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South
South And The Presidency
By
Reuben Abati
culled from GUARDIAN, May 26,
2006
The struggle for the post of the
President of Nigeria by 2007, now effectively vacant, has begun with the
North and the South South as front-runners both in terms of their insistence
and the articulation of their preferences in the public domain. The South
West is automatically out of the race having spent the last seven years in
office (?). Some other geo-political zones, particularly the Middle Belt,
are not as enthusiastic. The South East makes some occasional noise about
its interest in the Presidency, but Ndigbo is disunited, and this is its
biggest problem, its leaders sound ambivalent, those who have expressed
interest in the Presidency from that zone have too many internal enemies who
are determined to stop any other Igbo man from rising.
Beyond this internal
division, the North has never hidden the fact that it is opposed to the
idea of an Igbo Presidency; it is an option that the North never
considers. Other ethnic groups have also never really forgiven Igbos for
the civil war. But whenever it is eventually the turn of Igbos to be
President, Nigeria would have become a far more politically enlightened
country; the ghosts of the past would necessarily have been laid to
rest. But that is a subject for another day, lest some ethnic wrestlers
misinterpret my true position in the matter.
What is indicated in the
present circumstance, however, are the same old issues about power
rotation, power shift, and the need to run this country in a manner
that every stakeholder will feel a sense of belonging. It is now
incontestable that one possible way to ensure national unity in this
country is to allow power to rotate among the various stakeholders,
including the smallest groups. Ethnicity is an eternal albatross
that Nigeria must carry like the load of Sisyphus. Section 55 of the
1999 Constitution which recognises only three major ethnic groups:
Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa, makes other Nigerians look like passengers in
the Nigerian arrangement.
In the past decades,
the marginalised, minority groups, owing to the spread of
Western education among them and their awareness of
international human rights, have very radical in responding to
all images of internal colonialism. They are opposed to internal
colonialism, especially the type that is endorsed by Section 55
of the Constitution and which is given full effect in
governmental operations. They want this displaced in order for
us all, as individuals and citizens to have a proper country,
and build a nation. The minorities began their struggle long
before now, and that is the import of the Willinks Commission
and successive protests by that region (Adaka Boro, MOSOP and
Ken Saro Wiwa, Niger Delta Volunteer Peoples Force, MEND etc) ,
but it seems certain that the future of Nigeria is tied to the
resolution of the anxieties of the minorities. When one minority
in a particular geo-political zone is offered a sense of
belonging, other minorities, who indeed collectively represent
the majority in Nigeria, would have been granted a sense of
possibility. Human beings are driven by a sense of possibility.
They are driven to desperation by a sense of denial and closure.
Am I speaking in
parables? No, and I guess the thing to do is to immediately
contextualise the present struggle for power. The North
wants power desperately. It is already fighting as if its
life depends on it. Power is the oxygen that keeps the North
alive. For 35 years, the North held on to power at the
centre, and ruled Nigeria as if it belonged to one
particular group. That is the Fulani, for it would be wrong
to assume that power in the hands of the North we knew meant
the Hausa (who are not even accepted as an ethnic group by
the Fulani) or any of the other marginalised groups in the
North who must be subservient to the Fulani to gain any form
of attention. The Fulani are in more than twelve countries
in Africa as a nomadic group and wherever they are either as
majorities or minorities, their acute interest in power is a
permanent aspect of the power equation. In more than seven
years in power in Nigeria, they have been shut out of the
corridors of power, and access to the control of Nigeria's
economic resources.
Obasanjo who
suffered immensely in the hands of his Fulani successors
in power has not been very kind to the general Fulani
group since he came to power in 1999. One of them jailed
and humiliated him. Obasanjo has also further displaced
the Fulani hegemony. He destroyed the LPO system which
sustained that hegemony; he offered positions to
children of the North but he refused to put them in
charge of the economy. The economy, he handed over to
Ndigbo, thus creating an ironic balance. The North's bid
for power in 2007 is in part a response to this
withdrawal factor; this marginalisation of the North by
the Obasanjo government.
To worsen
matters, he who used to be their man and candidate
has refused to be manipulated by them. He has for
the most part ran his own show in the last seven
years, the defects of that show are singularly
traceable to his own limitations, already
well-defined elsewhere. In addition, the average
Nigerian continues to nurse a deep-seated grudge
against the North and its principal icons.
