The years of military rule, beginning from the second half of 1966 to the third quarter of 1979, and then again from 1984 to 1999, were, for northern Nigeria, those of calm, comfort and security within the wider political affairs of Nigeria. This periodisation, excludes, of course, the darkest hour of the first half of that fateful year which ushered in military rule in Nigeria in the first place.
The reasons for the relative calm and comfort were two. First, the north was in charge throughout those combined 28 years of the military. But it was in charge only because some of its sons decided to take its destiny into its own hands in July 1966, and from then onwards managed to stay atop of Nigeria’s political affairs until at least 1999. The darkest hour of January 1966 brought with it widespread and deeply felt uncertainty throughout northern Nigeria about what lies ahead for the future, particularly in the context of a federal Nigeria that, in six months, had changed completely from what everyone used to know. But the July 1966 “counter-coup” tempered that collective nervousness and established the resolve to carry on within a federal Nigeria.
If January 1966 raised the fearful, even tearful, question of “what are we going to do now?”, July provided the only comforting answer in the circumstances, that, “well, we will still be in charge again”. This is why, by my interpretation, the January and July military coups were the only ones of true historical significance in Nigeria. If the putschists of January 1966 had succeeded to establish themselves, the entire history of Nigeria since then would have been very different. But my real point here is that the events of July 1966 helped to re-establish political security for the north in a Nigeria that had now been unitarised.
The next 13 years were tumultuous, of course, what with a three year mutually destructive Civil War, the brotherly ouster of General Gowon by General Murtala, the sibling rivalries that resulted in Murtala’s own end a few months later, the national impulses that sometimes overrode regional politics during this period, and the fissures all of these ignited that have endured to this day. Yet, that political security hardly dimed out. In fact, you could say that the years 1966 to 1979 were the best time to be a northerner in Nigeria, at both individual and collective levels.
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In other words, northernisation, as both a political ideal and practice, as we have tried to sketch here, endured because even though its civilian architects and fervent promoters were killed as a consequence of Nigeria’s federal politics not long into national self-rule, their military sons took up the mantle and held it aloft until return to democracy in 1979. But it was not just that like in the first republic, the national leaders of the period were either northerners themselves or “place-holders” for them, but also because the ideal of northernisation itself was still a very strong aspect of the country’s political culture. It was like something you could breathe in the air, for nearly all Nigerians, northern or southern alike.
Indeed, northernisation was the real source of political rivalry between the north and the south, and almost to this day, the raison d’etre of all nearly politics in southern Nigeria so long as it is within Nigeria’s federal context. It was what most of the leading southern politicians fought against, even if, some of them had to enter into some partial alliance with northern politicians, as Nigeria’s natural political geography practically necessitated.
Deposing northernisation—at least from federal politics and policy—was the sole of purpose of southern politics in the First Republic. Living with it was the purpose in the Second Republic. And wrestling power from it was the sole purpose of southern politics during the long, and ultimately aborted Third Republic. In this context, much of the noises about “the struggle for democracy” and “pro-democracy struggles”, were, stripped of all their pretentions, struggles to remove the north from power by all means. This is why both the press and civil society organisations were often too quick to celebrate the next military takeover, until that too did not return a southerner to power as silently hoped in the beginning.
A myriad of circumstance and fate produced this same outcome in 1999 when, out of guilt or stealth, the leading lights of the region themselves, most of them ganged in the Peoples Democratic Party, the PDP, handed power almost on a platter of gold to former President Obasanjo, a one-time tested and trusted placeholder. But from the very first day he assumed office, Obasanjo made it clear that he was not going to be a placeholder all his life, as he told all those who had invested in his run presidency should consider their investments lost. This time, he said, he was going to be his own man, and did exactly just that for eight years.
But from that day also, political convulsions ensued in the north all over again. Perhaps, they were not as severe as in those the first half of 1966, given the very different circumstances. But those convulsions were certainly serious enough for such organisations as Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) to spring up almost overnight. The reason was simple, having been used to power for almost the entirety of Nigeria’s post-independence years, the north was, in 1999, learning to live without federal power for the very first time. Politically in Nigeria, northern Nigeria was learning to feel what it meant to have the shoe in the other foot, the foot of powerlessness, something which the south had long been accustomed to.
And as with all lessons learned under a condition of paranoia, the north did not learn that lesson well. Where in the dying months of 1998 and early 1999 Obasanjo was the darling of both politicians and ordinary citizens in the north, by 2002, he was probably the most hated political figure in the country by the same category of people. He was blamed for virtually all the political problems of the region, for poking his fingers into the eyes of northern Nigeria, so to speak.
In reality, this narrative of an anti-northern Obasanjo of 1999-2007 was a huge misreading and misinterpretation of events, even if certain specific details may imply otherwise. As a person and as a president, Obasanjo was vindictive, divisive, and well, arrogant. He was also certainly messianic, and sometimes petty-minded, especially where the situation called for broad-mindedness. But in my view, he was not really the enemy of northern Nigeria that he was all too often passed off to be at the time. The real lesson that northern Nigeria should have learnt under Obasanjo remains the most important lesson to learn even today also.
This is for the northern Nigeria to learn to live calmly and strategically even when others have federal power. But to make this point clearly, we must first understand what in the long arc of history, and in my view, happened politically between the assumed placeholder and his assumed trustees.
