Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Even Ahmadu Bello Would Be Ashamed of Buhari’s Arewacentricity

In uniting their regions, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo discounted your religion or tribe. This was why Bello appointed Christians and non-Fulani to top positions. Awo also did not reserve key or crucial positions for only the Ijebu or Christians like himself; he carried along the non-Ijebu and Christian Yoruba in this regard.
Not Buhari.
Sad.



PRESS STATEMENT
Friday, 1st February 2019

2019: New 3rd Force Coalition tasks Wole Soyinka, Col Umar Dangiwa, Olisa Agbakoba, Tunde Bakare, Ghali Naaba, Oby Ezekwesili, Tawafa Balewa, Dosumu Awolowo to decide '3rd Force' Consensus Presidential Candidate

......Initiates Alliance for the Defence of Democracy, ADD to launch nationwide protests next week against President's infraction on the Nigeria's constitution

BEING THE COMMUNIQUE ISSUED THE END OF THE EMERGENCY NATIONAL CONSULTATION OF THE '3RD FORCE' LEADERS AND ALLIES ON THURSDAY, 31ST JANUARY 2019 AT SHERATON HOTELS, IKEJA, LAGOS

Preamble:
Concerned by the current threats to Nigeria's nascent democracy, national stability and credibility of the 2019 elections, especially as occassioned by the constitutional crisis foisted by President Muhammadu Buhari on the Judiciary, Leaders of thought, Presidential Candidates, Leaders of Political Parties, Civil Society and Labour Movements, Stakeholder and Allies of the third force movement in Nigeria converged on Thursday 31st January 2019 at the Banquet hall of the Sheraton Hotels Lagos to find political solutions to the lingering constitutional crisis between the Nigerian Presidency and Judiciary

After a thorough and painstaking analysis of issues involved in this heightening constitutional crisis and its impending implications and backlash on the credibility of the forthcoming 2019 elections the historic gathering took the following positions:

1. That President's Muhammadu Buhari acted precipitately and in breach of the Nigerian Constitution to have suspended Justice Walter Onnoghen as the Chief Justice of Nigeria without following due process of the law governing the suspension/removal of the CJN and therefore should in similar stroke ensure the effective reinstatement of the CJN to allow him face judicial investigation as provided by the constitution

2. That the 2019 elections tribunals constituted by Justice Tanko Mohammed purportedly acting as Chief Justice of Nigeria is null, illegal and of no effect to the extent of the foundational constitutional harakiri committed in his appointment as well as the erroneous rush to constitute the electoral panels. So the meeting demands their immediate disbandment for a lawful set of tribunals to be inaugurated to neutralise the suspicion that the Presidency is desperate to manipulate electoral justice ahead of the 2019 polls

3. Furthermore, to ensure effective political force for the 3rd force to be able to stem the brewing constitutional crisis threatening the base of Nigeria's democracy and nationhood and to checkmate contrived antics of the ruling class to rigg the 2019 elections, stakeholders at the historic meeting decided to come together once and for all under the umbrella of a rainbow coalition named Alliance for Defence of Democracy, ADD to mobilise all allies and sympathisers of the new third force agenda in launching a major mass resistance against government's impunity and infraction on the Nigeria's constitution and to ensure future deterrence

4. The new Coalition also set up two major committees to facilitate the activities of ADD in the interim and to declare a nationwide mass protests for a date to be announced next Wednesday after a conveners' tactical meeting in Abuja. The planned mass action is aimed at compelling the President to apologise to Nigerians and reverse his illegal action against the Judiciary and the rule of law

5. The group however proposed a Conveners Council of eminent leaders and political icons, who believe and are committed to producing a Credible Alternative Force in the 2019 elections. The body of eminent persons are
to be chaired by Prof Wole Soyinka, who will be assisted by a collegiate, which include, Col Abubakar Umar Dangiwa, Dr Olisa Agbakoba SAN, Rt Hon Ghali Umar Na'abba, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, Dr Abduljalil Tafawa Balewa, Dr Tokunbo Dosumu Awolowo, Mr Femi Falana. They are expected to serve as a panel of eminent jury that will endorse a consensus presidential Candidate from among fourteen Credible Presidential hopeful shortlisted by the forum to be adopted at a 3rd Force summit scheduled to hold on 12th February 2019 in Abuja

