Consign Sardauna To Dustbin Of History

By

Abdullah Musa

kigongabas@gmail.com

The Editors of Daily Trust newspaper decided to pay a debt, which in real fact they do not owe. Were the North to be as its current upholders want it to be, there could not have been any newspaper in the North other than the New Nigerian newspaper. I come to this conclusion because apparently, the thinking of that group is that everything good started and ended with the late Premier of the then Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto.

I once had an unpleasant encounter with those running one of the Sardauna legacies: NNDC. Daily Trust newspaper Editor was kind enough to publish my outburst as: NNDC as Arewa’s Bermuda Triangle. There is no need to rehash the content of the said article here. What was the main thrust of the article was that an official whom I wanted to see was complaining to his messenger that he did not know me! I asked the messenger whether it was their policy to see only those whom they personally knew. The reader might need to be reminded that NNDC belongs to the Northern State Governments, and I happen to hail from one of the owner states.

What stared me in the face, from the act of that official with tunnel vision, was the obvious policy of exclusion: some belong to the Arewa (North) Establishment; many don’t. I happen to be amongst the many that don’t. So if one of the qualities of Sardauna was that he embraced all Northerners due to necessity of pragmatism, his successors find it more rewarding to only cater for those who belong to their circle; who in most cases share their character flaws.

As one of the contributors to the special edition on the North by Daily Trust observed, we cannot have an Arewa in the mould of the one which Sardauna governed in the sixties. What most are apparently lamenting is that it is becoming apparent the political class in Nigeria is finding it possible, nay desirable, to do without the successors of Sardauna in governing the centre of the country.

I am not privy to what is the motivation of the Daily Trust editors in publishing that special edition on the North. If we are to speculate, the main reason might be a service to the Northern establishment; particularly those who believe they are the eternal heirs of the Sardauna. That group has apparently boxed itself into a corner, and it is really confounded as to the best way out.

When you are used to leading, you might not know how to follow. Not only that, if you never lost, you might also not know how to regain. Unfortunately for them, the tool they used to employ is now outdated, or totally irrelevant to the changed political terrain. There are certain realities with human beings that a political actor might do well to factor into his decisions. (I say ‘his’ because I used actor instead of actress.) The North is made up of so many tribes and ethnic groups, in contrast to South-West which is nearly monolithic, with Yoruba tribe in ascendancy. The non- core tribes in the North are predominantly non-Muslims; most are Christians. In its employment of religious crisis as a political tool against the Southerners who are predominantly Christian, the Northern Establishment estranged its non-Muslim constituencies, which are however as Northern as anyone can ever be.

The South had for years been trying to drive a wedge between Muslim North and Christian North to no avail; but now it seems the Northern Christians have crossed the Niger politically, and might not be in a hurry to come back. If South-West is divided 50:50 between Muslims and Christians, Northern Muslims might still not be able to penetrate the South West on the basis of Islamic solidarity, since on the one hand religion is not the first defining factor in the South-West; (it is tribe) and even if it were so, when the North scuttled the presidential ambition of MKO Abiola, it achieved a temporary gain in the leadership of General Abacha, but lost for a long time any hope of future political cooperation.

Other points of focus of the said special edition are the apparent backwardness of the North in many areas of human endeavor. From 1914, (the period of amalgamation of Nigeria’s Southern and Northern Protectorates) to 2011 is nearly one hundred years. Yet many in Muslim North tenaciously stick to the old way they bring up their children, as if the White intruder had not discovered the Niger River. All problems of poverty, begging due to disability, stem from this cultural perspective. Why does the Muslim North have more deformed people than other tribes in Nigeria?   This is because it is their people who are yet to fully integrate Western medicine into their culture. To integrate Western medicine into your culture, you need to integrate Western education into your culture. Hausa-Muslims are the most tenacious in this rejection, and they reap the result of their decision.

 But many others also suffer because the Hausas behave in the manner that they do. Fashola wants to transform Lagos into a modern mega-city. He has shown the resoluteness to do that, trouncing the general culture of disorganization that is the hall mark of the black race. Compounding his problems however is the problem of Nigeria, in that the Hausa beggar does not need a visa to go to Lagos.

To rule as it used to, (you may prefer the phrase ‘to misrule’) Northern Establishment needs to have an illiterate class; it is from this illiterate class that Almajirai (those seen as street urchins by the Southerners) are recruited; and it is from this class that beggars are made. Why on earth, you may lament, would someone premise his well-being on the degradation of another? Well, it is a question that can best be answered by those who are Sardauna’s rightful heirs.

Muslim North was inevitably headed for decline; and it seems we may be safe to say irretrievably. This is because people who lead do not easily give up power in black nations, because they know what they get by abusing that power. What the North needs, and it may not have for a long time to come, is new set of leaders. These should be leaders who would consign Sardauna to the dustbin of history. An abomination? Well, there must have been something wrong with Sardauna that those who took the mantle of leadership from him have shown themselves incapable of leading society in the right direction. This is because many attribute a certain character flaw which his followers possess to him. And they on their part have made it a pre-condition when you want to associate with them.

 Sardauna was a product of a certain institution; that institution as at today is rotten. In addition, most Northern politicians belong to this institution. That institution corrupts in more ways than one. If the North is to change direction, if it is to face the challenges of today, that archaic institution has to go. But that might be akin to telling Benjamin Netanyahu to return Palestinian lands in order to have peace! Well, while Netanyahu is assured of the support of the West in his intransigence, Arewa Establishment might one day wake up to find that there is no free oil with which to give charity to the beggars and the parasitic class they created. May be that might force them to think; or preferably, sink!