Unifying ethnic, religious, political, economic, youths, and other social groups in Nigeria – Part 3

The language of the communiqué issued by the Forum at the end of its Katsina Meeting betrays, perhaps unwittingly, a certain confrontational stance. It affirmed that the “North is not afraid of restructuring”, and that “there is need for the North to stand united, irrespective of political, ethnic or religious differences,” and then goes on to accuse the southern political elites of “intimidating the North with the term restructuring” and of “painting the region as a weak link, parasitic and unproductive region that brings nothing to the table.”

The activities and utterances of these organisations thus establish the incompatibility of a “united” Northern Nigeria with the unity of Nigeria. The incompatibility results, as earlier stated, not so much from the mere existence of Northern Nigeria as a physical entity encompassing 75 per cent of the territorial area of Nigeria and 60 per cent of its population, as from the erection of the North as an entity inhabited by peoples marked apart from those in the South by differences in interests, attitude, outlook, vision and even destiny and in whom sentiments based on their separateness from the South have been nurtured in the years since the 1914 Amalgamation. The incompatibility is made more evident when a “united” Northern Nigeria forms an agenda in the programme of an incumbent President of Nigeria, and is implemented by concentrating a great majority of the strategic and other key appointments in the North and other acts of unfair favouritism done with unabashed disdain. The glaring incompatibility makes the much-vaunted talk about the unity of Nigeria not being negotiable and about nation-building generally sound more like a farce. Unity may continue to elude us and become an unattainable object unless and until the idea of a united Northern Nigeria is exorcised from our minds, thought and vocabulary.

One last evil consequence of a united Northern Nigeria for the unity of the country remains to be noted. It has trigged the formation in July 2012 of a countervailing pan-Southern Nigeria civil society organisation by the name the Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA), which held its third General Conference in Lagos on May 20, 2012 attended by a South-East delegation led by former Vice-President, Dr Alex Ekwueme, a South-West delegation led by Rt. Rev. Emmanual Bolanle Gbomigi, while the South-South delegation was led by Chief Edwin Clark. (The earlier General Conferences were held in Uyo and Enugu).

The formation of the SNPA is significant because it was triggered by the existence and activities of the pan-Northern Nigerian organisations mentioned above, and was meant to serve as a counterpoise, a counter-vailing platform, to them, as emerges from the speeches by the three delegations. The creation of a pan-southern organisation to match those in the North is a threat to Nigerian unity because of the conflict-laden polarisation of the country into two antagonistic camps of North versus South, which is implied in the statements of SNPA’s objectives, as declared in speeches delivered at the Lagos General Conference. In his opening speech, Chief Edwin Clark said:
“We are convinced that if our political leaders and forebears had invested some of their energies, exceptional brilliance and wits in fostering a united Southern Nigeria, the challenges of fragmentation and distrust which have been very clearly exploited by the North to supplant us in virtually all aspects of our political lives would have been avoided.

“The unfortunate result was the lack of unity, cohesion and solidarity among their people. Because we could not speak with one voice in matters of common interest, the South became easily manipulated and preyed upon by our detractors whose tactics has always been to divide and rule. Despite their political differences, the North is always united in matters of common interest. This unarguably has remained our albatross.”

The creation of SNPA with the unity of the South as its objective raises the question whether the unity of the North against the South, and the unity of the South against the North, translate to the unity of Nigeria or to a drag on it. The question is discomforting. Borrowing Sir Frederick Maitland’s famous aphorism about the continuing dominating influence of the forms of action in English law notwithstanding their abolition and demise, we may say that we have buried Northern and Southern Nigeria as governmental entities, but they still continue to rule us, to dominate our thinking and attitude, from their graves. This is a great tragedy indeed. What should engage our concern and concerted effort is how to bridge the chasm resulting from the North-South Divide created by the 1914 Amalgamation of the Protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria. The matter calls for the creation of a national front for the activist pursuit of the National Integration Agenda.