6. Outstanding and Credible Freshbreed Presidential Candidates and Political Parties so far shortlisted for consensus candidacy or alternatively electoral synergy/collaboration of the third force for 2019 elections are the following: 1. Olawepo Hashim, People's Trust, PT, 2. Omoyele Sowore, African Action Congress, AAC, 3. Kingsley Moghalu,Young Progressive Party, YPP, 4. Ali Soyode, Yes Electorate Solidarity, YES, 5. Adesina Fagbenro Byron, Kowa Party, KP
6. Chike Ukaegbu, AAP, 7. Shipi Moses Godiya, All Blending Party, ABP, 8. Durotoye Olufela,
Alliance for New Nigeria, ANN, 9. Prof. Peter Nwangwu, We the People of Nigeria Party, WPNP
10. Ahmed Buhari,Sustainable National Party, SNP, 11. Tope Fashua, Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party, ANRP, 12. David Ize-Iyamu, BNPP. 13. Donald Duke, Social Democartic Party, SDP, 16. John Dara, Alliance of Social Democrats, ASD

The meeting was moderated by Prof Anthony Kila who was elected as ADD Spokesperson and Dr Olu Agunloye, who became Chair, Contact and Mobilisation at national Consultative Meeting.

Signed

Prof Anthony Kila
08122222555
Spokesperson,
Alliance for Defence of Democracy, ADD
--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 2/2/19, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> wrote:

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Even Ahmadu Bello Would Be Ashamed of Buhari's Arewacentricity
To: "USAAfrica Dialogue" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Saturday, February 2, 2019, 3:12 AM

