National
Interest and the Politics of Desperation: A Rejoinder to Dr. Aliyu
Tilde's "For a Breathing Space Before 2007"
By
Kennedy
Emetulu
Emetulu@aol.com
"The Igbo have been out
of power since 1966. I do not think the nation will be doing them
justice, or the Igbo will be doing themselves justice, if their absence
in the presidency will be prolonged beyond 2007. Justice, not political
expedience, demands that they truly become either the president or the
vice-president, if the nation truly believes in power shift or
rotational presidency. This is something that I think the Igbo
politicians can get, on the condition that they are able to do away with
the supremacy of money in their politics." --- Dr.
Aliyu Tilde
The above quote from Dr Aliyu Tilde's "For A Breathing Space Before
2007", published in his column on the Gamji website, represents all
that is wrong with Nigerian politics. Personally, I find it terribly
patronizing and a little insincere to talk of an Igbo becoming
"either president or vice-president" under some skewed notion
of justice. Didn't we have an Igbo Vice-president during the last
democratic dispensation? Was Dr Alex Ekwueme from Okoh in the heartland
of Igbo country not the vice president to Shagari? And, even during the
intervening military period, didn't Ebitu Ukiwe serve as Babangida's
second in command? Isn't it curious that Dr Tilde speaks of "either
president or vice-president" when he's very much aware that the
clamour from the rotational advocates on the Igbo side has no place for
vice-presidency? Why is Dr Tilde not definite about Igbo being president
or nothing if he's so sincere in fighting the Igbo corner?
Again, we can taste the insult to the Igbo when he talks about "the
supremacy of money in their politics"; what does he mean? That the
Igbo are the only ethnic group to have developed money politics into an
art or religion in Nigeria? That they are the only people who can sell
their mother once the price is right? Frankly, I fail to see how Dr
Tilde is doing justice to the Igbo by this kind of stigmatization and
crude stereotyping. The last I checked, the monetization of politics is
a general Nigerian malaise and the PDP, which championed it in the last
election can hardly be said to be exclusively an Igbo party! So, how Dr
Tilde came to the conclusion that until the Igbo politicians "are
able to do away with the supremacy of money in their politics",
they can never attain the Presidency baffles me.
Anyone who cares to read between the lines will see that Dr Tilde is
merely expressing, advertently or inadvertently the prejudices and the
stereotypical views of the Igbo held by his kind over the years, albeit
in this instance, he's expressed these prejudices in a supposed cause of
"justice" for the Igbo. How paradoxical! Without saying so
directly, Dr Tilde is making us understand that there is/are ethnic
group(s) other than the Igbo that have put other things more noble above
money in their politics (I don't need to tell anyone who or which is
that group after listening to Tilde's kinsman, Maitama Sule, declare
such supremacy long ago or after observing Dr Tilde himself constantly
define Nigeria in his writings through the prism of some defunct
sultanate). And, having made that declaration, he's decreed that the
Igbo won't smell the presidency or vice-presidency until they do away
with such money-grabbing attitude!
Perhaps, we need to look beyond these quasi-philosophies for Dr Tilde's
new magnanimity to the Igbo. Considering that this was the man who, at
his ardently pro-North best, called on IBB to challenge Obasanjo in this
2003 ("The North Will Vote IBB") and when the former
flip-flopped, dilly-dallied and finally rejected that call, switched to
Buhari ("Buhari Please Join Politics Now"), won't it be proper
to ask exactly what he believes now that he's hitched his prostituting
wagon to the Igbo train? What exactly is he looking for in 2007? Why did
he not tell his beloved Buhari to step aside for Dr Okadigbo in the last
election if he really felt the Igbo injustice this much? Or, perhaps,
having patronizingly offered the "Igbo" the vice-presidential
ticket under Buhari, he felt the injustice was adequately assuaged
potentially? And, apparently, such injustice would be assuaged if say,
in 2007, Babangida or Atiku comes up with an Igbo vice-president,
wouldn't it - that is if either or both of them happen to be the
Hobson's choice presented to the electorates by the powers that be? The
facts are clear, Dr Tilde is IN FACT canvassing, as usual, for another
vice-presidential bag carrier for a future Northern candidate, but he
needn't spell it out quite bluntly, so he hides under the notion of
justice to the Igbo, dangling before them this odious carrot! Again!
