Coalition Driven By Desperation, Greed, And Insensitivity.
Thursday (Nkwo)03-07-2025.
Nigeria’s current democracy is twenty-six years old, having started in 1999. Interestingly, many who actively participated in the formative stages of democratic renaissance from 1998 to 1999 are still present and active today in Nigeria’s Politics. That means the antecedents and competencies of many current Political Leaders are known to a good number of Nigerians.
Take it or leave it, Nigeria’s creation was by amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914 by the British Colonial Government, spearheaded by Lord Frederick Lugard. Therefore, any ambition, aspiration or calculation on the Nigerian project that does not take into deep consideration the sharp bipolar division or reality of Nigeria, will simply amount to trying to build something on nothing.
The North and South geopolitical reality in Nigeria is so real that any Nigerian that is altruistic, sincere and patriotic will always respect its essence. Uniquely, Nigeria’s type of Federalism is different from what it stands for in other democratic climes. While Federalism implies that Confederating Units develop at their own speed and pace, using their human capital and effective harnessing of internal resources, Nigeria’s brand of Federalism dictates that such Units could be indolent and addicted to a life of total dependence, as they could successfully thrive as parasites living on the resources of other Confederating Units, relying on a forcefully centralised pool of resources that does not encourage vision, articulation, assiduity, enterprise and prudence.
Nigeria’s Federation Account is a Central Pool of revenue from 36 Confederating Units in Nigeria, plus the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, including revenue from Oil, Gas, and Taxes. Whatever accrues to the Federation Account is distributed, that is shared, amongst the Federal, State and Local Governments monthly, using certain yardsticks. More than 80% of Nigeria’s Distributable Revenue are derived from the Southern part of the Federation.
It will, therefore, amount to gross insensitivity and injustice for the Fulani to feel that Power must reside with them at all times. Already, through the Military that saw the North produce many Heads of State and also bequeath Nigeria an Awkward Constitution that inequitably and unjustly created more States, Local Government Councils, and Electoral Wards in the North more than in the South, and makes the practice of True Federalism impossible, most of the Revenue in Nigeria goes to the North. To strike a peaceful balance, the position of President of Nigeria should rotate between the North and the South.
The Coalition of Politicians that was announced yesterday and adopted the Raph Nwosu led African Democratic Congress, ADC, as the Party they intend to use in order to ‘unseat’ President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027 General Election was simply a congregation of selfish unproductive politicians that are only propelled by desperation, greed, insatiability, and insensitivity.
It was a coalition of ‘former this, former that’, a good number of politicians that had been on the saddle for, at least, Eight years, with some having spent Twenty-four years holding public offices.
In his desperation, a former Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, 1999-2007, an arrowhead of the coalition, is unmindfully blinded to Nigeria’s reality of North/South dichotomy. He wants to be President at all cost because he feels that as a Fulani power should not be taken away from them. His belief is that if the Fulani were able to deceive, conquer and suppress Hausa People and many other tribes in the North of Nigeria, including the Yoruba of Ilorin, the whole of Nigeria should be a private fiefdom of the Fulani. If he sincerely believes President Tinubu is not doing well, why not canvass support for another Southerner to be elected to complete eight years of Tinubu’s constitutionally guaranteed tenure of two terms? Why must he feel it must be him?
Come to think of it, what were his achievements as Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, under the Presidency of President Olusegun Obasanjo? Of what usefulness was the Privatisation of Public Enterprises that President Obasanjo delegated to him to execute, to Nigeria? Was the Privatisation process characterised by honesty and transparency? What impressions did or does his former Principal, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, have about him?
As prominent a Fulani as he is, all the time his fellow Fulani were busy slaughtering Nigerians, especially Hausa People and ancestral owners of Southern Kaduna, and the Middle-Belt, during the dark days of his Fulani kinsman, President Muhammadu Buhari, did he ever come out to condemn the killings? Did he even ever sympathise with the badly traumatised Peoples of Hausa, Southern Kaduna, and Middle-Belt?
