North: The Crisis Within
Though the North clamours for a power shift, acrimony runs rampant among its leading aspirants; why?
By Tony Egbulef

Atiku Abubakar

Saturday, July 1, Yusuf Maitama Sule, the vintage politician and statesman from the North, and Nigeria’s former representative at the United Nations, wept openly at the venue of the 5th Northern Senators’ Forum, held in Minna, Niger State. Sule, who has seen virtually all there is in the political evolution of the country and its integral tug of war between the North and the South, spoke profoundly about a region he once knew as monolithic and united on the political turf- a north that was one North.
But today’s North, as Sule regretably told the august gathering, is a sad departure from the political North that earned huge relevance in the nation’s political engineering, essentially by acting and speaking as one. The present Northern political class, he lamented, pursues self-preservation and individual survivalist agenda to the utter relegation of the zone’s collective pursuit; both of which, he observed, have combined effectively to obliterate the once revered Northern political establishment.
As he sat down amid thunderous ovation, Sule began to weep to the shock of the eminent crowd and Nigerians who watched live from their television sets.
Sule’s treatise and lamentations were compelling in view of the region’s current quest to wrest, or probably negotiate power out of the South in a few months’ time. At the last count, 13 presidential aspirants have cropped up from the North, all of whom stand firmly on their conviction that power should be allowed to return to the zone, having been domiciled in the South since 1999. The growing list include General Muhammadu Buhari, (rtd) Ghali Umar Na’Abba, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, General Buba Marwa (rtd), General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd), Professor Jerry Gana, General Aliyu Gusau (rtd), Governors Sani Yerima, Ahmed Makarfi and Abdullahi Adamu, Alhaji Lema Jubrilu, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, Dr. Dauda Birmah.
Despite the fact that this cast shares a common conviction that power should shift to the North, they are essentially prosecuting their quests with deeply seated acrimony against one another. Gana’s quest, for instance, has drawn resentment from the Babangida camp, which feels it is immoral for Gana to square up against his political benefactor, moreso, as both of them hail from the same Niger State.
To Godwin Dabo, a Babangida acolyte, the least expected from Gana was a total support for Babangida's quest as a mark of gratitude for riding on Babangida's back to limelight. Angry at Gana’s show of effrontery, the Babangida camp wrote off Gana as a spoiler, ingrate and passenger in the race.
Aside Gana, IBB and Atiku and despite postures of camaraderie, hold each other in utmost distrust. IBB’s scorn for the vice president has roots in his perception of Atiku as a brash and haughty young man, with a desire to ride roughshod over the northern political establishment. This perception of the vice president equally runs within the political old school of the North, such that President Obasanjo, in the run-up to the 2003 presidential election, was given the dire option of dropping Atiku as his running mate, or risk withdrawal of support by the traditional northern power bloc. Babangida was said to be among those who gave President Obasanjo this painful option. And though President Obasanjo explained himself out, former President Shehu Shagari, stuck to the position and as such, supported Alex Ekwueme at the PDP primaries.
Since August 27, 1985, when IBB, then Chief of Army Staff, toppled the Buhari junta, both men have carried on as sworn enemies, despite efforts from diverse quarters to reconcile them. And Buhari, as it were, does not admire Atiku either for the same reasons that earned the vice president Babangida’s contempt as well as for the added reason of being part of a plot Buhari blames for his electoral woes in the 2003 presidential election. Between Atiku and Marwa, there is equally an aggravated disharmony, which has been variously demonstrated by the schemes of both men to undo each other in the PDP, beginning from their home state, Adamawa.
While he was the National Security Adviser, Gusau proved to be Marwa’s nightmare. Allegedly worried over the rising profile and acceptance of Marwa, Gusau as the National Security Adviser (NSA), reportedly pulled several strings that resulted in the swoop by the dreaded Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Marwa. Though the anti-craft commission gave the former Lagos State Military Administrator a clean bill of health, it did not come until he had spent 10 days in the EFCC dungeon. The Gusau stunt was to cut short Marwa's seeming jolly ride in the presidential campaign. Thus, Gusau’s removal from office last month, came as a big relief and cheery news to the Marwa camp, which gleefully celebrated his downfall.