In any case, all the above is incidental to the true purpose of this
rejoinder. The key point I wish to make to Dr Tilde is that his
over-constipated view of politics has been the bane of Nigeria's
underdevelopment all these years. I note that he's convinced that in
2007, as in 2003, "popular vote will not carry any weight in
determining who would be our president", but "a blend of four
factors, namely, incumbency, money, ethnicity and religion". Yes,
we are talking a whole four years from hence and people like Dr Tilde
who pride themselves amongst the primus inter pares of commentators and
influencers of political discussions and actions have not only given up,
they are asking the rest of us to surrender as well - to surrender to
the forces of "incumbency, money, ethnicity and religion"! Dr
Tilde, in spite of his apparently well-informed disposition, isn't
asking us to focus on issues and policies, but the very things that
shouldn't form the major planks of our determination for the future of
our country if indeed we're still thinking democracy. In other words, Dr
Tilde is preaching to us the failed status quo.
The whole idea of rotational presidency is a farce, being sold to us at
convenient intervals by political profiteers. Those who continue to
delude themselves with the notion that such rotational principle saw to
Obasanjo's installation especially after June 12 must be serially
gullible. Obasanjo's ascension has nothing to do with the
"North" finding it necessary to let others have a taste,
especially after the June 12 debacle; it was a well planned usurpation
of power from civil society by the pro-military forces in our nation,
using the prevailing or what was generally interpreted as the prevailing
sentiments at the time. Obasanjo was not installed to appease any
"West" or "South", but to protect the military cabal
and their cohorts that have, up to that time, ran Nigeria aground. It
was convenient because Obasanjo, like the proverbial hound was
supposedly running with the hares (after all, what better credentials
than having served time in Abacha's gulag did he need to requisition
national goodwill?), but in truth, he was spirited out of prison,
pardoned and parachuted into Aso Rock to continue hunting with the
hounds, and, more importantly, protect them. And, this he's done very
creditably - from the hounds' point of view, that is. And that was why
they rewarded him with a second term!
The Nigerian hounds we speak of really have no "tribal" marks;
they are only united by pecuniary and material interests fleeced from
the Nigerian state! That is why one does not have to take a microscope
to the stinking corridors of power to see that these hounds are well
represented in every ethnic, religious, professional or social group.
So, for anyone to talk of some injustice to the Igbo for not having been
President up till now since 1966 is to pander to the lowest common
denominator. The problem of Nigeria and the reason for her
under-achievement is not in the ethnic origin of her leaders, but their
mentality, beliefs and ideology on leadership or indeed lack of such.
The problem is basically systemic; in other words, the system in place
is programmed to produce one and only one result no matter from which
section of the country a president is ultimately fished from. And that
result is the guarantee of the continued pre-eminence of the predator
elite and the continued looting of the Nigerian state to benefit those
elite. If today, the decadent cabal finds it necessary to play to the
sentiment of Igbo presidency (as it did in 1999 per the sentiments for
Yoruba presidency); it wouldn't take much to provide Nigerians with a
willing Igbo person to do its bidding from amongst its ranks. While some
of us, like Dr Tilde (if he's sincere in his call) may take to the
streets to celebrate such "historic" breakthrough in the
establishment of justice in Nigeria, it wouldn't be long for reality to
prevail - when Nigerians once again, Ndigbo inclusive, will begin to
witness business as usual, the same old decadence given a more putrid
makeover by these same deadwoods! Besides, I wonder where the justice is
if we continue to see Nigeria as a country of only three ethnic groups
for the purpose of leadership. I mean, what makes the Igbo case a better
one in 2007 than say the Ezon, Edo, Esan, Efik, Birom, Kataf, Tiv or
Kuteb?
If we are all truly interested in the future of our country, I think
it's time we start consciously de-emphasizing such notions that
ethnicity or religion is a veritable passport to power. In their place,
we must emphasize the politics of issues and healthy debating of
development-related policies. Of course, this does not mean we should
altogether ignore the role that ethnicity plays in political choice or
personal and public decision-making, but we all have to understand that
we need not be held prisoner to it. Today, it is a blackmailing tool
(along with religion) in the hands of our generally non-performing elite
and the only way we can break their stranglehold on our political life
is to recognize it for what it is - as a symptom of the problem and not
the problem itself. The real problem we have as a nation is failed
citizenship, perpetrated by our consistently non-performing leadership
elite, which has bastardized all national institutions and
psychologically damaged us in the process. Having therefore made
national politics and institutions unproductive, this leadership has
invariably sowed the seeds of rebellion and rejection in the minds of
the marginalized populace, many of whom have withdrawn into their ethnic
and primordial shells. Of course, this is to be expected. Their ethnic
origin is what they know, what they can be sure of, the only place they
cannot be rejected and where they feel comfortable. It follows that when
the nation-state fails to actualize its promise of equal citizenship (in
our case due to leadership failure), you can only fall back to what you
know - the primordial.
