If you have ever been caught up in heavy traffic by siren-blaring vehicles occupied by gun-toting security operatives, sometimes with either personal bruises or damage to your beloved vehicle or both, you may think that Northern governors have no soul. Perish that thought, because our beloved governors have just proven their infernal love for our suffering as their subjects. Last week, our ever-progressive governors abandoned their cosy offices and even cosier homes, dressed in embroidered and starched guinea as sackcloth; they braced the cumulous clouds for a confrontation with President Muhammadu Buhari.
It is an unprecedented act of rebellion when governors that helped install a president for an unearned second term, throw their loyalties to the wind to warn him of an impending doom from their docile supporters. Buhari was so shocked that he had nothing to say to them in response on the spur of the moment.
The president must have felt insulted by the affront. Only days earlier, he had been touring the states to chants of support from his loyal supporters who came out in droves. It was at most ludicrous for these progressive to say that just because the president signed an executive fiat to change the colour of the Naira within a small window, the heavens were ready to fall.
Currency change was not meant to hurt the over pampered northern masses; it was to help them curb the shameful act of overspending and instil a saving spirit in them. The incredible wealth that Buhari’s policies have generated across northern Nigeria was not to make every Musa, Hauwa and Bitrus spend their money anyhow. It was meant to make them bring out the money they were hiding in pillows, soak away pits, or buried in pots under zogale (moringa) trees from the reach of insurgents to the safety of the banks.
Abundant wealth in Arewa land is threatening poverty and the almajiri system that is the hallmark of everything good in the North. As any believer knows, feeling entitled is bad for democracy. What is a government’s job if it cannot make life more difficult for the common man? How can the common man know that power belongs to those it installs and not those enthroned by some divine arrangement? It is by inflicting pain that the true worth of governance is felt. Enduring pain is the true test of loyalty.
Ask those living in the so-called developed countries and they would tell you how much they crave the things they take for granted – safety, security, uninterrupted power supply, access to health and human nutrition, access to education free or subsidised and above all, the liberty to roam without harassment. Forget clips of the occasional overzealousness of uniformed officers who confront people with darker skin tones dropped from shithole nations.
In those countries, politics means nothing. For instance, at the last polls in America, only 66.1 per cent turned out. In Canada’s last Ontario elections, only 45 per cent bothered to exercise their franchise. The dictators of some of these countries saw it coming and so made voting compulsory. If you live in Austria, Belgium or Australia, failure to cast votes could be very costly indeed in spite of being paraded as bastions of democracy. Nigeria would like every adult of voting age to register and vote, but from the number of unclaimed Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) most of them are too busy insulting government to care.
Under Buhari, Nigeria is a free state and northerners are proud of being led by one of their own. Now, progressive northern governors think otherwise. They see threats to their convoys from possible popular insurrection. Having surmounted the mountains of obscurity into national relevance, they fear the fall. Buhari’s hasty decision to recolour and change the face of the Naira threatens all that and they can’t endure that prospect.
To Buhari, an ex-soldier once an order has been given, the commander goes to sleep.
Apparently, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) and the banks have ulterior motives. Buhari could not imagine anyone flouting his orders and for a moment he even joined the campaign train of his successor.
Now, his own supporters, the progressive governors of Arewaland are saying things are not so. In the days when the president does little than count the number of hours left for him to return to Daura, they are saying he might have no home to return to. Just at a time he thought his friends were coming to express regrets over their inability to amend the constitution for him to rule forever, they have a contrary view of things.
It was an unimaginable presidential shock for Buhari to find out that these governors are not happy with him or his policies. They want him to eat his words and look stupid in the eyes of his supporters. They want him to rescind his decision and look like a general unable to predetermine the outcome of a move.
While they poured their hearts out, Buhari could only stare back in shock. How was he to know that things were not what he planned them to be? That people would flout his orders and torpedo his plans. The president did not recover his voice until the chairman of their group went back to give him a detailed briefing of the danger that lies ahead. After he left, Buhari summoned Garba Shehu and asked the agitating governors to give him seven days to rectify the situation.
While Shehu’s signature was setting on the proclamation, Buhari was pondering the impudence of leaders of his home base. They could travel to Abuja not to praise the king, but to excoriate him and make demands – that was as shocking as it was unprecedented.
Turning things over in his mind, the president hoped that these governors were traitors of themselves and the northern cause. Most of them are overlords of only their state capitals, having surrendered the rest of their surrogacy to insurgents. Yet, they had not come to report their loses or the state of their sinking ship. They had only come to protest Naira redesign because it threatened their interest.
Most Northerners believe that the country began to sink when 93 coffins were draped with the national flag in Makurdi all victims of insurgent attacks. Then they thought the solidarity was buried as the carnage spilled over to Kaduna where every week, members of communities sneak back at daybreak to survey the level of carnage unleashed against them at midnight and to bury the charred remains of their loved ones without a word of pity or condolence from their governor. Then, they watched as the highways meant to link them with each other were taken over by insurgents that kidnap, kill and maim at will. Then schools were closed because the security of children could no longer be guaranteed. They had watched Zamfara decimated.
While their governors were crying treason in Aso Rock, there were the cold bodies of 40 civilians killed by government forces in Nasarawa. Buhari’s governor did not return to report the loss of over 80 in a terror attack. Babagana Zulum has given up on retaking the two local governments in the hands of Boko Haram.
Who will tell these progressive northern governors that too many northerners have died?
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