It is more discomforting to note that the proliferation of Arewa (i.e. Northern) Associations or Groups has continued unabated. The latest is the emergence on February 2018, of a group calling itself by the name Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG). Its emergence was marked by a statement, published in The Guardian of 14 February 2018, in which it warned that the North –“would no longer put up with deliberate and sustained attacks on its unity, integrity and dignity……; that detractors coming from outside the North to foment trouble and escalate tension among our people……..will no longer go unnoticed and in the fullness of time, they will be held accountable for their instigation to violence and killings of innocent people on both sides involved in the herders and farmers conflicts”; that the region’s “noble dispositions” must not be perceived as “weaknesses,”; that the North is no longer going to turn the other cheek”; that “if the mutual respect” and peace which have evaded us throughout this country’s independent existence cannot be achieved at this point, we would all be left with no choice but to support the suggestion for the conduct of a referendum so that each component can peacefully decide its fate.”

This all seems disheartening, and demands that the question asked earlier, be re-opened and seriously addressed namely, whether the unity of the North against the South and the unity of the South against the North translates to the unity of Nigeria. The idea of the unity of the North or the unity of the South needs to be exorcised from our thinking if we are ever to have the unity of Nigeria.

Closing remarks : President Buhari’s administration is the ruin of Nigeriaunity
The foregoing account shows that the undermining and ruin of Nigerian unity during the rule of the President Buhari administration is caused by one main factor, namely the President’s utterances, postures and acts of undue or unfair favouritism that identify him specially with his Fulani ethnic group and his geographic section of the country, the Northern Region, as if the presidency belongs to them alone, to the exclusion of others, thereby alienating large segments of the population, in fellow-feeling, loyalty and interest, from the Nigerian state – what is usually referred to as his Northernisation/Islamisation Agenda. The manifold problems tearing the country apart under President Buhari – insecurity, as manifested particularly in the Fulani herdsmen marauding attacks and killings and displacement of thousands of people and destruction of farms and other properties, the quit notice given by Arewa Youths Coalition to Ndigbo to leave the North, the hate speeches accompanying it, the lop-sided strategic appointments, especially in the security agencies etc – all revolve around this one main factor.

Perhaps, the act with the most undermining and ruinous impact on Nigerian unity, which deserves to be singled out for special mention, is the President’s undisguised favouritism and solicitude for a united Northern Nigeria which arouses in him and his fellow northerners a renewed sense of solidarity in defence of whatever they perceive, rightly or wrongly, to be its interest, and inclines them to adopt antagonistic, even confrontational, stance towards southerners in discussions of national affairs, thereby disabling them from approaching national issues in the spirit of what the interest of the nation as a whole demands, even issues such as re-structuring, Fulani herdsmen insurgency, and other national issues.

Second, his bias for the Fulani herdsmen and their masters, the Cattle Breeders Association (Miyetti Allah) is another aspect of his lack of impartiality that compromises his position as leader of the nation. This is manifested in his inability or unwillingness to take firm, decisive actions against the herdsmen’s killings in Benue, Taraba and Zamfara States in particular, and against Miyetti Allah’s blunt, anarchic refusal to abide and be bound by the Anti-Open Grazing Law of those States, which is the governing law there until declared unconstitutional, null and void by the courts. The President should not condone anarchy by anyone, the Miyetti Allah people not exempted.

The truth of the matter, as earlier stated – it would be sheer hypocrisy on the part of all of us to refuse to accept this – is that President Buhari cannot take strong, coercive action against an Association (Miyetti Allah) of which he is the patron, and in which he has pecuniary interest as cattle owner/breeder. This would amount to him taking strong, coercive action against himself. By remaining patron of the Miyetti Allah after his installation as President and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria, he has involved himself in a palpably irreconcilable conflict of interests.

Third, the President’s favouritism for the North in pursuance of his Northernisation Agenda is again betrayed in a markedly unabashed manner by his reinstatement of the Director-General of the National Insurance Health Scheme (NIHS), Professor Usman Yusuf, a northerner, suspended for alleged financial impropriety by the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole whose ministry has supervisory authority over the scheme. Work at the workplace of the NIHS has been paralysed by workers’ industrial action caused by controversy over the President’s action. The reinstatement betrays favouritism for the DG in two main ways. The DG’s statement that he is answerable only to the President as the authority that appointed him, but not to the minister, is an unpardonable act of insubordination, deserving to be severely reprimanded, not condoned.