Thirty-five years of Northern domination of
political power brought few advantages to the North,
if anything, it further divided the North. Is there
any guarantee that the return of power to the North
would create a different situation? This is the
basic issue that the Northern elite must worry about
even as they search for a candidate that would
represent the interests of a non-existent monolithic
North.
But
where do we stand in relation to this as
Nigerians, as ordinary Nigerians who are not
looking for power on an ethnic basis but who are
just interested in being citizens of a country
that works? It is not difficult to know what
ordinary Nigerians want. They want a country
that is properly managed. They want a country
where the human being can feel a sense of
humanity. They want leaders who are motivated by
a sense of the common good and an interest in
history. They want a united country where a
Yoruba man can woo a pretty Ijaw woman and not
feel that he is doing something strange. They
want to live like the people of London and New
York where even the poorest of the poor do not
have to worry about those details that give
ordinary Nigerians the greatest anxiety. They
want to live like human beings, and this
includes those rude Nigerians who abuse others
on the internet with their terrible,
ill-mannered prose. Ordinarily, it should not
matter where a leader comes from as long as he
is a leader, but nations are not the same and
societies must manage their own circumstances.
By far, the South South seems to have
prepared a more reasoned claim to the
Presidency through both advocacy and
militancy. The latter method represented by
the likes of MEND and its band of hijackers
and the Asari Dokubo group on the other end
of the scale may have attracted much
criticism but no one can claim not to know
what the South South wants. This remains
clear even if some of the elites from that
region nearly diluted that message with
their open, may be insincere declaration of
support for the Third Term agenda. They have
however since recovered their voice, heard
loudest during the National Conference and
almost simultaneously through such groups as
the South South Peoples Assembly, with their
articulation of the compulsory need for a
South South President in 2007. The South
South probably has the largest collection of
advocacy groups seeking justice and equity
for the people of that region and the power
question is right at the centre of that
agitation. Nigeria's refusal to listen to
the complaints of the South South and by
extension the cries of the minorities is
largely responsible for the instability in
the country. There is no other place like
the Niger Delta in the world. At the moment,
the South South's search for power at the
centre can be linked to ethnic power
politics, and it actually looks like a
credible entry point into resolving the
national question. But perhaps not exactly
as the South South elite is currently
phrasing it.
It seems to me that the South South
search for power is predicated on the
woolly assumption that once a man from
that region becomes President, the fears
of the people of the Niger Delta and
their neighbours would be addressed
automatically. Our experience with
political power in Nigeria has shown
that ethnic anxieties are not
necessarily addressed by the kinsman in
power. It is possible to have a South
South man in power and he could prove to
be an enemy of South South interests and
a good promoter of his own selfish
ambitions. It is true that if the South
South were to win the Presidency in
2007, it would be a great revolutionary
development indeed.
But the South South must never be
under the illusion that the North
would willingly grant it that
opportunity simply because there is
violence in the Niger Delta. South
South leaders must take their search
for power beyond the level of
rhetoric. They must organise,
organise and organise. They must
also reach out to other Nigerian
constituencies, groups and
stakeholders. A minority South South
President will be kept in power not
by MEND and the Asari Dokubo group
or Egbesu boys but the consensus of
other stakeholders. Such insular and
regional methods adopted by the
ethnic militants in the South South
can only in the long run prove to be
politically counter-productive.
The other challenge before the
South South is to identify the
right and proper candidate, and
build a consensus around that
candidate. The SSPA after its
last meeting in Port Harcourt
had said that its plan is to
appeal to every political party
to choose a South South
Presidential candidate. That
kind of wild goose chase makes
no sense to me. To gain power
the South South must operate as
a united front if it is serious
about its ambitions. But having
won power, it would then face
the bigger task of ensuring that
the man who gets to power on the
South South platform will be not
just a nationalist, but a
nationalist with "a local base".
For sure, a South South
Presidency will be resisted
by the North which claims a
superiority of numbers, and
has shown a tested capacity
for power politics.
Strategists of the South
South Presidency must begin
to worry about how to sell
their candidate(s) to the
average man in the North who
may have been tutored to
believe that the presence of
a South South President in
Abuja could mean a reversal
of all inherited advantages.
Can the South South find a
bridge-builder, someone with
the political savvy and
maturity to navigate
Nigeria's troubled waters, a
man or woman that can be
trusted with Nigeria? If
such candidates exist, the
South South must move beyond
media posturing and
sentiments and name such
persons without any further
delay...
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