Thus, ethnicity, which people trumpet as the problem in Nigeria, is
indeed only a symptom of the problem of failed citizenship. In other
words, if our idea of Nigerian citizenship was healthy and working, no
one would miss his or her ethnic group or its supposed place in
political affairs. We cannot solve the problem therefore by treating the
symptom through a deliberate apportionment of time and offices to groups
as a means of attaining justice, because justice itself is not a
fundamental principle of state policy, neither is leadership accountable
to it - be it military or civilian. The only way to confront and solve
the problem permanently is by raising the issues to the fore and all
such "impurities" as ethnicity and religion will settle at the
bottom; then Nigerians can drink of the new fountain, seeing and knowing
that these "impurities" are part of us, but without being
hostage to them. They would be able to question why there are potholes
in a particular portion of the road without thinking that their townsman
is the failed contractor who's absconded abroad with the money meant for
repairs; they'd be able to ask why the unemployment queue is growing
longer, the budget deficit fatter or why the economy is in doldrums
without having to crosscheck if this or that kinsman would be
"offended" by their genuine query. In other words, we would
have cracked the first principle of genuine development, which is to
focus on the issues.
Let it be that the man/woman who understands the issues and who
convinces us of what is needed to put things right in virtually every
aspect of our national life wins our confidence, irrespective of where
he comes from, where he was born or where he grew up. That way we can
ask questions when he/ she's not performing and have enough to agree and
disagree on as development-minded human beings without thinking Yoruba,
Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, Efik or Ezon. People like Tilde should stop seeing
their job as that of restating the status quo, which they'd gladly call
"reality", but rather, they must work with other progressive
forces in civil society to change perceptions and indeed expectations.
If Nigeria must progress, this is how those of us who think we have
something to say to our fellow countrymen and women, whether through the
newspapers, internet, radio or television must begin to see it.
Lastly, let me pick up on Dr Tilde's worry about the press, especially
the magazines which he impliedly accused of acting as Babangida's
mouthpieces, especially as the segment in question "has always
built the impression that nothing in Nigeria can work without the
blessing of Babangida". Writing further on that issue, he said:
"It is really difficult to understand the rationale behind such
publications. Are they meant to tarnish his image beyond the damage he
did to it by mismanaging our affairs for eight long years? Or are they
simply starting a long term reconstruction project that would level the
political ground and customize our minds for his eventual candidature in
2007?"
For someone who desperately called out Babangida to contest in the last
election, assuring him by his usual calculations of victory, one would
have thought having the press (especially the magazine segment) in his
pocket, as implied, should be good news, but alas, Tilde is here
complaining. Well, maybe his grouse is that Babangida did not come out
to contest as at when he (Tilde) wanted him to, and, having not done
that, has cost his precious North the Presidency by allowing the
much-hated Obasanjo to win a second term! The man's new-found animosity
is perhaps "punishment" for an errant Babangida.
On a serious note, Tilde does not have to wonder greatly. It does not
take rocket science to see that a huge segment of the Nigerian press
generally, including the internet versions, have become part of the
Obasanjo-IBB captive audience. Why? Because, these press houses have
taken on board the "fact" that they are the apex power brokers
in the land. They watched IBB come over from Minna to install
Abdulsalami in Aso Rock on the death of the Goggled One; they watched
him single-handedly install Obasanjo; they had watched Obasanjo earlier
do all he could to discredit June 12 and Abiola and help his friend, IBB
establish the doomed "Interim National Government" thereafter.
They've watched IBB, Abdulsalami and Buhari turn up their noses at the
Oputa Panel, while Obasanjo stumped around the Panel's premises
pretending to lead by example as the same press and civil society wait
in vain for any kind of official White Paper to be released on the said
Panel's findings. They've watched all these people watch each other's
back to the detriment of the larger impotent Nigeria; so, why wouldn't
they think that nothing in Nigeria can work without their blessings?
There are still credible members of the press, no doubt; but it's time
they as one wake up to their responsibility to civil society. Dr Tilde
himself has been part of that crowd that does the things he's now
accusing others of; all he has to do to believe this is to look back at
his own writings. The press and its practitioners have all generally
been drugged and seduced by the powers, myth and indeed excesses of
these people that they seem to think harping on everything they say or
do or likely to do is their only way to survive.
However,
that can change in a second. Dr Tilde and the segment of the press he
criticizes are only lying on a bed as they've made it. All it takes to
change things is to remake that bed - throw out assumptions, question
premises, ask the uncomfortable questions, live by the word and, more
importantly, they all must consider themselves as victims of the failed
establishment, but victims in whose hands there's the capacity to
influence real and genuine democratic change. That job cannot begin
though until we consciously demystify those four factors Dr Tilde
believes are key - "incumbency, money, ethnicity and
religion". So, to think of an Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa or Kuteb
presidency in 2007 is to persist in setting the clock back.
Let's think outside the accursed box!
Kennedy Emetulu,
London. |