By Osadolo Franics, Nigerian Observer
Unexpressly by the real political leaders of the imaginative one gargantuan north, ‘the people’ in this part of Nigeria believed they are BORN to RULE.
If this idea has being working for them, it is because they see themselves as a monolithic entity.
This is irrespective of their religious leaning or political divide. That is the reason why Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) is a very formidable non- partisan socio-politicaly organisation of the defunct Northern Protectorate and later Region. This geographical expression is composed of various non-related ethnic group as we have in the Southern Protectorate that could not stand as a single political entity called Southern Region.
This latter later dissolved into Western, Eastern and again Midwestern Region while the Northern protectorate refused to go the way of the south. It is this sustaining spirit that is their strength while the south chose to go the way of the confused tongued people that build the great tower of Babel but later abandoned the construction work. Those people that make up the southern protectorate have never pretended to see themselves as one, they never pretend to have a collective bargain but instead, they see themselves as clay and iron that can never mix together.
But the Northern protectorate, on the other hand, never pretended to be one single ethnic entity.
They recognised their differences but instead of letting it be their weakness, they fused together, down play their differences, and work together as a single unit with one bargaining voice which has made them become one great people. With their strength of unity, they can continue to claim that they are born to rule even over the weak South who is so because of their disunity and “over Sabi house wife’s attitude.’
And this is the undoing of the South. Thus, the North has one strong voice in Arewa consultative forum but the South has the ‘Ohanaeze Ndigbo’ for the Igbos of East, ‘Afenifere socio-cultural group’ for the Yoruba in the West. And most unfortunately , the Midwestern Region has no voice at all and likewise the other ethnic groups that do not belong to either the Igbo East nor the Yourba West. They are as dumb as the Midwestern Region.
Where Arewa, Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo stands, it is the Arewa voice that will be loudest while Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo will be shouting to be heard at the same time unfortunately, the non-Igbo or non Yoruba voice will be unknown, never to be reckoned with.
If not because of the militancy of some of the Youths in their midst, because of the oil wells in their land, Dr Goodluck Jonathan would not have been our president today at the demise of President Umaru Yar’Adua.
Because of the size of the North, they can always choose to have the best choice, than heave the others for the cacophony South and than the remnant for the non-Igbo and non-Yoruba. That is why the north has produced nine out of the fifteen leaders in Nigeria. In the militancy, that is the reason their coups had always succeeded and when the north says “no to the coup, it will fail.
The North has always had the fortune of power and can decide to give it to whoever she want, and if they say ‘No’, there is hardly anything anyone can do about it. They always strive for power. If you can find General Aguiyi Ironsi, ask him why he was killed over the coup d’etat he knew nothing about. Also, when you come across Brigadier Ogundipe, why he was brushed or shoved aside for a junior Lt Colonel Yakubu Gowon after Ironsi was assassinated, in a military that respects hierarchy, you will get a little understanding of what I am saying. After General Murtala Mohammed got a good dose of what he gave to General Ironsi, leadership was forced on General Olusegun Obasanjo when it was not his will.
Over June 12 1993 presidential election result, you can find out who ensured that Professor Humphrey Nwosu did not complete announcing the result so that it could be annulled. If you find Brigadier David Mark you can ask him who slapped the National Electoral Commission Chairman, Humphrey Nwosu, to stop him from announcing M K O Abiola as the president-elect. Is that Brigadier David Mark a British or American citizen or from the north of Nigeria? General Ibrahim Babangida can I tell us better why Chief Ernest Shonekan who never contested any election was handed over presidential power of Nigeria instead of the man M K O Abiola who was purportedly ‘Michael Jordaning’ to the first position in the June 12 1993 presidential election sprint.
Who decided to make Chief Olusegun Obasanjo the executive president of Nigeria in 1999? Who caused him to be released from the prison for that office? Was it his kinsmen from Southwest of Nigeria or the divergent southern leaders or the leaders from the North? I know that the defunct Midwestern Region and other Southern non-Igbo, non-Yoruba have no leaders to decide on that matter.
Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential contest and failure in that election was a fait accompli or chestrated by his kinsmen in the North. He was allowed to contest and he failed so that it would be said that Nigeria has democratised and so the Yoke of pariah status would be lifted off our neck or broken. It was the interest of the North to have our immediate late President Umaru Yar’Adua succeeds the former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Thus Muhammadu Buhari or Atiku Abubakar did not emerge as Obasanjo’s successor.
It was the prerogative of the North that makes Nigeria live without a substantive president for six months until Late President Umaru Yar’Adua left the world stage as a very good president for about thirty months who never was able to lead Nigeria according to the beauty of his mind.
He was cheated by a protracted illness. His Vice President, now the current President, academic Dr Goodluck Jonathan was unofficially declared a persona non grata to see his president for six months. This too was the handiwork of some Northern faceless cabal. Dr Goodluck Jonathan became Acting and now the substantive president of Nigeria by divine providence. But the background to this reality dates back to 1998 incident that brought Olusegun Obasanjo out of prison to the presidency.
Without any sentiment, the north has always had the fortune to decide who becomes the president of Nigeria, especially in plotting coup d’etat. This section of the country has got the penchant for successful coup making. In the North, there is still the core North. This is where most presidents or Heads of State always come from. Let us consider them; Abubakar Tafawa Balawa, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Sani Abacha, Umaru Yar’Adua and Murtala Mohammed. Only this area alone have produced six leaders over us, the non-core North has produced Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar. That is three in all nine leaders over us in Nigeria.
Compared to the Southern part, the South East has produced Nnamdi Azikiwe and Thomas Aguiyi Ironsi. That is two in Number. The South West has produced Olusegun Obasanjo, Ernest Shonekan and Olusegun Obasanjo again. That is three. The South-South has just had the current leader in the person of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
He is completing the first term of his late boss, President Umaru Yar’Adua who has only one year to go in his first term of four years. Because of where President Goodluck Jonathan comes from, some persons even in his own political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are shouting fire and brimstone that he should not dare contest the 2011 presidential election because two terms of eight years which Umaru Yar’Adua is supposed to stay in the presidency still remains one term of four years for the North to go.
Therefore, there is no VACANCY for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the only president for one year completing the first term of the North is not yet qualified to contest for the presidency of Nigeria come 2011.. now how fair is it to brush aside a South-South Presidential candidate by the ruling political party?
With the heads like Ibrahim Babangida and Atiku Abubakar who want to make sure that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan does not rule Nigeria by their ambition, are they telling us that except them, no South-South person like the current ad hoc president is not qualified to rule Nigeria yet? If the northern ambitious leaders decide to make sure Dr. Goodluck Jonathan does not get the favour of PDP primaries, they would have been telling us that he is not a full Nigerian enough yet until 2015 or 2019 when they feel or think that they can leave the presidency for either the South-South or South-East.
As fellow Nigerians, the people of South-South want political leadership equity in Nigeria. Fifty years of our independence, Goodluck Jonathan is the first South-South person being made a president because his boss, Late President Umaru Yar’Adua died untimely in office. If he had not died, the South-South would not have had the hope of even producing an ad hoc president. The South-South would have had to wait till either 2015 or 2031.
If President Goodluck Jonathan is denied the presidency in 2011 because it is not yet the South-South’s turn to produce the presidency, until 2015 or 2019, then this section of the country would have been demeaned as insignificant or reduced to the status of slaves in this country.
We are interested in power balance or equation. Whether through coup d’etat or not, the South has been treated unfairly for too long when we check the list of the leaders we have had in this country since we gained independence in 1960 that is fifty years ago. Any denial of Goodluck Jonathan for the South-South, as president in 2011, it means we would have decimated the South-South’s Presidency till 2019 or 2027, that would be either sixty nine years or seventy seven years after independence. Unexpressly by the real political leaders of the imaginative one gargantuan north, ‘the people’ in this part of Nigeria believed they are BORN to RULE.
