RELIGION, THE CABINET AND A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE ‘NORTH’
By
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
Newspaper
reports these days are full of stories about the unease of the ‘North’
occasioned by General Obasanjo’s recent appointments and nominations. These
are seen to be, at least numerically speaking, in favour of Christians. The
names of the ‘prominent northern politicians’ who expressed their
displeasure are usually not given, at their instance. This, of course, is
understandable since they stand to gain most from the pre-emptive hysteria,
which is the object of these stories, and their chances are hardly likely to
brighten if their identities were known. It is however presumed, from the nature
of the complaints, that the aggrieved party is the ‘ Muslim-north’, that
gargantuan monolith which is also sometimes referred to by that dubious and
questionable referent of a non-existent composite ethnic-group, the
‘Hausa-Fulani’.
About
one decade ago, the ‘north’ was also uneasy about Ibrahim Babangida’s
cabinet reshuffle, which swept out the so-called ‘Langtang Mafia’. Then, the
aggrieved party was the ‘Christian north’, that unwieldy amalgamation of
tiny ethnic groups with historical grievances against the dominant and hegemonic
Caliphate. In the parlance of northern politics, the ‘Christian north’ is
synonymous with the ‘middle belt’. A Muslim from Ilorin is not a
‘middle-belter’ but a ‘Hausa-Fulani’. A Hausa Christian from Kaduna or
Zaria is a ‘middle–belter’. The ‘middle-belt’ is therefore a stormy
territory of religious tension, the arena in which two religions face down each
other, instigated by ‘ religious leaders’ who are always willing to play the
‘religion’ card to achieve selfish goals. When the Christian Association of
Nigeria (CAN) northern branch arranged its demonstrations in Kaduna, Yola,
Bauchi and Jos to protest Babangida’s alleged attempts at ‘Islamizing’ the
Federal cabinet, it ran into a quagmire of internal squabbles, with the
Christian Birom of Jos and the Christian Tiv of Benue unable to support the
protests since their sons had been major beneficiaries of the changes.
It
is important to open our discourse with this trip through history for two
reasons. First, it is to be noted that this obsession with the professed faith
of public officers is a peculiarly northern phenomenon. In other parts of the
country, such as Yorubaland, differences between individuals revolve around more
fundamental issues, such as ideology and programmes. It is easy for northerners,
Muslims and Christians, to dismiss this as evidence of the chronic tribalism of
the Yoruba, who place a higher premium on ethnic identity than religious
affiliation. This may well be true, although I find it simplistic. Whatever the
case, it does not negate the fact that the religious tolerance shown by the
Yoruba has created an environment of peaceful coexistence, and that the Yoruba
are able to maintain a unified front on national issues such as June 12 and a
‘south-west’ presidency. The north, on the other hand, remains
fractionalised and weakened with its citizens living in constant mistrust and
fear of one another. While other
parts of the country make progress in education and the development of human
capital the northerner remains pitifully backward and a veritable parasite. I
will return to this point.
The
second reason for our trip is to establish that this intolerant and sectarian
attitude cuts across the northern religious divide. It would be a travesty of
truth to infer, from current developments, that this ‘unease’ is a
specifically ‘Islamic’ or ‘ Muslim’ phenomenon, or to attribute it to
some imaginary ‘Islamic fundamentalists’ or ‘fanatics’.
To do so would be to lose sight of the real nature of the northern political
economy, which is that there are, in reality, two norths: The north of the poor,
oppressed, illiterate and deprived masses
(Christian
and Muslim) and the north of the so-called religious and political leaders,
members of the establishment who grow fat on the state machinery, and who are
willing to play the ‘religion’ card at any point, willing to create mistrust
and hatred, willing to unleash sections of the ‘poor north’ against each
other, to shed blood, to burn places of worship, in the name of Allah and to the
glory of the Lord Jesus. This reality has been craftily replaced with an
illusory duality, one of a Muslim north Vs. Christian North, or Hausa-Fulani Vs.
minorities. Again I will return to this point.
