They complained when President Obasanjo’s administration took some strategic decisions most notably the relocation of Nigerian Ports Authority back to Lagos.
It was Atiku Abubakar the Vice President that stated the government’s position; Government did not have the requisite funds to build the Ministry of Defense Headquarters so the Ship House should serve and the Nigerian Ports Authority should move back to where it rightly belongs; somewhere by the sea, not in the heartland of the country, hundreds of kilometers away!!.
Their hue and cry regarding the status of the Federal Capital Territory in the early days of the Obasanjo regime in our fledging democracy was met with robust push back by the Vice President, a fellow northerner. Their ownership claims of Abuja led a national newspaper to carry a front page commentary titled “is Abuja as capital no longer Federal?”
They complained when President Obasanjo appointed Service Chiefs from the North, but in their opinion, the wrong side of the North – Southern Kaduna, North Central. Christians. Enter Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who campaigned on a Muslim/Muslim ticket, unthinkable in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society as ours especially one deeply polarized by the nepotistic and divisive policies of the immediate past administration.
The same – faith ticket goes against the grain of equity, balance, fairness, national stability, and national cohesion in a deeply divided nation as ours where animosity and suspicion runs high. Even the military dictatorship of the eighties and nineties tried to maintain a certain level of balance reflecting the diverseness of the nation.
Well, we have a sitting President and Vice of the same faith and heaven has not fallen.The president has hardly settled down to business, and they are at it again, – outcry, anger, complains of favoritism and marginalization.
Can you imagine that? Against the North? Muslim North? I am not surprised. The self-absorbed, self – serving northern elites who see things through the prism of ethnicity and religion are having a severe meltdown, exhibiting chronic episodes of withdrawal symptoms; unable to fathom that they no longer hold the keys to the seat of power despite their claims the occupant of the seat owes his seat to them.
Never mind that the president shares the same faith with them. It is just not enough.I am amused watching the self-styled defenders of the Northern Cause shout themselves hoarse, churning out hate and vicious venom, giving themselves a heart attack.
As I stated, I am not surprised by the pushback, the vitriol, the flacks the president is receiving about certain key appointments he has made. These narrow minded Northern elites cannot stand not being in position of power and influence. With an egregious sense of entitlement – a mentality that arrogates to them the right of control, dominance, and influence in the Public National Sphere…it’s the muslim north or none else.
The northern clique who cannot stand Non-Muslims and Southerners to occupy positions of impact and influence are not speaking for the North. Not for the down trodden, marginalized, poverty stricken masses of the north, whose lives are worse off despite the fact that it is their brothers who have occupied “Lucrative and juicy positions” especially during the immediate past catastrophic regime; A classic case study on how a country should NOT be governed.
A NEVER AGAIN period in our country’s history. An era that set the nation backward especially the northern part of the country reeling in terrorism, banditry, societal dysfunction, chronic poverty and general backwardness.
There’s a new Sheriff in town, and other ethnic and religious groups have a stake in the Nigerian Project and are entitled to serve wherever the president deems fit.With their parochial definition of Arewa, they are miffed they no longer control government institutions that served as cash cows.
Reality check; they should get used to it.
Power has shifted!!