If this idea has being working for them, it is because they see themselves as a monolithic entity.
This is irrespective of their religious leaning or political divide. That is the reason why Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) is a very formidable non- partisan socio-politicaly organisation of the defunct Northern Protectorate and later Region. This geographical expression is composed of various non-related ethnic group as we have in the Southern Protectorate that could not stand as a single political entity called Southern Region.
This latter later dissolved into Western, Eastern and again Midwestern Region while the Northern protectorate refused to go the way of the south. It is this sustaining spirit that is their strength while the south chose to go the way of the confused tongued people that build the great tower of Babel but later abandoned the construction work. Those people that make up the southern protectorate have never pretended to see themselves as one, they never pretend to have a collective bargain but instead, they see themselves as clay and iron that can never mix together.
But the Northern protectorate, on the other hand, never pretended to be one single ethnic entity.
They recognised their differences but instead of letting it be their weakness, they fused together, down play their differences, and work together as a single unit with one bargaining voice which has made them become one great people. With their strength of unity, they can continue to claim that they are born to rule even over the weak South who is so because of their disunity and “over Sabi house wife’s attitude.’
And this is the undoing of the South. Thus, the North has one strong voice in Arewa consultative forum but the South has the ‘Ohanaeze Ndigbo’ for the Igbos of East, ‘Afenifere socio-cultural group’ for the Yoruba in the West. And most unfortunately , the Midwestern Region has no voice at all and likewise the other ethnic groups that do not belong to either the Igbo East nor the Yourba West.
They are as dumb as the Midwestern Region. Where Arewa, Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo stands, it is the Arewa voice that will be loudest while Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo will be shouting to be heard at the same time unfortunately, the non-Igbo or non Yoruba voice will be unknown, never to be reckoned with.
If not because of the militancy of some of the Youths in their midst, because of the oil wells in their land, Dr Goodluck Jonathan would not have been our president today at the demise of President Umaru Yar’Adua.
Because of the size of the North, they can always choose to have the best choice, than heave the others for the cacophony South and than the remnant for the non-Igbo and non-Yoruba. That is why the north has produced nine out of the fifteen leaders in Nigeria. In the militancy, that is the reason their coups had always succeeded and when the north says “no to the coup, it will fail.
The North has always had the fortune of power and can decide to give it to whoever she want, and if they say ‘No’, there is hardly anything anyone can do about it. They always strive for power. If you can find General Aguiyi Ironsi, ask him why he was killed over the coup d’etat he knew nothing about.
Also, when you come across Brigadier Ogundipe, why he was brushed or shoved aside for a junior Lt Colonel Yakubu Gowon after Ironsi was assassinated, in a military that respects hierarchy, you will get a little understanding of what I am saying. After General Murtala Mohammed got a good dose of what he gave to General Ironsi, leadership was forced on General Olusegun Obasanjo when it was not his will.
Over June 12 1993 presidential election result, you can find out who ensured that Professor Humphrey Nwosu did not complete announcing the result so that it could be annulled. If you find Brigadier David Mark you can ask him who slapped the National Electoral Commission Chairman, Humphrey Nwosu, to stop him from announcing M K O Abiola as the president-elect. Is that Brigadier David Mark a British or American citizen or from the north of Nigeria? General Ibrahim Babangida can I tell us better why Chief Ernest Shonekan who never contested any election was handed over presidential power of Nigeria instead of the man M K O Abiola who was purportedly ‘Michael Jordaning’ to the first position in the June 12 1993 presidential election sprint.
Who decided to make Chief Olusegun Obasanjo the executive president of Nigeria in 1999? Who caused him to be released from the prison for that office?Was it his kinsmen from Southwest of Nigeria or the divergent southern leaders or the leaders from the North? I know that the defunct Midwestern Region and other Southern non-Igbo, non-Yoruba have no leaders to decide on that matter.
Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential contest and failure in that election was a fait accompli or chestrated by his kinsmen in the North. He was allowed to contest and he failed so that it would be said that Nigeria has democratised and so the Yoke of pariah status would be lifted off our neck or broken. It was the interest of the North to have our immediate late President Umaru Yar’Adua succeeds the former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Thus Muhammadu Buhari or Atiku Abubakar did not emerge as Obasanjo’s successor.
It was the prerogative of the North that makes Nigeria live without a substantive president for six months until Late President Umaru Yar’Adua left the world stage as a very good president for about thirty months who never was able to lead Nigeria according to the beauty of his mind.
He was cheated by a protracted illness. His Vice President, now the current President, academic Dr Goodluck Jonathan was unofficially declared a persona non grata to see his president for six months. This too was the handiwork of some Northern faceless cabal. Dr Goodluck Jonathan became Acting and now the substantive president of Nigeria by divine providence. But the background to this reality dates back to 1998 incident that brought Olusegun Obasanjo out of prison to the presidency.
Without any sentiment, the north has always had the fortune to decide who becomes the president of Nigeria, especially in plotting coup d’etat. This section of the country has got the penchant for successful coup making. In the North, there is still the core North. This is where most presidents or Heads of State always come from.
Let us consider them; Abubakar Tafawa Balawa, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Sani Abacha, Umaru Yar’Adua and Murtala Mohammed. Only this area alone have produced six leaders over us, the non-core North has produced Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar. That is three in all nine leaders over us in Nigeria.
Compared to the Southern part, the South East has produced Nnamdi Azikiwe and Thomas Aguiyi Ironsi. That is two in Number. The South West has produced Olusegun Obasanjo, Ernest Shonekan and Olusegun Obasanjo again. That is three. The South-South has just had the current leader in the person of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
He is completing the first term of his late boss, President Umaru Yar’Adua who has only one year to go in his first term of four years. Because of where President Goodluck Jonathan comes from, some persons even in his own political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are shouting fire and brimstone that he should not dare contest the 2011 presidential election because two terms of eight years which Umaru Yar’Adua is supposed to stay in the presidency still remains one term of four years for the North to go.
Therefore, there is no VACANCY for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the only president for one year completing the first term of the North is not yet qualified to contest for the presidency of Nigeria come 2011.. now how fair is it to brush aside a South-South Presidential candidate by the ruling political party?
With the heads like Ibrahim Babangida and Atiku Abubakar who want to make sure that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan does not rule Nigeria by their ambition, are they telling us that except them, no South-South person like the current ad hoc president is not qualified to rule Nigeria yet? If the northern ambitious leaders decide to make sure Dr. Goodluck Jonathan does not get the favour of PDP primaries, they would have been telling us that he is not a full Nigerian enough yet until 2015 or 2019 when they feel or think that they can leave the presidency for either the South-South or South-East.
As fellow Nigerians, the people of South-South want political leadership equity in Nigeria. Fifty years of our independence, Goodluck Jonathan is the first South-South person being made a president because his boss, Late President Umaru Yar’Adua died untimely in office. If he had not died, the South-South would not have had the hope of even producing an ad hoc president. The South-South would have had to wait till either 2015 or 2031.
If President Goodluck Jonathan is denied the presidency in 2011 because it is not yet the South-South’s turn to produce the presidency, until 2015 or 2019, then this section of the country would have been demeaned as insignificant or reduced to the status of slaves in this country.
We are interested in power balance or equation. Whether through coup d’etat or not, the South has been treated unfairly for too long when we check the list of the leaders we have had in this country since we gained independence in 1960 that is fifty years ago. Any denial of Goodluck Jonathan for the South-South, as president in 2011, it means we would have decimated the South-South’s Presidency till 2019 or 2027, that would be either sixty nine years or seventy seven years after independence.
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