Saturday,
February 2, 2019Even
Ahmadu Bello Would Be Ashamed of Buhari's
ArewacentricityBy Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter:@farooqkperogi
The late Sir
Ahmadu Bello, defunct Northern Nigeria's first Premier,
gets an undeservedly bad rap from the South for being the
patron saint of the sort of exclusionary, reactionary
regional chauvinism that political leaders of the North have
been accused of. But he wasn't nearly the monster of
retrograde ethnic particularism he has been presented to be
in the South, and he would definitely be ashamed of
Buhari's insensitive, in-your-face, knee-jerk
"northern" sub-nationalism.
Of course, as a
leader of the North, which was engaged in a battle of
regional supremacy with the South, Ahmadu Bello was
naturally protective of his region—as other regional
premiers were. But he was the premier of a less homogeneous
and infinitely more labyrinthine region than the West or the
East. This fact heightened his sensitivity to diversity and
to the merit of fair, if symbolic, representation of this
diversity in employment and positional hierarchies in the
Northern Nigerian regional civil service.
During a June 2000
interview, Chief Joseph Aderibigbe, who was provincial
secretary of Sokoto and Kano provinces during the First
Republic, told me a story about how he became the Provincial
Secretary of Sokoto Province that, I think, strikes at the
core of Ahmadu Bello's foresighted northern Nigerian
ecumenicalism.
Aderibigbe was a
Yoruba man from what is now Kwara State. His hometown,
Erin-Ile, is on the border between Kwara State and Osun
State, and he was socialized in the West, having attended
the University of Ibadan before being recruited into the
Northern Nigerian Civil Service. He said one day the Premier
asked for him because he had never paid a personal visit to
the Premier's office as others did.
While at the
Premier's office, he met everyone seated on the carpet. He
couldn't bring himself to do that, so he stood. He said
Ahmadu Bello really wanted to earn his trust, so he invited
him to come eat with him. He said the premier kept pushing
juicy pieces of meat to him until he ate more meat than he
had intended to. So the Premier cracked a joke along the
lines of, "Look at this Yoruba man who didn't want to
sit on the floor. Now, he has finished all my meat! I am not
sure he sees this much meat at his village."
Everyone laughed
at Aderibigbe's expense, and he was enraged. In anger, he
said, he told the Premier that it was because his people
didn't spend their money on meat that they could afford to
send him and his kind to school to man the northern Nigerian
civil service. There was dead, impenetrable silence
everywhere. He thought he would lose his job, and he was
fine with it.
A week after he
got ready to return to Lagos, Ahmadu Bello invited him
again. Instead of a sack letter, the Premier told him he had
been posted to Sokoto as the Provincial Secretary, which is
the equivalent of a governor now. (Sokoto Province is now
present-day Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi and Niger states). Ahmadu
Bello said to Aderibigbe, "I want you to go teach my
people how to spend their money on education, not
meat."
This anecdote is a
prototypic instantiation of Ahmadu Bello's bridge-building
efforts across Northern Nigeria's many fissures. He
wasn't perfect. He was, for instance, accused of wanting
to universalize his cultural and religious particularities
to the whole region, which ignited forceful resistance among
northern Christians. Nevertheless, the one thing no careful
student of Ahmadu Bello would deny is that he was evolving
and showed profound sensitivity to inclusivity, even if it
was only token. He didn't live long enough to realize the
ideals he set out, but he did leave a template that anyone
who leads an intricate, multi-ethnic and multi-religious
polity can tweak and adopt.
He identified the
multiplicity of ethnic groups in northern Nigeria,
physically visited most of their places of origin, and
sought to give them a sense of belonging in the region. This
template can be extended as an instrument for nation
building. A real, Ahmadu Bello-type northerner, which Buhari
is not, would regard Yoruba people from Kwara and Kogi
states as his or her "regional kin." Well, if you can do
that, you might as well extend that "kinship" to other
Yoruba people in the Southwest in the interest of nation
building.
If you accept
Ebira people in Kogi as your regional kin, you might as well
extend it to the Igara in Edo State whose language is
mutually intelligible with Ebira. If you regard the Idoma of
Benue as your regional kin, why not do the same to the Yala
in Cross River who are linguistically and culturally similar
to the Idoma? If you regard the Igala in Kogi as your
regional kin, you might as well like the ethnic kin of the
Igala known as the Ebu in Oshimili North LGA of Delta State
or the Ilushi in Edo State, who are linguistically and
culturally indistinguishable from the Igala.
If your benign
northern sub-nationalism causes you to accept Iyiorcha Ayu
as your brother because he is Tiv from Benue, why would you
not accept his own brothers and sisters in Obanliku in Cross
River State who are also, for all practical purposes,
linguistically and culturally Tivs?
In fact, we are
only now getting to know that there are Igbo people in Ado,
Oju, Obi and Okpoku local government areas of Benue State
who are native to the state. Had Ahmadu Bello lived long
enough to know this, he would definitely have drawn them
close to him. In other words, being a genuinely benign
northern sub-nationalist draws you close to being a
pan-Nigerian nationalist.
That is why the
embarrassingly undisguised Arewacentricity of Buhari's
appointments in the last three and a half years—and
counting—is such a betrayal of Ahmadu Bello's template
for inter-ethnic relations. Ahmadu Bello was supposed to be
Nigeria's first Prime Minister, but he instead passed the
honor to the late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa because he knew
he hadn't yet evolved to the point where he could regard
the whole of Nigeria as his constituency. He was still
learning to come to terms with Northern Nigeria's
complexity.
 Buhari's
Arewacentricity is not even reflective of the complexity of
the North. The only visible appointment he gave to Northern
Christians, for instance, is the position of Secretary to
the Government of the Federation. Everything else is
dominated by Northern Muslims. Going by the precepts Ahmadu
Bello idealized, Buhari has neither the temperament nor the
moral qualifications to even be a northern Nigerian leader,
let alone a Nigerian ruler.
 In late 2015
when I started to call out Buhari's skewed appointments in
favor of the Muslim North, many people, mostly southerners,
asked why I was bothered since I'm a northern Muslim who
is "favored" by such appointments—"favored," that
is, on the emotional and symbolic plane. Well, I did and
still do so out of embarrassment. It's the sort of
embarrassment you feel when your best friend visits you in
your home and, during a family dinner, your mother gives you
a considerably bigger food portion size and choicer pieces
of meat than your friend.
Buhari's
self-defense for his provincial appointments is that he
needs to appoint only people he can trust. Well, if after
working for more than two decades in the Nigerian military,
by far Nigeria's most cosmopolitan institution, he can't
trust anyone outside his cultural, regional, and religious
comfort zone, HE IS the problem, not the people he
distrusts.Farooq A. Kperogi,
Ph.D.Associate ProfessorJournalism & Emerging
Media
School of Communication & MediaSocial Science
Building Room 5092 MD 2207402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA
30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogiAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms
of Nigerian English in a Global World

"The nice thing about pessimism
is that you are constantly being either proven right or
pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will




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