It’s unfair for
power to return to the North - Senator Salawu
By Enyeribe Ejiogu
Thursday, July 1, 2004
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•Senator Sulaiman
A. Salawu
Photo:Sun News Publishing |
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Twenty years after General Muhammadu Buhari sacked the Second
Republic government led by President Shehu Shagari, the political
adrenaline is still flowing in Senator Sulaiman A. Salawu,
who was at the National Assembly then.
Senator Salawu, an indigene of Kwara State, represented Kwara
South in the National Assembly on the platform of the defunct
Unity Party of Nigeria. As he says: “That was when the
National Assembly was really the National Assembly and actually
represented the masses.”
Senator Salawu, who describes himself as a peace envoy, is
a member of the Central Working Committee of the National
Peace Forum of Nigeria. He is also the chairman of the Kwara
State chapter of the Yoruba Council of Elders.
But recently, the Committee of Northern Speakers stirred up
his ire when it reached a resolution that the senator considered
egregious. What was the issue? The speakers had said in a
statement that they would accept “nothing short of a
power shift to the North in 2007.” As if that was not
odorous enough, the Governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Makarfi,
was reported to have said that once power shifted to the North
in 2007 that would mean the end of inter-ethnic and religious
crises in Nigeria. On hearing this, Salawu says his personal
peace did a somersault and he screamed out: “No. Absolutely
No!”
“Governor Makarfi is one of those people regarded as
peace-loving rulers in the country. For him to have said that
there will be no peace in Nigeria if power does not shift
to the North in 2007 is rather unfortunate. He has contributed
so much in the past to the unity of the country. For him now
to come out to say that unless power is shifted to the North
there will no peace, my question is: which part of the North?
Which North? I am from Offa in Kwara State, a state in the
northern part of the country. It is also in the Middle Belt.
As far as the Kwara people are concerned, Makarfi does not
have our backing on this issue. If you look at the Committee
of Northern Speakers, many of them have lost touch with their
people. In fact, we don’t know in whose interest they
are talking.
Handshake across the Niger
People who understand the dynamics of Nigerian politics point
to the kind of support that the late Bashorun MKO Abiola received
in all the states of the Southeast during the June 12, 1993
election and describe it as unprecedented. MKO easily carried
the states, winning not less than 60 per cent of the popular
vote in each state. His victory in the East was interpreted
by many as an act of forgiveness by the easterners for the
‘political sin’ which the Yoruba committed against
the late Nnamdi Azikiwe in 1956, after the Ibadan Municipal
Council election, when several Yoruba NCNC members ‘crossed
the carpet’ to Action Group, led by the late Chief Obafemi
Awolowo.
For this reason, Awolowo was never well received in the East
on the two occasions he attempted to campaign there. In fact,
his entourage was once stoned in Aba, where he made the “Anti-Okirika
Speech” which reverberated throughout Igbo and Igbo
settlements nationwide.
Over the succeeding years, the socio-political and economic
in-roads made by ever-smiling and generous MKO effectively
laid the foundation for a renewed drive to bring about a political
handshake between the Easterners and the Yoruba across the
Niger.
Notable sons of Yorubaland such as Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu,
the Lagos State governor, have in recent times been politically
baptized in the Niger with chieftaincy titles. More than this,
the Asiwaju, while re-structuring the Lagos State judiciary,
appointed two daughters of Igboland as judges. Further, a
myriad of other socio-economic relationships have strongly
taken root. In a manner that is discernible, positions, views
and opinions that were previously held sacrosanct have shifted,
thereby softening the ground.
The northern political elite’s quest for power to shift
back to the North is antithetical to the concept of “justicia
omnibus” - justice for all - which the Yoruba
hold very closely to their hearts. The corporate position
of the Yoruba Council of Elders is that the East should produce
the president in 2007.
When we talk about power shift or power rotation, we want
stability for this country. We want Nigeria to survive. We
want peace and harmony, so that we can move forward politically
and economically. What do we do? If the Southwest relinquishes
power in 2007, the question is: Where does it go? Definitely,
the Yoruba feel that it will be very unfair for the power
to leave Southwest for North that has dominated power scene
for about 35 years. That won’t be in the interest of
peace and stability of this nation. What happens to our brothers
in the East? They are part and parcel of Nigeria. They have
contributed immensely to the building of this society. So,
we said if power can longer stay in the Southwest for some
good number of years, to balance up for the period it has
stayed in the North then it should shift to the East, unless
the East is not interested, which I doubt very much. And they
have capable men who can captain the ship of this nation to
a very good place. The position of the Yoruba Council of Elders
is that in the interest of equity, peace and stability, power
should not shift to the North which has dominated power for
more than 35 years. It should go to the East which, for long,
has been marginalized.
Recurrent crises in the North
When you talk about the North, what we used to know before
was the core North and the Middle Belt. This talk about Northcentral,
Northeast and Northwest is artificial creation to destabilize
the progressive elements in the North. What you find is the
Hausa-Fulani trying to dominate the people of the Middle Belt
using Islamic religion as a tool. Now the people of the Middle
Belt are yearning for their own political rights. They are
saying that they are fed up with the Fulani domination. That
is the cause of the current crisis in the southern part of
Adamawa State. That’s why Bachama, who are in the majority,
are fighting the Fulani cattle rearers whose brothers dominate
power and are using religion as a tool to achieve their aim.
All these crises have no Islamic undertone at all. They are
just employing Islam as a tool. I am a Moslem. My father was
a Moslem. Islam is a religion of peace. Why do you employ
Islam to cause crisis? Never for once did Prophet Mohammed
(PBOH) utter a word of anger. He never incited anybody to
kill anybody.
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