The Misconstruction of North/South Relationship: Open Letter To Wike, G-5
By Umar Bichi
Politics comes with drama and intrigues, and we do enjoy the usual political jibes, pantomimes, and clowning of Governor Nyesom Wike.
However, we expect politicians to be a lot more circumspect when it comes to issues bordering on national unity and political cohesion.
After losing the Presidential ticket, Wike’s current agitation in the PDP tends to be intent on fanning the embers of distrust, division, disunity and conflict between Northerners and Southerners.
His propaganda is aimed against any Northern, Hausa or Fulani candidate in the forthcoming Presidential election, in the usual pretences about equity and accusation of Northern political domination.
While the whole of Northern Nigeria are watching his antics with keen interest, it has become necessary to remind him and his co-travelers of the facts of our political history so as to set the records straight.
At independence, Nigeria ran a confederation in which the Northern, Western and Eastern Regions governed themselves. No one dominated the other. Following the alliance of the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), the government of the First Republic had Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe as President while Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was Prime Minister. At the Head of the military was Gen Aguiyi-Ironsi, General Officer Commanding the Nigeria Army.
Apart from the protestations in the West over the control of the Western House by the NPC/NCNC alliance with Sir Ladoke Akintola, the new Republic was evolving fairly into democratic maturity when, suddenly, the military struck in the coup of January 1966.
That coup, led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and Emmanuel Ifeajuna, changed the course of our political history and governance.
The coupists who were mostly Igbos targeted and murdered the core of Northern and Western political leadership both at the federal and regional levels. The list included Sir Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Premier of Northern Region and leader of the NPC, his wife, Hafsatu, Chief Ladoke Akintola, Premier of Western Region, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, Federal Finance Commissioner from the Midwest, Brig Sam Ademulegun and his wife, Latifat, and other key Northern and Western civilian and military officers including four police commissioners of Northern extraction.
To be clear, while the Premiers of Northern and Western Nigeria were both murdered, the Premier of Eastern Nigeria was spared. While Prime Minister Balewa was murdered, President Nnamdi Azikiwe was excused.
The ascendance of Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi as Head of State after the coup left a clear perception that it was an Igbo programme to eliminate other regions from the government.
I invite Wike and all Igbos to tell us how they expected the North to feel under the circumstance.
Expectedly, the North was angry. The anger was reinforced by the fact that the arrested coupists were not brought to court marshall for several months, rather they continued to receive their salaries and were treated nicely in detention.
The ordinary Northerners began naturally to feel uneasy with distrust and resentment, leading to the attack on Igbo settlers. The counter-coup of July 1966, therefore, became only a fait accompli and, sadly, it all resulted in civil war.
Southern Nigerians must be honest to accept that had the Igbo military officers not done what they did, these chain of events would not have been sparked off.
When they point to the number of Northern military Heads of State that have ruled Nigeria as evidence of Northern domination, they should be honest to note that the North never wished, contemplated nor bargained for involvement of the military in governance until the Igbo officers brought it about.
That left both the Northern and Southern civilian political leadership in the lurch and it became a long struggle to recover Nigerian democracy from the military.
When Gen. Yakubu Gowon was staying too long in government, he was removed by Gen. Murtala Mohammed with a plan to return power to the civilians and when Murtala Mohammed was murdered by Dimka, top Northern military officers like Gen. Musa Yar’Adua and Gen. Theophilus Danjuma stood behind Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo as Head of State and supported him to achieve a quick transition to civil rule.
The ensuing government of the Second Republic had Alhaji Shehu Shagari from the North as President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme from the East as Vice-President, Dr. Joseph Wayas from the South as Senate President while Chief Adisa Akinloye from the West chaired the party. Thus was power distributed to unite the nation from the disharmony caused by Nzeogwu and company.
Southern Nigerians should also see that the 1983 coup by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari truncated the administration of Shagari, a fellow Northerner. It therefore cannot be regarded as a Northern agenda but a function of Nzeogwu’s introduction of the military into politics, for having tasted the perks of governance as Federal Ministers, State Governors and Heads of parastatals, many of the officers wanted to remain in political leadership.
This accounts for the periods from Buhari through Gen. Ibrahim Babangida to Gen. Sani Abacha.