That
issues have come to this state is partly attributable to a patent lack of
political education. Due to illiteracy of the masses and their manipulation by
the dominant hegemony, the northern people are yet to comprehend the nature of
the state, which is, as aptly described by Gramsci, ‘ the entire complex of
practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only
justifies and maintains its dominance but manages to win the active consent of
those over whom it rules.’ Through a dialectical interaction between structure
and superstructure, between the objective and the subjective, a form of
consciousness is diffused through the mediation of agents of ideological control
to the extent that it has become part of the ‘common-sense’ of the northern
masses. By manipulating the intoxicating agency of religion, the dominant
classes have been able to create a contingent, socially constructed form of correspondence between
essentially contradictory economic and political regions of the northern social
formation. Consequently, the poor peasant farmer in Zaria, condemned to
life-long penury by the circumstances of his birth, the inadequacy of his
education and the deprived state of his general existence, feels a stronger bond
with and affinity for his rich, capitalist emir than his fellow farmer in Wusasa.
Similarly, the poor Christian peasant in Zangon-Kataf is willing to kill, maim
and destroy his poor Muslim neighbour on the orders of a retired general who
was, and remains, part and parcel of the oppressive establishment.
This
anti–reductionist emphasis on the specificity of the ‘popular-Islamic’ or
‘popular- Christian’ in contradistinction to class demands and struggle, has
enabled the dominant northern classes, Muslim and Christian, to appropriate
under their respective wings the so-called ‘Hausa-Fulani’ and ‘middle-belters’,
as instruments in what, ultimately, is competition and struggle among various
class-fractions of the bourgeoisie with the state as the principal arena. Viewed
in this light, the northerner is in a pitiful state, crying for a saviour he
does not know. Only education of the northerner, and upliftment of his
consciousness, will provide him with the requisite power of introspection
through which the nonsensicality of his common sense can become apparent. Only
then will it occur to him that although Babangida, Abacha and Abubakar were
Muslims, and although Useni, Shagaya, Mark, Bamaiyi and Dogonyaro were
Christians, the rising social pofiles and increased personal opulence of these
members of the establishment was accompanied by the continued impoverishment,
ill-health, and deprivation of the Muslim and Christian masses. Only then will
he wonder where his emir obtains his fancy limousines and well-fed horses, where
his church gets its millions, where his pastor finds his wealth when the school
to which his child goes is empty and teachers are not paid, when there are no
drugs in the government hospitals, when he can not afford one square meal a day.
Only then would it dawn on him that the issue is not one of Islam Vs.
Christianity, but of competing vested political interests in which he has no
stake. He can never be a minister even if there were one hundred ministers from
his faith. Nor would his son be one. He fights and is willing to die in the name
of Islam or Christianity, only to facilitate access of some lurking and
predatory kleptomaniac to the Federal treasury, whose license to this access is
his capacity for the manipulation of religious symbols and effective use of
slogans and other tools of opportunistic propaganda.
Let
me emphasise, as a pre-emptive stroke aimed at avoiding misconception,
misconstruction or misrepresentation that my objection to the anti-reductionist
and opportunistic ideology of sectarianism does not translate into an attack on
religion, per se . It also does not
posit the intellectually insupportable postulate that all religions are the same
and that we could somehow wish away the fundamental differences in doctrine and
character between Islam and Christianity. I do not claim that the distinction
between Muslims and Christians can disappear, nor do I even consider it a
feasible or necessary objective. Being neither an agnostic secularist nor
materialist atheist I do not propose that an ‘iron curtain’ can or should be
placed between religion and state. Indeed such issues like the Shari’ah should
remain the subject of continuous dialogue until the limits of the State are
clearly defined and citizens are not compelled by a constitution drafted by
politicians to subject themselves to laws which run counter to their religious
injunctions and thus negate the principles of religious freedom. This, I believe
as a Muslim. I also believe that in all future discussions and constitutional
provisions for a restructured Federation, religious pluralism and its cultural
and legal implications can not be indefinitely ignored.
