BY ADAMU GWAZUWANG
In the run up to the 2015 elections the political configuration of the North underwent cataclysmic upheaval by the double jeopardy of the emergence of a military figure as most prominent presidential contender and his purely opportunistic alliance with the Tinubu-owned APC. The seismic impact of the so-called Buhari whirlwind on the dynamics of northern politics has however been smothered by the fleeting euphoria over a highly speculative rebound of a northern presidency. The hitherto entrenched northern dominance of mainstream politics as defined by “traditional” alignment with the south-south-east axis has been thrown asunder under the spell of short-sighted perception of northern political interest.
What is beyond contention in the prevailing political configuration of the North is an additional tear in the already fragmented fabric of “Arewa solidarity”, brought about by the emergence of General Buhari at the head of a predominantly north-west zone flank of the northern constituency, hitherto split between the so-called core-north and the Middle Belt, with their attendant religious affiliations tagging along. This can only be seen as a negative development considering the personality-cult nature of the Buhari followership not to mention the General’s parochial political horizon as perceived by northerners in particular and Nigerians in general. In the circumstance, it is unlikely that a Buhari Presidency will engender the much sought after pan-northern sense of belonging and soothing of simmering ethno-religious grievances.
At the national level, Buhari’s choice of APC as merger option was largely motivated by the need to boost the electoral fortunes of the APC-led opposition as well as his own area of influence as a presidential ambition which has been thrice hampered by the insufficient votes and limited spread of his campaign. Evidently, the broader interests of the northern region relating to the need to foster unity in diversity on one hand and to strengthen and consolidate the traditional mainstream political linkages with especially the south-south building on the Jonathan-Sambo presidential pairing was nowhere near General Buhari’s perspectives.
In a curious coincidence, the Tinubu-owned APC shares similarly short-sighted opportunistic motivations with its northern “partner” but in an almost exclusive south-west orbit. From the AC and ACN antecedents of the APC, the same personality-cult dynamics dominate the formative processes as well as the composition of membership, resulting in isolation from the mainstream of south-west politics as traditionally defined by the Awoist/ Oduduwa movements of yore.
This deformity has already manifested in the patchy presence of APC across the south-west featuring distinct islands of rejectionists such as Ekiti and Ondo and swathes of kingdoms where APC is anathema. This peculiarity is a fall-out of the Tinubu-centred personality cult that drives the APC from the opportunistic ambitions of Tinubu to scheme his way to Nigeria’s presidency while also seeking to usurp the vacated throne of Awo as the de-facto political leader of the Yoruba- reflected figuratively in the owl-eyed spectacles for starters!
Like Buhari’s mis-fitting military background in the north, Tinubu’s unverifiable pedigree even as a genuine Lagos Tinubu family insider further lowered his “lowly” street-raised status as a “NADECO thug” in the estimation of the caste-sensitive Yorubas. He is consequently consigned to a self-declared leadership of a band of bootlickers, dependants and sycophants incubated with government patronage from his days in Government House Alausa and control of a vast empire of multi-million dollar derivatives of eight-year governorship of Lagos State. These are hardly the qualifications for a lasting grasp on the political jugular of a region brimming with enlightened, sophisticated and self-respecting elites like the south west.
But it is the fate of the North in this political Pandora’s box of ambitious self-seeking wheeling and dealing that is most worrisome considering the retarded ranking of the region. The distressing implications of a North castrated of its legendary political potency by the passing populism of a septuagenarian “converted” military dictator throws up the forbidding prospects of the region’s speculative presidency transiting into the evidently anticipatory receivership of a Tinubu-trap that will certainly feast on the carcass of a region gone astray. Sadly, the parasitic leadership elite of the region remain fixated as ever on the seemingly imminent opportunities for yet another ambush on the spoils of a “northern presidency” that despoils the public treasury at the eternal expense of the perpetually toiling talakawa.
The exploitative leadership elite of the north callously deny even such monumental milestones in the miserably marginalized lives of the masses as the first-ever federal boarding school programme for an inclusive Islamic basic education of the Almajiri abandoned ambassadors of northern decadence patriotically pioneered by the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency in order to ride on the arched back of General Buhari to “northern presidency.” They have adopted the slogan of falsity “JONATHAN HAS NOT ACHIEVED ANYTHING” in order to clear the road for themselves and their GRA families to regain exclusive siphoning rights on the wealth of the nation while the masses multiply in misery and poverty. May the God who has saved the almajiri from perpetual beggary and destitution through the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency condemn them to unyielding failure, now and forever more……………………AMEN!
ADAMU GWAZUWANG WRITES FROM ABUJA