The twin events of, first, the Northern Peace Forum and then the Southern Governors’ Forum, organised back to back last week again brought to the fore old divisions within the Nigerian polity and one which President Olusegun Obasanjo had attempted to wish away. In view of recent remarks by governors and the Presidency, this report examines why the differences between northern and southern Nigeria should still be acknowledged, understood and then managed with the ultimate view of building a united indivisible nation. Although setting up a belated yet uninspiring committee to pave way for a national dialogue, it appears as though President Obasanjo does not appreciate the depth of the differences which exist.
It was this same President Olusegun Obasanjo that they sat down like an entrance examination candidate. There were 22 of them, all northerners and chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. It was in one of the suites in Agura Hotel, Abuja. This was in the year of the Lord, 1999, specifically the first weekend in the month of February. The next weekend would be the national convention of the PDP in Jos and some leaders of the party (mind you, not those who owned the party) of northern extraction, wanted a commitment from the man for whom a coronation would take place in Jos.
These politicians, some of them alive and a few deceased, wanted Obasanjo to put pen on paper and commit himself that he would be beholden to the north. Obasanjo maintains he did not sign the document – but for a president who has over the years proved that he would do anything, just about anything to get what he wants, his words are now open to disputation. In an interview at the height of his impeachment saga in 2002, President Obasanjo said, in an interview that the events of that day in Agura Hotel gave him the greatest shock of his life "in this country that we fought for to keep one".
That was in February 1999.
On Tuesday, October 10, 2000, there was supposed to be a special meeting in Aso Rock Presidential Villa to focus on the issue of immunisation. But the governors of the 17 states of southern Nigeria chose that same day to inaugurate the first ever Southern Governors’ Forum in Lagos.
It was this decision to place zonal preference above national engagement which made the 17 states in the south, as represented by their governors, to give their meeting primacy over and above the meeting at the Presidential Villa, which made not a few Nigerians highly expectant of, and manifestly interested in whatever came out of the deliberations of the southern governors at that time.
This should be understandable.
For, in the last 86 years since the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates, there had never been any such meeting. In those heady pre-colonial days, the Effiks, Ogojas, the Ijaws and Urhobos of the South-South on the one hand and the Yorubas and Igbos on the other never really sat together to discuss issues of common interests as each was an independent empire or sovereign nation. The coming of Lord Lugard and his band of rampaging mercenaries was to change all that with the conquest of most of the colonies with which treaties were to be later signed. But when on January 1, 1914, Lugard was to amalgamate the northern and southern protectorates, he did not go back to the colonies to seek their consent for such. It is those long standing peculiarities which distinguished each nation state from the other that have refused to give way and which have even become accentuated as a result of long years of misrule.
There has since been eight of such meetings of southern governors, the last being the one held in Benin city, the capital of Edo State last weekend.
Therefore, when some northern politicians, with northern governors as arrow-heads, decided to host a Northern Peace Forum in Kaduna last week, they knew what they were doing and they knew it wasn’t novel. But the twist came with the non-participation of ministers of northern extraction, including the absence of Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who was a special guest. Obasanjo was himself invited but he refused to attend. The reason for Obasanjo’s absence, according to the Presidency was because he would not want to be associated with a move which tends to polarise the country along a north/south divide. In fact, Governor Saminu Turaki of Jigawa State was the first to pooh-pooh the presidential move as dirty and meant to derail a successful organisation of the forum. Next was to be Governor Abba Bukar Ibrahim of Yobe State who followed up by insisting that the presidency would have been happy had the conference not held because the organisers were actually written and told not to host the forum.
However, in what came out as a volte face, President Obasanjo inaugurated a committee last Tuesday to work out a frame work for the possible convocation of a national conference next year.
Even the composition of that committee has already sparked some criticism as the members are seen as Obasanjo’s men. Leading the pack is Governor Ahmed Makarfi of Kaduna State as Chairman, and his Ondo State counterpart, Olusegun Agagu. Others are the Senate Chief Whip, Udoma Udo Udoma; Obasanjo’s Political Adviser, Professor Jerry Gana; Political Adviser to Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Professor Aliyu Yahaya; Director General of the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, Professor Joy Ogwu; Professor Okwudiba Nnoli and Chief Cornelius Adebayo, the Communications Minister.
After vilifying those calling for the convocation of a national conference since his assumption of office in 1999, President Obasanjo appears to have suddenly woken up to the reality that the well-meaning disposition of a President does not become a talisman for good governance or a united polity.
That it has taken him all of five years to come to terms with the realities of Nigeria’s diversity which ought to be a source of strength should be commended. However, for the concomitant benefits of such a talk shop not to be plundered would require a lot of good sense and sobriety from the presidency so that the committee as well as the conference which it is supposed to forebear do not turn out to be a President Obasanjo’s own singular idea of how Nigeria should be. For all the force and tough talk of his administration, the riots in Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Awka, the crisis of the Ilajes and the Ijaws, or the Ijaws and Itsekiris, not to talk of the ever boiling Niger Delta region, or the killings in Benue State, the Junkuns and the Tivs at each others throat, all under the watch of Mr. President, there are still differences to be resolved rather than wished away.
Just as the Northern Peace Forum was coming to a close penultimate Thursday, southern governors were arriving in Benin for their own meeting. Now, the real problem with the polity is the lip service being paid to federalism in Nigeria. Had the true spirit of federalism been upheld, most of the flash points and crisis areas in the country would have had less flashes and crisis.
There are many countries in the world in tune with the spirit of federalism – see box.
And unless and until Nigerian leaders agree to adhere to the strict dictates of federalism, even in its mildest form, there would continue to be crises and not even a tough talking and rambunctious President Obasanjo can stop these crises.
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