The executive power of the federal government is vested in the President and may be exercised by him either directly or by him through ministers and other public officers authorised by him; section 5(1), Constitution. A minister exercising any executive function assigned to him by the President does so as his agent, and his (the minister’s) “official acts, promulgated in the regular course of business, are presumptively his acts” – so held by the U.S. Supreme Court in Rankle v. United States 122 U.S. 543 at p. 557 (1886). So the suspension of the DG by the minister is presumptively the act of the President. And whilst the President has the power to override the decision or act of the minister, the maintenance of the minister’s integrity, respect and usefulness demands that he should not do so in a haste but only after considering all the facts and after consultation with the minister. Since the financial impropriety alleged against the DG is under investigation by the EFCC, his reinstatement should not have been made before the completion of the EFCC investigation.

Apart from the D.G’s statement being an act of insubordination, it seriously undermines the principle of the unity of the executive branch on which the concept of the single executive of the presidential system is built, and on which its effectiveness and credibility largely depends. From the lowest cadre of officials to the middle cadre, to the directors, to the director-general/permanent secretary, to the minister and finally to the President as chief executive, the concept underlying the system is that of the hierarchy of authority and command. The President should not degrade the minister as an act of favouritism for the director-general, just because of his commitment to his Northernisation Agenda.

The President’s pursuit of the Northernisation/Islamisation Agenda has ruinously undermined our dream of Nigeria as one nation. His constant talk about the unity of the country not being negotiable no longer inspires belief; the general belief among many people is that he talks about the unity of Nigeria only in terms of a country –if possible an islamised country – ruled by a northern moslem. That is the mission he has set out to pursue and to try to accomplish. How could his talk about one Nigeria be squared with the fact that the National Security Council, charged with the crucial function of superintending over our internal security, has been turned into a sectional security agency composed exclusively of northern members (with one exception)?

The provision of the Constitution, the “federal character” provision, as it is called, specially designed to ensure, nurture and sustain the country’s unity has, in the process, been perverted and rendered largely nugatory. The provision deserves to be quoted in extenso : section 14(3):

“The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies” (emphasis supplied).

To reinforce the provision in section14(3) and ensure its due implementation in the actual administration of government, the Constitution establishes a Federal Character Commission, and empowered it to:
(1) “(a) work out an equitable formula subject to the approval of the National Assembly for the distribution of all cadres of posts in the public service of the Federation and of the States, the armed forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force and other government security agencies, government owned companies and parastatals of the States;
(b) promote, monitor and enforce compliance with the principles of proportional sharing of all bureaucratic, economic, media and political posts at all levels of government;
(c) take such legal measures, including the prosecution of the head or staff of any Ministry or government body or agency which fails to comply with any federal character principle or formula prescribed or adopted by the Commission; and
(d) carry out such other functions as may be conferred upon it by an Act of the National Assembly.
(2) The posts mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(a) and (b) of this paragraph shall include those of the Permanent Secretaries, Directors-General in Extra-Ministerial Departments and parastatals, Directors in Ministries and Extra-Ministerial Departments, senior military officers, senior diplomatic posts and managerial cadres in the Federal and State parastatals, bodies, agencies and institutions”

How can the President’s lop-sided strategic appointments, especially appointments in the security agencies, be squared with the federal character provisions of the Constitution? How can they be justified in the face of those provisions? The administration of government by the President in defiance or violation of relevant provisions of the Constitution is a gross misconduct under section 143 of the Constitution. Interestingly, the person, Mohammed Bello Tukur, a northerner and a moslem, the President appointed Secretary of the Federal Character Commission is the Legal Adviser of the Cattle Breeders Association, the Miyetti Allah.

And yet whenever the issue of this gross misconduct is raised we are fobbed off with the deceitful story of 175 appointments that are irrelevant to the issue of strategic appointments; also irrelevant is the appointment of at least one minister from each State which is a specific command of the Constitution entirely outside his discretion. And so the deceit continues – an element of self deceit is also discernable. Deceit is of course a strategy of rule. Dr Joseph Goebbel, Hitler’s Minister of Information, has perfected it into an art, and our own affable-looking Lie Mohammed is trying to out-Goebble Goebble in 21st century Nigeria.

It is possible to run a government based on false manipulation of facts, but you cannot build an enduring nation upon a foundation of deceit, for, when the deceit is exposed, the foundation will collapse, taking with it the entire edifice. The truth of this is inescapable.

Thus, the issue for us in 2019 election is clear. The person the country needs as President has to be a unifier, a leader capable of unifying the various ethnic, religious, political, and other social groups in the country, of reviving fellow-feeling or a sense of belonging, together as citizens of one country, and above all, rekindling the old spirit of Nigerianism.
Concluded