I wager that the answer is a still yes.

Now the conversation begins

Our people say that someone who is used to being the first to pick from a pack, or pile, of goodies because of his privileged access to whoever is in charge of the picking order will be the first to cry “abomination” if one day he finds himself forced to queue up like everyone else. Our people also say that the presumed rights of someone who, without any justification other than the fact that he is used to having his way, only exist because of sustained abuse and leadership misconduct. And abuse, once condoned without let or hindrance for a long time becomes the norm; despite the laws, traditions and ways of a people. This is summarized by another Igbo proverb which says that when an abomination is allowed to subsist for years, it becomes tradition.

Against the background of the foregoing, let it be said for the record that Bola Tinubu is very far from remotely approximating the dreadful, insensitive and totally ill-advised and extremely exclusivist orientation of former president Muhammadu Buhari in federal appointments. Buhari’s favoured Katsina State, the Fulani and the core North in that order. While it lasted some fair-minded Fulani, and northerners in general, spoke out with displeasure and dismay. They were aghast and scandalized at a trajectory that would not strengthen national cohesion or leave the North in good standing in national political consciousness.

The Buhari tradition of unconscionable myopia subsisted in every sense of the word, to the extent that his main achievement in, and out of, office was to draw sometimes undeserved opprobrium upon his brothers and sisters from the Northern part of the country.  But everyone saw the North as “enjoying” under Buhari, in the sense that the notion of inequity was not seen as a matter strongly protested against by that part of the country.

It is against the background of the forgoing that the cries of marginalization of the North by Tinubu stands within the context of a nation still in search of its true soul. Yes, the North came out for him. But remember that in 2015 Buhari thanked specific northern states, and the north in general, for a victory everyone else saw delivered mainly by Tinubu and the South West.

So, let me re-invite our attention to the observation, in the second paragraph of this article, thus: we must react to our current situation bearing in mind not just the constitution, but also “political practice” and a sense of history. The constitution has been routinely violated since the dawn of this democracy; with Buhari’s tenure as an unparalleled anomaly in our national history. The political practice has been for our leaders to do as they pleased. Now that the North seems to be, or claims to be on the receiving end, it is screaming that Armageddon is here. Yes, it may be for the North.

See what was said about the South East under Buhari on this page on October 25, 2019, under the title “As the South East Mourns”.

“South Eastern Nigeria lies prostrate and without dignity today. It has been thus for a long time now. Enveloped by an incubus of snarling befuddlement, the region has become a metaphor for how to exist (without really living) in a federation of supposedly equal partners. It twists and turn piteously in subdued pain. There is an unvoiced gnashing of teeth and a bitter forbearance. Denuded, ridiculed, swindled and roundly scandalised on all fronts by an elaborate pretense at nationhood that has been to its detriment for far too long, South East Nigeria is at best a metaphor for nominal and fraudulent citizenship. Its gifted, energetic and bold youths are forced to scavenge around the fringes of morality and legality.

That is because they have found themselves in a system that excludes them from what their peers and supposed fellow citizens take as a matter of course; and regard as their entitlement. There is, for people of the South East, an unnamed fear here and a semi-uncertain confusion there. There is also a semi-real trembling yonder. Anon, it is as if there is always some creeping, inexplicable, yet ever-present, but clearly unhealthy, quivering of political and economic nerves.

But, being a people resolved not to dissolve under inclement currents and the unrelenting assaults of a merciless state that seems determined to annihilate them, Ndigbo remain resilient in the face of inhuman political and economic odds. But does the rest of the Nigerian federation really know, and to its fullest measure, that thralldom and misery have taken permanent residence in the entire South East? Put differently, does anyone really care what people of that region feel, or do not feel, about everything going on around them – and sometimes in their name? I think not. And that is because everyone has been living with a badly treated South East since after the civil war in 1970. It has become normal to reckon without the people in every way….

It is a matter of fact, and record, that the South East region has remained sidelined in federal developmental projects for decades. The region lacks relevance in the siting of impactful institutions and major drivers of our economic environment. It is mocked by the wretched profile of its most visible political actors. Its sons and daughters in national public positions mostly live to survive their tenures. They sneak off to some recondite and narrow existence, or to their villages, once out of office. Not so for their peers, contemporaries and supposed equals from other parts of the country.

Look around you calmly and you must conclude that there is really nothing happening in the South East to warrant serious national human, economic or political traffic in that direction. It boasts the most dilapidated federal roads in the nation. It is the least considered in the new epidemic of rail projects springing up all over the nation. The second Bridge over the Onitsha end of the Niger was on the cards for decades. It became a metaphor for what should have happened immediately after the civil war, but which did not happen.

When, finally, approval was given for the Bridge to be built under the PDP government of yore, it turned out to be a Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) arrangement. In other words, the bridge was approved to be built by whoever was willing, able and available to put down his money for it. Yes, the builder will fund the project and then later recover the money by putting up toll gates on both ends of the new bridge. It is those using the bridge that would pay for the cost of building it; and it was not to be handed over to the government to be used free of cost, until the number of years stipulated as adequate for the builder to recover his cost, along with the accruing profit. And, mind you, there was no case of national bankruptcy; or a dearth of projects of even higher net value being executed all over the nation at the time.

But the bridge was still not built. Had it been built as initially planned, it would most probably have been the only spot in the federation where toll gates were erected so that users of a public, land transport facility like a bridge would pay for using it. And this was at a time the federal government banned and dismantled all toll gates in the country. It does not matter now, as observed earlier, that projects of higher value have been, and are still being, built all over the federation at government expense. Only the South East must moan, groan and bleed through the nose for a bridge that should have been constructed over 40 years ago.

Work finally commenced on the bridge, thanks to the Buhari government. The euphoria of this “breakthrough” exposed the myopia and infantilism of South East political leadership. An elite that clamoured, and still clamours, for an inland port in Onitsha is blind to the fact that this new bridge has been deployed as undertaker for the port project. What type of ship will pass under it? With what type of cargo, if any? …. To be fair, there is enough head room for, crabs, swimmers, speedboats and rafts. For good measure, it may even endure a flat-bottomed steamer ferrying sand around the now-dry banks. But that would be all.”

Yes, the South East has been in mourning since before, during and after the civil war. The North, on the other hand, has been mourning over the underdevelopment of its human capital, before its situation was roundly compounded by Boko Haram and Banditry. The worst of it all, since the dawn of the Nigerian State, came under President Buhari. His legacy is an economically decimated North, wherein the elite cannot travel on the roads or go home without being hunted by bandits and kidnappers; and where also the hapless masses cannot harvest farm produce, sleep in peace or lead normal lives.

Just as the South east still stands out as the most politically diminished of all regions in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, through “deliberate government gymnastics and the political illiteracy of its own ruling elite”, the North is mourning because of its un-strategic engagement while Buhari held sway. How Tinubu will eventually resolve all of the forgoing remains to be seen – as the North mourns.