In their Zamfara home state, Gusau and Yerima, the state governor, are equally at each others throat. Their acrimony as it were, is rooted on individual quest for self-preservation. Agitated over the chummy relationship between the president and Governor Yerima, Gusau, allegedly drew up a security report that branded the governor, a national security risk, with the governor’s Sharia law crusade as linchpin. In fact, the Gusau report further detailed Yerima’s foreign backers. As it turned out, Yerima eventually got to know of the Gusau report and consequently pronounced Gusau a perpetual enemy. But Gusau, who was not done yet, followed up with reports on corruption in Yerima’s government to Obasanjo. And though Gusau lost his position in government last month, EFCC officials are currently combing the Yerima government for evidence of the alleged corruption in the State.
Besides the deeply seated ego and personality clashes that have made the northern political class its own worst enemy, Reverend Father Mathew Hassan Kukah, while raising questions on northern unity at the Northern Senators Forum meeting, also pointed to another divisive and discriminatory factor in the region – the question of who is a true or core Northerner. As was revealed by Kukah, the zone is plagued by a class distinction between those perceived as core Northerners and the others derided as fringe northern population. Kukah: “The question that keeps disturbing my mind is who is a core northerner? As long as tribe, ethnicity and religion make it difficult for some to be accepted as northerners, so long will the issue of confidence and trust remain a problem to the region.”
As members of the northern political class parade themselves as adversaries, not a few fear the possibility of a northern-inspired sabotage of the zone’s presidential candidates, when the battle for Obasanjo’s successor is eventually taken to the polls in 2007.
Aside members of the northern political class, the possibility of internal sabotage of the northern quest for power by 2007, now looms large from northern youths. At the moment, youth groups led by Yerima Shettima, Malam Shehu Sani and Malam Umar Farouk, have vowed that they would work against the northern leaders’ quest to reclaim political power. Besides their various media campaigns against northern politicians and the clamour for power shift, the youth groups on Thursday, July 20, successfully mobilised a huge crowd of angry youths, who successfully frustrated a meeting of Northern Governors’ Forum (NGF), at the Kaduna State Government House, Kawo, Kaduna. The meeting of the 19 northern governors had been billed to throw up a consensus presidential candidate among from the existing cast.
The governors, who were already in Kaduna for the crucial meeting, including the governor of the host state Ahmed Makarfi, were prevented from entering the venue of the meeting by the angry youths, who barricaded the venue. Eventually, the meeting was called off as a result of unfavourable security situation. The organisers said the governors left because they could not risk a showdown between the angry youths and riot policemen in their entourage.
Farouk, Secretary-General of one of the groups, the Northern Coalition for Democracy and Justice, told journalists that the clamour by politicians from the region for a power shift was an irritable hogwash because the northern vice grip on power since independence according to him, has not benefitted the people of the region, moreso when such political hegemony is fraught with injustice, unfairness and lack of equity to other regions of the country. For his group, therefore, the North should hands off for the South east or South south.
Farouk: “We are not supporting any northern candidate for 2007 presidency. We believe there should be fairness, equity and justice, since we all belong to one country. We (North) have tasted power for so long, we should let it go round. There are credible presidential aspirants from the North, but in this matter our position is, let us think Nigeria first.
“Let’s not be talking of one person or region. We organised to abort the governors’ meeting. We are tired of the resolutions coming at the end of each NGF meeting, that power should rotate to the North in 2007. The North as an entity does not deserve to have the presidency now. The best way to sustain national or Northern unity is to allow power to go to either the South south or South east zone, which have not had power in the last 40 years.”
Some of the youths brandished placards, some of which read, “Nigeria does not belong to the North alone,” "the Nigeria of our dream is rooted in our ability to accommodate others.”
