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.