The true spirit and attitude of the North in the political leadership and governance of the nation was glaring in the massive support by Northerners for Chief MKO Abiola against Bashir Tofar in the 1993 election. The North sacrificed their own for the South.
At the SDP primary in Jos, leading up to that election, Atiku Abubakar stepped down for Abiola to emerge as the flag bearer when there was a tie with Babagana Kingibe.
When that election was annulled and Gen. Abacha took over, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki insisted on civil rule and that made him suffer deposition as the Sultan of Sokoto. What greater sacrifice can there be than for Northerners to vote for a Southerner against a fellow Northerner and for the topmost Northern traditional ruler and religious leader to lose his crown in defence of the outcome?
Into the new democratic dispensation in 1999, we also saw how the North supported Obasanjo to emerge the flag bearer of the PDP despite having Abubakar Rimi and other Northerners in the contest, and how the North voted massively for Obasanjo even when his Western Nigeria people voted against him. The North also voted for him in the re-election of 2003 against Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.
If the South does not appreciate these, the North is aware of its sacrifices.
Following the annulment of the Abiola mandate, there was like an unwritten national consensus for the rotation of the Presidency between the North and the South. Accordingly, after Obasanjo’s eight years, it became the turn of the North to do the next eight years. Unfortunately, President Umaru Yar’Adua died after two only years.
At that point, the feeling of ordinary Northerners was for the late President to be replaced by another Northerner since it was still their turn. This however conflicted with the provision of the constitution which stipulates that the Vice-President should succeed an incapacitated President.
How do you explain that to the ordinary Northerner? It may have seemed simple for the Southerners as it was to their advantage but it was not for the Northerners whose turn was seemingly being usurped. Still, the Northern political leadership accepted the “Doctrine of Necessity” for President Jonathan to complete the remaining two years of the first term of the Northern tenure.
At the completion of the two years, the North expected the South and President Jonathan to give back the position, knowing that it was the turn of the North, but Jonathan insisted on continuing and the Southerners supported him in disregard of the feelings of the North.
It was reasoned that Jonathan was from the Niger Delta and denying him to continue as President would have given the impression that the region was being marginalised. The North understood and conceded, yet again, to the South.
It was however agreed that Jonathan should do one more term of four years in addition to the two he done on behalf of Yar’Adua. Jonathan agreed and he was supported against Buhari in the 2011 elections.
At that point, while with Obasanjo’s eight years and Jonathan’s six years, Southern Nigeria had had the Presidency for fourteen years while the North had had just two years with Yar’Adua. If the South did not see nor appreciate this sacrifice for the unity, peace and harmony of Nigeria, the North knows the pressure and pain it suffered in making the sacrifice.
It was curious to see that after the completion of the term, Jonathan insisted on going again in the 2015 election and Southerners supported him in disregard of the feelings of Northerners.
Among the leading supporters of that travesty and disregard for the sensibility of the North was Nyesom Wike.
If it had been achieved, it would have meant the South having eighteen years while the North remained in two.
It is therefore shamefully selfish and innately wicked for Wike to be campaigning against Atiku and the PDP with reference to how some Northerners kicked against that intended continuation of the Jonathan Presidency in 2015.
As we speak, even with Buhari’s Presidency, the South has had fourteen years while the North has had ten years.
It has been necessary for me to state these facts so that Wike and his G-5 haters of the North, Hausa and Fulani, would see the full picture of our political history and understand that they are not doing this nation any good by their continued propaganda against the North.
In our estimation, the North has been much more sacrificial, cooperative, and contributive towards building harmony in our democratic governance than the South, such that we find it quite unreciprocal for Wike and his gang to keep baying over the candidacy of Atiku Abubakar.
We also find Wike duplicitous and without any moral ground to be talking about equity knowing that at the end of Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s tenure, he had wanted rotation of the River’s Governorship from Ikwerre land to other nationalities like Kalabari and Ogoni but Wike who is also an Ikwerre man insisted on taking over from him, in disregard of the feelings of other nationalities in Rivers.
As they say, he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. Moreso, we have sacrificed for you, we have set aside the rules a number of times to satisfy you, why can you not sacrifice for us too? Why do you want to let hell loose just because we are asking in return. After all, nothing is perfect except understanding. The party threw the ticket open and you and everyone else went into the PDP primary knowing the ticket could go any way.
As Northerners, we are watching and waiting.