Malam Nasir el Rufai is a former Governor of Kaduna State, 2015-2023, and one of the coordinating gladiators of the Coalition. Did he not look the other way while his tribesmen, fulani terrorists, descended heartlessly heavily on the indigenous People of Southern Kaduna while he was Governor of the State? Was Nasir el Rufai not the same sitting Governor that threatened that if Foreign Observers came to monitor 2019 Presidential Election in Nigeria, that they would be flown back in body bags? Mallam Nasir el Rufai had gladly made himself available for a Ministerial appointment in President Tinubu’s Administration but because of his past records of support for violence he failed screening test by the Department of State Service, DSS. He has since been embittered with President Tinubu. If he had not failed in the screening test, would he have been castigating and conspiring against President Tinubu whom he had earlier made up his mind to serve as his Boss?
Rt Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi was Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly for Eight consecutive years, 1999-2007. He later became Governor of Rivers State for another Eight consecutive years, 2007-2015. For another Eight consecutive years, 2015-2023, Amaechi was a Super Minister in the Government of President Buhari. He constructed Standard Guage Railway Line from Kano, passing through Dutse in Jigawa State, Daura in Katsina State, and up to Maradi in Niger Republic, with huge resources from the South yet did not consider it necessary to, at least, revitalise the Eastern Railway Line which even his own people of Rivers State would have benefitted from.
Brigadier-General Senator David Mark is Idoma by tribe, specifically Oturkpo in Benue State. While serving in the Military, he was a Military Governor of Niger State, Minister of Communication, during which he was notoriously labelled as one who allegedly said Telephone was not for the Poor, and Chairman of Implementation Committee on ‘Abandoned Properties’ in Rivers State in 1976. The ‘Abandoned Properties’ he presided over its Implementation were Legitimate Properties owned by the Igbo in Rivers State which they had left and run for their dear lives during the Nigeria/Biafra war of 1966-70.
David Mark represented Benue-South Senatorial District in the Senate for 20 years, 1999-2019, and was the 12th President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for Eight consecutive years, 2007-2015. Despite ferocity
and frequency of massacre of indigenes of his Benue State he, unlike General T. Y. Danjuma who has boldly condemned incessant killing of his People in Taraba State by Fulani terrorists, has refused to take any bold protective posture. What landmarks of development did he attract to his constituency for the twenty years spent in the Senate?
Rt Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi during his 60th birthday in June 2025, was reported to have said ‘he was hungry’. The question he should answer is, if he was not prudent enough to save from all the earnings he had accumulated during his Twenty-four years in Government, is it from a Government he anticipates would result from the Coalition that can address his hunger?
The most important question, what is the grouse of the actors behind the Coalition? Would they rightly claim that President Tinubu has not done well as President within the period he has been in Office? In Infrastructure, Education, Health, Agriculture, where would they fault the President?
On security, it was clear that mass killing of ancestral land owners in Nigeria by fulani terrorists began with vigour during the Presidency of Buhari. No matter the thousands that were massacred, Buhari never condemned his fulani kinsmen for the atrocities they were committing against Nigerians. Unlike what obtained during the Buhari era, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has not only been very forceful in his condemnation of these killers but has personally been to Benue State where he he had a tete a tete with the People of Benue State, and has since given marching orders to the Security Agencies to go after the bandits. Buhari never did that.
On the speculation that Atiku will run with Mr Peter Obi for only one tenure, after which Mr Obi will be the Presidential Candidate of the Party of the Coalition in 2031, that is a simplistic way of deceiving Mr Obi. If Atiku is sincere and means well, let him, abinitio, support the candidacy of Mr Peter Obi.
In summary, it is the view of Equity Global Reporters Ltd that President Tinubu, having introduced some radical reforms that will certainly yield positive results, including removal of hitherto Corrupt Regime of Fuel Subsidy which has made it possible for an State like Abia State that was getting less than Three Billion Naira as monthly allocation from Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, to be getting about Twenty-two Billion Naira monthly, should be encouraged to drive the reforms which gestation period could take more than four years. The Coalition should look towards 2031.
Sir Don Ubani; KSC, JP
Managing-Editor/CEO
Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