On his own part, Sani lampooned the governors for clamouring for power shift and attempting to gather to chose a consensus candidate for the region. Sani: “Nigerians will not tolerate any attempt by the governors to use the forum to support the coming of a former military dictator for the 2007 presidency. The North has no clear agenda on what they want to achieve with power for Nigerians if the presidency should go to the North.”
Shettima said his group, the Arewa Consultative Youth Forum, was also against a Northern presidency because Northern leaders, he said, had failed the region and all Nigerians and as such, should take the back seat and allow either the South south or the South east take over by 2007. He lamented that for 36 years that northern political and military leaders held onto power, the region, he observed, still rank first in under-development, poverty and disease – even when the military leaders, as dictators, wielded maximum powers which they could employ to tilt favours to the North.
Perhaps, aware of the cracks in its fold and realising that its agitation for power may not be enjoying the endorsement of the grassroots in the zone, the Northern political elite is gradually shedding its hitherto proud toga of arrogance in its quest. In place of its tough boy image on return of power, to the region, the establishment North is currently suing for power shift through negotiation and consensus with the South.
At a meeting of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) in Kaduna on Thursday, August 3, participants had reasoned that the controversial agreement among leaders of the PDP on rotation of power between the North and South, can only be actualised through moral force. The chairman of the Forum, Governor Abdullahi Adamu of Nasarawa State, in his speech admitted that the only way the North could realise its aspiration is through diplomacy and persuassion of leaders of other zones to allow it have its way. Said Adamu: “The North cannot but stake its claim to the 2007 presidency on the basis of this agreement and as a matter of equity and justice. It is not a matter of legal right. It is a matter of moral right, that the North can exercise only by winning the support of the other zones.” According to the governor, "since politics is a game of give and take– one which revolves on the axis of compromise– each geo-political zone needs the consent and support of the zones to its cause."
Besides this softening of approach by the North as entity, individual aspirants in the area are equally said to be engaging in compromise– and shifts in their previous positions. Last week, for instance, the Kaduna State Governor, Ahmed Makarfi, indicated his willingness to settle for the position of a vice president if it becomes the concensus of the PDP. The governor, had in response to a question on whether he would accept the position of vice president, if offered by the party, said, “if that consensus is built by contact, what can I do?” Though Makarfi hinged his response on the outcome of PDP consensus, The Source gathered that he was actually prepared to serve as a vice president to a southerner in the event of the failure of the North’s quest for the presidency. Investigations reveal that apart from Makarfi, most aspirants from the North, with the possible exception of Buhari, Babangida and Atiku, are working on similar probability.
Already, the South south, buoyed by what seems as a remarkable shift in the previous corky position of the North, is restating its eagerness to go for broke. At a recent meeting of leaders of the zone in Uromi, Edo State, the host, Chief Tony Anenih, chairman, PDP Board of Trustees (BOT), who in the past had said that power would return to the North in 2007, dramatically threw his weight behind the aspiration of his kinsmen. Anenih: “Let me say categorically that the next president of Nigeria in 2007, should come from the South south. This zone has never produced a president or Head of State, whether military or civilian since our independence in 1960.”
A coalition of South south leaders who attended the Uromi parley when put side by side with the scanty audience at this month's Northern Governors’ Forum, forms a strong factor in what southern presidency agitators see as a gradual shift of position by the North. The perceived acrimony in the ranks of northern aspirants, as well as the lack of popular support for their agitation notwithstanding, informed analysts who often rightly interprete the zone’s usually deft political moves, warn that what may wrongly be seen as a gradual loss of interest by the North in the plum job, may only be a decoy by its political leaders to pull the rug from the South south agitation. “The strategy may be to sell a dummy to them (south), give them the impression that the contest is for them. In the process, the battle will be with them, while we put our acts together and go for the real show when the time comes,” a very senior member of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) volunteered to The Source during the week. In fact, to give vent to the North’s game plan, there are hints that the zone may early next month come up with a consensus presidential candidate. This singular move, our source said, would send the clear message to the supposedly illusioned South that the North has not really gone to sleep on its quest for the 2007 presidency. For now, the game continues.