Yar’Adua’s Presidency: Nature of Things to Come

By

Babatunde Adenodi

NEW JERSEY

tadno2000@yahoo.com

 

 

I had planned to wait to see the list of President Yar’Adua’s cabinet before writing this piece.  But now, I cannot wait. What he has done so far is enough to draw some important conclusions. Or at least, it is enough to suggest, to a reasonable degree of certainty, his future moves on the issue of what we all know as Federal Character.

 

The winner take all behavior of former Heads of State of Nigeria, particularly most of them from the northern part of Nigeria informed the decision of some wise men to make this policy a part of our constitution. And rightly so, in my judgment. It is not known if this is a provision of the constitution can be adjudicated on. It will be interesting to see a Femi Falana or Gani Fawehinmi take up this issue in the courts.

 

A president is free, indeed obliged to nominate into office those whom he is comfortable working with. This is even more important if we are talking about the security of his person and the security of the state. The president made some appointments of his security team last week and thereby revealed his inner thinking on the issue.

 

Out of 10 appointments, the three geopolitical zones of the north took seven, while the 3 geopolitical zones of the south took three! No one was appointed from the geopolitical south/west! This is not inconsistent with the pattern of behavior of all former Heads of State of northern extraction except, perhaps, Gowon. This is one of the major problems that led us to where we are today: Disparity in the distribution of political offices and gross disparity in the distribution of common resources.

 

Since Independence in 1960, we did not have a Minister of Defense who was a southerner, except for the period Obasanjo was President.  We did not have Minister of Internal Affairs, Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters and Chief of Army Staff.  Southerners are rarely called upon to be minister of Petroleum Resources, Chief of Naval Staff or Chief of Air Staff or Inspector General of Police. The post of Divisional Commanders of Army, Navy and Air Force are mostly restricted to northern officers.  It is common knowledge that chairmanship of Federal Parastatals is a preserve of mainly northerners. One more important point: whenever a southerner is appointed a minister of something, there is invariably a minister of state who is more powerful than the substantive minister.

 

What is worse, politicians were appointed to posts that should be exclusive preserve of experts. Managing Directors of NNPC, Refineries and Fertilizer companies in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna were politicized to the discomfiture of experts.

 

On the other hand, Nigerians of southern origin are only good enough for the following appointments: Ministers of Education, Health, Information and Agriculture. Chairmanship of NEPA, Ports Authority and a few others.

 

As for the Judiciary, there is this pattern of behavior by northern Heads of State:  Justices of the south are appointed when they are 62 years old and above. This way, they spend only 2-3 years at the Supreme Court and retire. However, northern justices are appointed when they are 40 years old and above, but not more than 52 years old! This way they spend a minimum of 15 years on the bench before they retire! At a time during Abacha, the 3 most senior Supreme Court justices were from the north!

 

The small territory of Zanzibar, a federal part of Tanzania on the Indian Ocean, liked our judiciary. They requested for 5 lawyers to work in their Ministry of Justice. Abacha obliged. He sent 5 lawyers, all of them from Kano! Under what parameters was it justifiable to send 5 lawyers from the same state?

 

Although there were northern murmurs of marginalization during Obasanjo’s era, it was in no way comparable to what we had under successive northern Heads of State. As maligned as he was when he was president, he distributed political offices as fairly and as evenly as he could.

 

This kind of behavior of our northern compatriots is what has led us to where we are. Yar’Adua must not perpetuate it. He must bear in mind the principle of Federal Character in his appointments. Meanwhile, he must reverse the appointments, for the sake of justice and fair play.