Which North In Nigeria Will Kowtow To Atiku Abubakar, David Mark, Babachir Lawal And (Or) Nasir el Rufai?
Sunday (Eke) 20-07-2025.
There was a time when political leadership and followership in Nigeria were driven and determined by mere sentiments. During that time, not too long ago, political gladiators took undue advantage of the ignorance of their followers, who generally were uninformed, to play on their limited intelligence.
As it is with civilization and human development, time and awareness energize and stimulate consciousness. The man that was guided by emotions of geo-sectional affiliations some years ago could grow and embrace objectivity. Like the American Singer, Johnny Nash, had lyrically put in his 1972 Hit, ‘I Can See Clearly Now’, objectivity is fast overtaking emotion in the way Nigerian Citizens look at and consider issues of national importance, especially those that have economic implications on their lives.
In many Presidential Elections in Nigeria before that of 2023 that witnessed vivid expression of self-will, especially by the Youths, voting patterns had taken a primordial inclination. Political actors had, rather than preach what they intended to do in order to alleviate the sufferings of the citizenry, resorted to the use of diatribe just to demean their opponents on the basis of ethnicity. Out of primitive indoctrination, the electorate would vote teleguided by chauvinism and ethnic considerations.
The Nigerian electorate appear to be wiser and smarter today. They place not a few considerations on their scale of preference before they go to the polling units to cast their votes. Having failed to reap meaningfully from their votes in the past that were motivated by ethnic and religious considerations, they are now concerned about a candidate that is capable of creating an enabling environment that, when summarised, will be able to provide food on their table.
In current Nigeria’s political permutations, a saying has become frequent and that is, ‘the North will not support the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’.
The question here is ‘who are the North?’ The North of Nigeria is made up of Nineteen States, out of Nigeria’s Thirty-Six States, within which there is also the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, with 744, 249 square kilometres as its land mass, constituting approximately 79% of Nigeria’s total land mass. Its population is estimated to be 100 million, representing about 56.4% of the total population of Nigeria. No doubt, the North of Nigeria is the largest region in Nigeria, encompassing a very vast area and diverse ethnic groups.
A region like the North of Nigeria, as described above, is not an area someone can take for granted. It would be unimaginable for any one to underestimate the collective intelligence of the North, especially in these days of modern education and critical thinking.
Comparatively-speaking, the North, vis a vis development, and poverty alleviation, if not eradication, appears to have the misfortune of not having altruistic leaders. Starting from Nigeria’s First Republic, under Parliamentary System of Government, a Northerner, Sir Tafawa Abubakar Balewa, was Nigeria’s Prime-Minister and Head of the Federal Government. Out of Eight Military Heads of State that had ruled Nigeria, Six were Northerners. The same North has produced Three Executive Presidents. Except for selfishness, why should the North ever complain of neglect or marginalisation? Almost everything has been at the beck and call of the North, perpetrated through Military Oligarchies. Even the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, obviously skewed against the Principles of Federalism, was imposed on Nigerians, to the glaring disadvantage of the South of Nigeria, by a Nigerian Military Junta headed by General Abdulsalami Abubakar, rtd, in 1999.
The North, particularly the Fulani, has had overwhelming dominance in the affairs of Nigeria. That Region is the least that could be expected to complain of neglect or marginalisation, except it is neglected or marginalised by the same North! If leaders from the North had been selfless, why should there be Millions of Out of School Children shamelessly roaming the major streets of major towns in the North? Why should the presence of large number of Lepers be a Signature Profile of Cities in the North? Why should Poverty in the North be the basis for the Brookings Institute to describe Nigeria in 2018 as World Poverty Capital, when a Nigerian of fulani extraction, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, was Nigeria’s President, Nigeria having overtaken India in the number of persons living in extreme poverty?
Why should the vast land of the North, including Zambisa Forest, which should be the food basket of Nigeria, become the Den of Islamist Insurgents, Terrorists and Bandits?
If a searchlight is beamed on these quadruplets; Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Brigadier-General David Mark, Engr Babachir Lawal, and Malam Nasir el Rufai, who are now the arrowheads of complaints that the North is being neglected and marginalised, and one wonders by who, would it not just be clear that they are just a bunch of selfish human-beings who only what to use ethnic sentiments to bring themselves back to relevance? What do they want to do for the North that they had not had the opportunity of doing so in the past?
Beginning with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who was Nigeria’s Vice President for eight consecutive years, 1999-2007, what can he say he did for the North? Apart from his reported attempts to unseat his Boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo, what impact did Atiku have on the North for its overall development and growth?
Brigadier-General David Mark was in the Nigerian Senate for twenty consecutive years, 1999-2019, out of which he was President of the Senate and Number 3 Citizen for eight years, 2007-2015. Is it not a shame that a Number 3 Citizen of Nigeria refused to attract any development to his area, including the road that passes through his own compound at Oturkpo in Benue State which remains impassable?
Engr Babachir Lawal was a known political ally of late President Muhammadu Buhari. When Major-General Buhari became President in 2015, he appointed him Secretary of the Government of the Fedaration, SGF. That was a big position for whoever that genuinely wanted to help people of his region. During COVID 19 Pandemic, it was widely reported that Babachir Lawal got his integrity compromised by allegedly diverting relief funds meant to assist his people. The Government that appointed him consequently suspended him, and later sacked him as SGF. That was an inglorious way of exiting an exalted Office!
In very refined climes, a person like Babachir Lawal should not be a source of pride to his people. Is this a character that could be complaining of neglect and marginalisation of the North? How else can a people be neglected and marginalised other than by one of their own, more so during a period as critical as a pandemic?
On Mallam Nasir el Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State, 2015-2023, he has always boasted of how destructively vindictive his fulani kinsmen can be. While the his fulani kinsmen were slaughtering the ancestral owners of Southern Kaduna, he completely felt unconcerned. In Kaduna State, Christians constitute more than 40% of the voting population but he refused to use a Christian as his running mate in 2019. According to him, even if he used a ‘Pope as his running mate, the people of Southern Kaduna would not vote for him’. It will be recalled that it was Mallam Nasir el Rufai that had threatened in 2019 that if Foreign Observers dared come to Nigeria to monitor that year’s Presidential Election, that they would go back to their countries in body bags. Mallam Nasir el Rufai is best seen as an ethnic irredentist than an advocate for ’emancipation of the North from his imagined neglect and marginalisation’. This man fails all the tests of a unifier!
The truth of the matter is that the four persons, and their likes agitating that the North should withdraw their support from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu are selfish and greedy politicians who only would want to ride on ethnic prejudice to achieve their selfish unpatriotic intentions.
If they were sincere, they would categorically have stated in their so-called Coalition that their Presidential Candidate in 2027 would be a Nigerian of Southern extraction, in order to complete the eight years expected to be occupied by a President of Southern extraction. Their lust for power is dead on arrival.
Sir Don Ubani is the Publisher of Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
