Of June 12 and 2023 elections – Part 2

Continued from yesterday

In the face of section 10 of the Constitution, where do we garner the banal courage to propagate a Muslim-Muslim ticket in this fractured entity? The audacity of such barefaced heartlessness beats any imagination.

What could be the rationale? Superiority of faith? Enforcement of international conspiracies? A new form of Jihad? Or is it a matter of distrust for or supposed inferiority of South West Muslims? It is still the same elite, who throw up these bankrupt theories to create friction where there should be none. Even if the Christian population were to be less than it is now, the liberal concept of freedom of religion and thought should weigh in to balance the power equation.

A representative of the Muslim faith has been in the saddle since 2015, with little or no capacity to tame the monstrous incursion of the jihadists, who even descend on innocent Muslims without thought. And yet the statistics show that from the South-South to the South-East, there is an incontestable monopoly of faith across the land and some would have us believe that they do not matter.

In what way do we explain to those of them in Ondo, Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun and the Oyo States that they should continue to play second fiddle due to the recklessness of some powerful monsters who love to deploy religion as a tool for power retention. Just perish the thought altogether.

Without mincing words, the consequence of section 14 (3) of the Constitution is towards the actualization of equilibrium in power-sharing, within the zones and within the religions. It is now beyond any debate that the majority ethnic groups must put their acts together in managing the tendentious scenarios playing out regarding the 2023 general elections.

By whatever means they may spin it, should the outcome of the present conspiracies and shenanigans result in power residing in the Northern part of Nigeria to be held by a Muslim President, then the seed of discord and disintegration would have been sown permanently. We brood no caution to state this and to state it loudly. Politicians must be prepared to face the consequences of their craftiness, one way or the other. You cannot fool the people all the time and expect to go scot-free, it just would not happen. If the power brokers, power mongers and godfathers in the political space will not put their acts together to respect the existence of others, then there is no reason to keep chorusing unity in an entity that is anything but united. And for God’s sake this has nothing to do with the supposed political sagacity of any region over another; no. It goes beyond that. There must first be a nation in which some smart alecs will play the game of manipulation to foist a Muslim Northerner in power after General Muhammadu Buhari to create a recipe for disintegration and permanent crisis. It will be a declaration of war, to put it mildly. It should be composed into hymns and songs to be sung in the creeks of the Niger Delta, in markets in Ariara, in gatherings in Warri and in the arid regions in Ilaje, as by then, they no longer exist in the nation called Nigeria. So, let the politicians go-ahead to ring the bell for war and decimation, and let them continue to play their games of power, believing that they are the smartest crooks in town. The saying remains immutable as ever that those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.

Nobody should delude himself that this will be business as usual, no. So, if they like, let them give the PDP Vee-Pee slot to another person from Adamawa and the APC slot to a politician from Lagos Island. Everybody will answer his father’s name at the appropriate time. We have been taken for granted for too long. EndSARS came and it was buried, the PVC revolution came, people were beaten and tear-gassed and in all the primary elections, it has been a game of money and imposition, as if we have no stake in this project called Nigeria again. There is absolutely nothing in Tinubu and Atiku tickets to compare them with June 12. We cannot be so deceived or insulted. Enough is enough.

To be continued tomorrow
Adegboruwa is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).