“Afenifere’s decision to support Peter Obi was because power is yet to shift to the South East. Peter Obi is the only Governor that left office and hasn’t been pursued by the EFCC.” — Ayo Adebanjo
If the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, wins in the February 25, 2023, election, the uncommon and atypical role of the Afenifere leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, will be recorded as an outstanding variable in making the win possible.
Hear him: Afenifere will not compromise its principle of equity, justice, and inclusiveness because “one of our own, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is a frontline candidate.”
This columnist sees the recent move by the leadership of the Yoruba umbrella body, Afenifere, led by the octogenarian nationalist Ayo Adebanjo to endorse the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, as the boldest move towards achieving the much-desired Southern solidarity in Nigeria. Pa Adebanjo has been consistent alongside his nonagenarian colleague of the South-South PANDEF, Pa Edwin Clark, that for equity, justice, and stability the Presidency should go to the South East that has not tasted power since this dispensation.
Pa Adebanjo has refused to buy into the ethnic sentiment of politicians of the APC that has a Yoruba as his flag bearer and insists that South East remains to number for 2023. The magnitude of what Pa Adebanjo and his team in Afenifere have done will not germinate now but in the future when full Southern solidarity is achieved in the polity. When that happens the arrogance of the North will disappear and leadership failure will be addressed as best and tested whether North or South will be presented for the people’s choice.
he recurring instability in Nigeria since independence 62 years ago has its roots in the geopolitical contraption called Nigeria. It was the British colonial lords who recognized Nigeria as the three dominant tribes of Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa-Fulani, hence the issue of the country standing on the tripod of the three assertive ethnic groups. The initial regional powers were created and anchored on these ethnic nationalities…Northern Nigeria with the Hausa-Fulani dominating, Western Nigeria with the Yoruba in the majority, and Eastern Nigeria dominated by the Igbo.
The first attempt to recognize minorities was in the creation of the Mid-Western Region in 1963, thereby dividing the South into three while the North remained one with many minorities aligning with the dominant Hausa-Fulani. What this historical fact entails is that the political division in Southern Nigeria did not start today; it also shows that the political harmony in the North has a historical antecedent.
Even when the military came with the accompanying civil war, it could not fundamentally deviate from these incongruous and ill-matched structures. As the political structure turned from region to states and now to geo-political zones, the fundamental imbalance persisted and is being built upon.
Today, the North, populated largely by the Hausa-Fulani, has 19 states and three geo-political zones; the South, occupied by two of the tripods, Igbo and Yoruba, has 17 states and three zones. It means that gradually the two members of the tripods in the South collapsed into one for political purposes while their Northern counterparts continued to enjoy the monolith status with more states and LGAs.
While the North effectively used the dominance of Islam to weld the region together, the South used the dominance of its two major groups to keep disunited and to further divide the region. The North, aided by the dominance of its people in political leadership, has continued to take advantage of the division in the South, ensuring that it had the upper hand in subsequent political calculations.
When democracy came, it ensured that rotation was between North and South, not based on the original tripod upon which the country was founded. Having lumped Igbo and Yoruba in the South under one region and the power equation is based on tribes, the disagreement was envisaged. This is the advantage the North has consistently used against the South. In the executive and legislative arms of government, the North has continued to dominate, feasting on the internecine rivalry between Igbo and Yoruba.
Having realised that political justice is not achievable under the existing structure, ethnic nationalities in the South under the umbrella of Ohanaeze Ndigbo for the Igbo, Afenifere for the Yoruba, and PANDEF for the South-South minorities, began to crusade for the restructuring of the polity.
The North which has been dominant in power control [whether military or civil rule] is footdragging over restructuring. The reason is obvious: Out of the 62 years of Nigeria’s independence, the North has 46 years in this order- Tafawa Balewa – 6 years, Yakubu Gowon- 9 yrs, Murtala Muhammad one year-plus, Shehu Shagari – 4 years-plus, Muhammadu Buhari of Army – 2 years-plus, IBB – 8 years, Sani Abacha – 5 years, Abdulsalami Abubakar – one year, Umaru Yar’Adua – 3 years, Buhari again – 7 years-plus and still counting
So, a glaring imbalance of over 73 per cent in political leadership positions is enough to tense up the situation and it is easy to blame the nation’s political problems on this. The decision to zone the top positions at the federal level among the regions was a deliberate push to correct the wrong and prevent dominance or allegations of it.
In 2015, then President Goodluck Jonathan attempted to disrupt zoning, taking advantage of his incumbency, the entire North, irrespective of party and religion, rebelled and voted him out, leading to the opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari coming into office.
As it was for Jonathan, President Buhari attempted in All Progressive Congress, APC, to bring up the Senate President Ahmad Lawan; but it failed and that paved the way for a southern Bola Ahmad Tinubu. The main opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP, which indeed started the zoning arrangement, decided to jettison it to enable a northerner in the person of Atiku Abubakar [the recurring decimal] to emerge. Southern candidates were emasculated with northerners ganging up, a development that forced the Labour Party candidate Peter Obi to quit the PDP and the Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike who lost to Atiku to embark on an unending bellyaching.
While it was easy to throw away Dr Jonathan for standing against zoning because of northern unity, the same is not being envisaged this time because of the obvious division among southerners. Political watchers have been long in agreement that Nigeria will experience stability the moment there is solidarity in the South to equal or challenge northern dominance. When is that possible given the glaring obstacles to southern unity?
The absence of political unity in the South has invariably made political stability in Nigeria an illusion so long as the country remains uneven, skirmished, and in an awkward structure. While the North can conveniently domicile its Presidency in any of the three zones without much friction and bickering, the same is not possible in the South. The evident dominance of the Hausa-Fulani in the North helped by the use of Islam as a unifying force makes political homogeneity easy in the region.
But not so in the South with two major nationalities in an unhealthy rivalry. Notwithstanding the dominance of Christianity in the South, the ferocious tribal contest has made it difficult to achieve oneness in the region to the advantage of the politically uniform North. While the North can conveniently domicile its Presidency in any of the three zones without much friction and bickering, the same is not possible in the South. The evident dominance of the Hausa-Fulani in the North helped by the use of Islam as a unifying force makes political homogeneity easy.
The same cannot be said of the South, which has Christianity as one dominant religion but cannot use it to harness oneness because of the fierce ethnic rivalry there. It’s ostensibly to address this vexed issue that ethnic nationalities in the South are at the forefront of the present quest for restructuring in the last six years. Now, religious and ethnic sentiments are easily used because of the disproportionate political structure that encourages and manures incompetence.