I was short of screaming \u2018wonders never end\u2019 when I read the story in the Daily Trust of Friday, October 5 titled \u2018northern elders form coalition to guard against misrule\u2019. But I held back. Holding back was to afford me opportunity to educate myself on the deeper meaning of the story. I did not want to be misled by the story title. So, I read on. As I read, I was thinking that the coalition was to tackle misrule in the north; a situation that had devalued the lives of our fellow countrymen and alienated them from peaceful society. But I was wrong in my thinking. According to the story, the coalition was to \u2018check the excesses of the Jonathan-led Federal Government\u2019. Now, you have a reason to scream.<\/p>\n
Ask: excesses of Jonathan-led federal government? Wonderful! Interestingly, the group is being led by Colonel Hameed Ali, erstwhile Secretary General of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), and also a onetime military governor in Kaduna state. From these two perspectives, I can summarise his understanding of misrule.<\/p>\n
Before Col. Ali took on this venture, he had in January this year warned that the north will lose out in the 2015 presidential elections if it refuses to unite, form its own political party and woo friends from the south to support it. He had said \u201cthe north should forget about 2015. Unless we change the strategy and get a party, strengthen the party and make sure that we reach out to our friends in the south and get the ones we can woo, we should just forget about 2015. Looking at what is at play now, unless the north gets it act together and really confront these problems of division among us\u2026 but looking at the scenario, today, any right-thinking person would know that the north, politically, has lost out.<\/p>\n
He further stated that \u201cthe north has no political party today that it has enough influence over. PDP does not belong to the north anymore. PDP is not influenced by the north anymore. In the PDP today, the Obasanjos, the people of the south-south -because they are the ones holding the leadership today- and the south-east decide what happens. Northerners do not have any power in the PDP today. What then do you use as a platform to achieve political power? If you don\u2019t have a party you cannot get into power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having identified this hurdle, Col. Ali went further to say this of his people: \u201cI must say again that the typical northerner today is very lazy. Lazy in the sense that, since the discovery of oil, we abdicated our own source of survival, which is farming. We all rushed to benefit from oil – most of us became contractors, most of us became sales men and we completely left where we were prospering. Today, we find ourselves in a situation whereby those who own the oil are now saying we are parasites, so we should not benefit from it. We have completely left our own God-given oil and resorted to looking out for the cheapest and easiest way of making a living.\u201d<\/p>\n
In identifying the underlying factor that has made his kith and kin lazy and impoverished, Col Ali said further: \u201cIf you take the totality of the leadership we have had in the country coming from the north, you will discover that we gathered a lot of money and influence to be able to put the north in a proper position that, today, we should not be talking about poverty. Our leadership, both at the national and state levels, has not really taken investment to the people. What we have realized is that everybody that gets to the position of leadership begins to fend for himself, his families and his cronies. We must blame ourselves for the stage we are today; we cannot blame anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, his response to all the problems he identified as besetting the north and blocking its way to the presidency in 2015 is to form a Coalition for Social Justice (CSJ), which according to him will speak for the north. However, in a contradictory remark, the same Col. Ali who said northerners are \u2018very lazy\u2019 now said \u201cwe have very brilliant people. They don\u2019t contribute their own quota whenever national issues are discussed.\u201d So, how do you have lazy people who are also brilliant; or brilliant people who are also lazy?<\/p>\n
However, my concern is that if we take Col Ali as speaking for the north on the issue of misrule, I will first make a challenge to him to present his leadership credentials and list his achievements while being governor of Kaduna state \u2013the centre of Arewa nationalism. Ali clearly identified the lack of leadership and statesmanship when his \u2018very lazy\u2019 and \u2018very brilliant\u2019 northern brothers led the country. Ask, if these \u2018very lazy\u2019 and \u2018very brilliant\u2019 northern leaders, used opportunity of their leadership of the nation to forge a more united and egalitarian society, where merit is valued and appreciated; where development has no ethnic face; where natural resources are judiciously used for national development, would a Jonathan-led federal government have been involved in transforming Nigeria, a task now called misrule by Ali and co?<\/p>\n
By his own admission, \u2018very lazy\u2019 and \u2018very brilliant\u2019 northern creatures that had opportunity of leading Nigeria tended to \u201cfend for himself, his families and his cronies\u201d instead of putting \u201cthe north in a proper position\u201d such that poverty in the north would have long been history. This, to Ali, does not consist in misrule. Even his confession that while holding on to power \u201cwe gathered a lot of money\u201d does not consist in misrule. Fact is that for Ali and his band of \u2018northern elders\u2019 the understanding of misrule is different. It consists of not having the opportunity to gather \u2018a lot of money\u2019. The anger could be that the money gathered is now being spent to hide from insecurity created and foisted on the nation by the north.<\/p>\n
The same Ali had said \u201ctoday, the north is under siege in the sense that insecurity has caused serious problems to the north\u2026Unfortunately, our governors are not concerned about the security challenges; what they are bothered about is how much money can come into their coffers that they can steal.\u201d Ask again: who created this situation? Me? My son? My grandmother? Again, Ali\u2019s north, missed it when it thinks that misrule is about the refusal of a Jonathan-led federal government to frivolously award un-executable contracts or perpetrate \u2018very lazy\u2019 civil servants in office to the detriment of national progress.<\/p>\n
How come Col. Ali did not scream misrule when governors of the north steal away funds meant for development of their states? How come Ali did not scream or cry against misrule when governors of the north waste billions of naira (people\u2019s money) increasing their wife holdings? How come the north of Ali\u2019s dream is not crying misrule when governors of that part of the country refuse to invest in education, agriculture, science and technology, medicine etc but prefer to waste billions of naira of hajj and public feeding? Is that what government is for? Ali should also educate Nigerians on the rate of development or economic growth of towns and cities in the north outside the state capitals. Does misrule consist of that too? For Ali, No!
\nLooking at the central government, how come Ali did not mouth misrule when \u2018very lazy\u2019 northern elements dominated our national life and mismanaged our growth opportunities?<\/p>\n
Now, it is convenient to scream misrule because power empires have collapsed and some erstwhile \u2018big men\u2019 are now junketing and seeking relevance. The reality of our present situation is that power has changed hands, and democratically too. This also means that strongholds have collapsed and those who regularly fed fat on government have been displaced. I do not, in all reason, think they will sit pretty like newlyweds and watch their source of filthy lucre blocked eternally. Naturally, they will fight back. That is what Ali and his group are doing. A lot of people had done so in the past but never succeeded. This group\u2019s case does not promise to be any different. For the group, misrule is the new language of obstacle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Achilleus-Chud Uchegbu I was short of screaming \u2018wonders never end\u2019 when I read the story in the Daily Trust of Friday, October 5 titled \u2018northern elders form coalition to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n