The heroic Nigeria youths in the two-week long #ENDSARS protest which erupted like a hurricane in most Nigerian cities have started a healing process, in a way. The first being the breaking of a 25-year-old silence to a myriad of injustices in the land. The second was breaking the cycle of ethnoreligious narratives encouraged by unscrupulous politicians.
The youths from most of the northern states disappointed some politicians when they launched #ENDINSECURITYprotests in Kaduna, Kano, Gombe, Plateau, Adamawa, Katsina, Niger, Abuja, etc. The northern youths have creatively adapted the protest to the realities of Northern Nigeria.
Before the redemptive action of the now resurgent Nigerian youths, the polity has been toxic and corrosive, centred mainly on various propositions on the structure of Nigerian State and the louder voices being the call for restructuring of the federation while some fringe voices agitate for the dissolution of the union.
On October 12, a group of northern intellectuals and political activists under the aegis of Friends of Democracy sent a memo to the Constitution Review Panel of the National Assembly echoing what several opinion leaders, largely from the south and middle belt have been agitating for. The group even went further by advocating 100% resource control by the state, as it was under the independence constitution of Nigeria and a return to the 1967 state structure in Nigeria.
When the story broke in the media, the dominant reportage in a section of the press was that “some southern leaders suspected the Friends of Democracy’s intention, given the fact that several authors of this new memo are probably from the same ethnic group from President Buhari.
Historically, the political leaders of Northern Nigeria were Federalists who believed in resource control and a Police Force controlled by the regions, at least that is what the archives say for those of us who were not around at the Lancaster Conference of 1958.
According to the extract of an editorial of Times Magazine dated 10th November, 1958, “Awolowo suggested creating three new states. The North’s Sardauna not wishing to relinquish any of his territories refused the idea, NOR DID HE LIKE THE IDEA FOR A CENTRALISED POLICE FORCE UNDER THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
At the conference, northern delegates insisted each region should have its police, the acceptance of the existence of the Federal Police side by side with the Regional Police was only an act of compromise conceded to accommodate the southern delegates who were routing for a Federal Police (This is history, not politics).
Like federalism, there are many northerners committed to the ideals of national unity and inclusiveness as much as their southern counterparts.
In the last days of the Abacha dictatorship, the political initiatives from the north were crucial. The first salvo was from G-12 in a letter signed by 12 northern eminent persons, including Alhaji Abubakar Rimi from Kano, where Abacha came from. Others were Sule Lamido, Iyorchia Ayu, Jerry Gana, Dr. Sule Kumo, Chief Solomon Lar, etc. The letter which asked Abacha not to succeed himself was hand-delivered to the Aso Rock Villa by the indomitable emancipator, former governor of old Plateau State, Chief Solomon Daushep Lar (Wali Langtang).
The night Abacha died, the fate of the nation was at a balance. Armed with a memo drafted to be hand-delivered to the military High Command at Fort IBB on the way forward for the country were three of us, of which two were northerners. We were not just couriers but signatories to the memo which was drafted at Professor Jerry Gana’s house, another northerner. The third signatory was a patriotic Nigerian, Dan Nwuanyanwu (a southerner). Not that where we came from mattered. Thankfully, our mission succeeded. 80% of what we wanted in the new transition programme sailed through.
Northerners want a good president regardless of where he or she comes from; this has been demonstrated many times in the past, when the people of Kano voted for Bashorun Abiola, a Yoruba man, on the platform of Social Democratic Party (SDP) against their son from Kano State, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, the presidential candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC) in the 1993 general elections. Alhaji Dr. Abubakar Rimi, Sule Lamido and others made this happen in Kano and Jigawa. The north repeated this when the north, just like the South-East and South-South, made Obasanjo President in the 1999 presidential election when his ethnic base, South-West, massively rejected him.
The north accepts and believes in Nigeria political pluralism and true federalism dictated by Nigeria’s multi-ethnic composition. Despite the towering influence of the power of Sir Ahmadu Bello in the northern region, in the first republic, the north was not a one-man show or one-party show. The Middle Belt Congress (MBC) politically controlled the provinces that fall within their area, that is now Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, part of Adamawa, Taraba and Gombe. While the provinces that fall in today’s Kano, Jigawa and Kaduna by the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), were led by Aminu Kano. Similarly, the Bornu area was controlled by the Bornu Peoples’ Congress (BPC).
The north desires accountable and transparent government like all Nigerians. It desires efficient political management as provided by her leaders in the first republic whose lifestyles were decent and austere. Despite all the propaganda of the coupist in January 1966, Sir Ahmadu Bello was found several years not to own a single house anywhere. Likewise, the late Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa. The simple lifestyles of these first republic leaders rubbed off on most second republic political leaders; some of whom, like Alhaji Abubakar Rimi; Chief Solomon Lar, former governor of old Plateau State; Chief S.B. Awoniyi and former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and Minister of Finance, Alhaji Adamu Ciroma. I had the privilege of having these great Nigerians as mentors.
Damning all the shenanigans of the Dividers-in-Chief of the past seven years, which has worsened particularly in the past five years, the actions of the END SARS movement and the END INSECURITY protests in Northern Nigeria, have helped to again refocus our politics on important issues beyond ethnic divide. It would have been tragic if what some political leaders wanted to happen had happened; i.e. protest in South and silence in the North.
Businessman, Politician, veteran Civil Right Leader; Olawepo-Hashim was also, a presidential candidate during the 2019 general elections.
