“Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest“ – Thomas Sowell
Only a tree gets advanced knowledge of being cut down and still waits for the saw-man to arrive with his bowsaw. For human beings, such foreknowledge provides an opportunity for escape or preparation for self-defense to avert any harm.
The talk about Northern Nigeria leaders regrouping and plotting against President Bola Tinubu ahead of 2027 has been impolitic, over-hyped, and is beginning to lose its essence. And since Tinubu is not a tree, he cannot just wait for his vilifiers to have their way with him, more so when he sits on the throne enjoying all the potential therein. As the man who occupies the most powerful position in the country and who is also not shy in deploying and exerting his authority, his response has also been excavating the vulnerability of the geopolitical North.
The region has lost the political sagacity long admired about its having superior politics to that of its Southern counterpart. Just 20 months out of power, the Northern region is visibly struggling politically, looking uncoordinated, adoring and worshiping Tinubu in such a sycophantic manner, and obliquely acting out his scripts unknowingly.
One indisputable fact today is that the majority of Nigerians from all works of life are wishing and praying like the Israelites of the scripture on the rampaging Egyptians that this Tinubu they are seeing today they should see no more by 2027 but rather than anchor on that, the North is trying to appropriate and leave an impression that they are the worst hit or the only victim of Tinubu’s misrule.
This slant of trying to paint the North as the only one suffering and wishing Tinubu out is indirectly helping him, who has been designing a way to win Southern sentiment in his divide-and-rule reforms. Tinubu is enjoying the emerging perspective and the swivel the whole thing is taking and he is responding to it appropriately.
Given the poor governance delivery of a Northerner from 2015 to 2023 and the eventual political calamity of some Northerners facilitating the coming of Tinubu through Muhammadu Buhari’s selfishness and indecisiveness assisted by the likes of Prof Mahmoud Yakubu and heads of the Army, DSS, and Police all Northerners, the region lacks moral standing this early to complain about poor governance delivery.
And recalling the so-called politically right action of the region in throwing away President Goodluck Jonathan over zoning in 2015, it would be a hard sell for a return of power to the North in 2027. If the North is feeling injured just 20 months out of power and feeling marginalized, what of the South East, whose marginalization has become a political culture in Nigeria?
My thinking is that the wise step for the North now is to hide under the back of poor Nigerians all over the country who are clamoring for good governance and political justice rather than projecting the region as if they are the only ones badly hit by this regime. By trying to solely appropriate the negative impact of Tinubu’s political misdemeanor, the region is allusively playing into his agenda.
Tinubu’s propagandists are already busy now highlighting to the South the political atrocities of the North and bringing all their political ingenuity to keep the North divided and unable to come together.
Even before now, as was visible in the 2023 voting pattern, there is no longer anything like one political north, and Tinubu is even coming with his arsenal to deepen the divide and further decimate the so-called political North.
In case the North does not know, the way Tinubu is going with his politics, before 2027, there may be nothing like the political North. Two significant political steps recently that should send a clear signal to the North that the monolithic region will soon be history are the gifting of a Federal University to the marginalized people of Southern Kaduna by Tinubu and the fanning of the Hausa/Fulani feud. The University is intended to address the marginalization perpetuated by Nasir ElRufai’si regime in the State and to further embolden the Kaduna Christians who have been given some psychological torture in the past.
The trending Hausa/ Fulani feud video showing the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Christopher Musa himself, a Northerner highlighting the impasse with an accompanying interview, which was well produced to depict the division between the Fulanis and Hausa from the Hausa perspective, has all the devious political undertones.
The Northern region should expect more of this subterfuge politics ahead of 2027 and they can keep fueling it by continuously painting a picture that gives the impression that only the North is unhappy with this regime. The thing that should not be ignored going forward is that the man on the throne in Aso Rock today is a grand master in this game of Third World politics where reason, Justice, and electoral potential are not factored in, but high-tech intrigues that are manured by corruption. And dangerously, Tinubu has all the needed weapons required and is even heavily assisted by artificial intelligence for the battle ahead.
Therefore, Tinubu’s inflicted pains on the populace and his inglorious regime are harming everyone, not just the North. The region should be fighting for the poor who are more affected and are available everywhere, although the majority of them are from the region than geo-politicizing a national malady.
What is happening by this obvious indiscretion from Northern leaders and the misguided noise about North being unhappy and plotting to throw away Tinubu come 2027 that is filling the political space is inauspicious and unpropitious as it’s helping and providing Tinubu with enough material to deepen his divisive agenda ahead of time. Unknown to the North, Tinubu’s political spinners are enjoying it when the picture is being painted that the North is suffering most because it portrays the region as selfish, especially given the fact that a Northerner just left office after practicing regime style that visibly favoured them for eight years.
The development is also portraying the region as only interested in their son having power not in enthroning good leadership that will reset the country.
It would, therefore, help the North and indeed any other geopolitical zone critiquing Tinubu if they anchor it on failed governance, not on politics of my turn or my region being unhappy. Nigeria as a whole is in a mess today because of ‘my turn issue’ and cannot afford to go down the same road again.
Criticism of Tinubu should center on his extravagant lifestyle, corruption, and inconveniencing economic policies, such as the removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the naira, which they believe have negatively impacted not just the region but every Nigerian. The regime is not doing enough to address the economic and security challenges facing the whole country not just the geopolitical North.
Divide-and-rule tactics have always been deployed by successive regimes in the country as a strategy to maintain power and control it, and never started with Tinubu and may not end with him.
But notwithstanding whatever devious tactics that are being employed, 2027 is going to be a tricky and critical test for Tinubu’s administration, and the country’s political system will be stretched.
Tinubu’s spin doctors have been balkanizing or overtly causing division everywhere to find a defense for their failed governance. Their approach to politics has been more of “divide and rule” than of unity and progress.
The way the North can judiciously justify its dominant political role in Nigeria now is by being national, not parochial, in its reasoning and actions. They should, therefore, not seek to satisfy their yearning to see off Tinubu in our political lives by drinking from the cup of selfishness, bitterness, and injustice. To continue in that line could negate the end agenda of doing away with bad governance.
Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s iconic freedom fighter’s admonition may be handy here: “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” Northern Nigeria cannot enjoy the desired political leverage it’s seeking under Tinubu until it embraces justice and equity and stop thinking only of its regional interests.
To be free of injustice in this land, we must begin to practice justice in our political thinking and actions, otherwise, we end up circulating our injustice and making no progress.
May God help us to find the way.