However,
the religions of Islam and Christianity, as I understand them, show a remarkable
confluence in the political realm enjoining adherents to strive for honesty,
justice, and compassion for the poor, which together make for a good government.
In consequence, a government run by a good Muslim or a good Christian and a
cabinet made up of good Muslims and Christians should impact favourably on the
material and temporal existence of all citizens and should therefore command
universal support. The correspondence between the ‘masses’ and the
‘establishment’ under such a dispensation is established on foundations of a
commonality of interest and exists not because, but in spite of secondary
contradictions in the realm of faith and doctrine.
There
is no doubt that no one would claim, with seriousness, that Abacha, Gwarzo, Sabo
and El-Mustapha were good examples of the quintessential Muslim leader. The
argument that the ‘Islamic’ or ‘Muslim’ interest is always best served
by persons who claim to be Muslims without reference to character and integrity
therefore has implications that may put to question the right of the holder of
such views to claim adherence to the very faith he seeks to promote. The same
goes for Christians. Their masses should therefore not be carried away and
celebrate a cabinet strictly on the basis of the number of nominated Christians.
Classical
Marxism holds the premise that ‘
the base determines the superstructure’. Subsequent developments, especially
by neo-Marxists like Gramsci, Althuser, and Poulantzas have amended this to
infer that ‘ the base determines what forms the superstructure can take’.
This dimension to political thought is relevant to the understanding of our
present predicament. The Nigerian constitution in as far as the cabinet is
concerned, specifies ‘ Federal Character’ as representation from all states
of the Federation. In terms of religion, one would expect it to be very
difficult for a Muslim minister to emerge from the South-South or South- East.
It is equally difficult for a Christian minister to emerge from the North-West
or the North-East which represent the erstwhile Sokoto Caliphate and Borno
empire. The balance is usually
tilted from selection from the
religiously pluralistic zones of South-West and North-Central. In theory,
the president can, without violating the constitution select all ministers from
these zones from one religion. It seems this is what practically happened in the
present dispensation. The question is , in what way are Muslims or Christians
helped by corrupt and incompetent officers selected on the basis of religious
considerations? In what way would
a cabinet composed of thirty Christian thieves be better for the Christian
masses than one made up of thirty Muslim thieves?
As
we examine Obasanjo’s ministerial
list , therefore, let us scrutinize each of those
names for correspondence between his/her world-view, character and
capabilities and what is deeply
required by our popular masses:
peace , stability, economic empowerment, freedom and progress. Any one found
wanting should by all means be rejected. Our recent history has shown that Islam is not necessarily better-served by
Muslim Leaders, unless they are good Muslims. The arrests, detention and extra
–judicial executions of Muslim
Brothers by Abacha’s government are well-known to us. The humiliation of the
Sultanate and the removal of the
Sultan based on false charges are
known to us. The arrest and death
in detention of prominent sons of Islam like Shehu ‘ Yar Adua
(President of Islam in Africa Organisation) and Moshood Abiola (Baba
Adinni of Yorubaland) are known to us. All
of these crimes, in addition to wanton stealing, breach of trust, abuse
of office, nepotism and gross violation of human rights were perpetrated by a
Muslim Head of State working with Muslim Officers in charge of his security
apparatus. Should Muslims forget so soon, and have a nostalgia for that period
of darkness and collective despair?
True,
Obasanjo should have done a little better by showing some more sensitivity to
the religious diversity of the middle-belt. Not doing this was bad politics.
However, the net result is the eclipse of one section of the bourgeoisie by
another. What the poor northerner (Muslim or Christian) wants is a programme, a
policy that addresses his plight. He really could not care less who is
implementing it. Indeed, Obasanjo may finally liberate the northern masses from
the shackles of subservience. What is important is that those in government
remember the trust reposed in them. They must remember that their constituency
is Nigeria, not their religions. They must remember that, Christian or Muslim,
they will be called to account by the God they profess to believe in.
Obasanjo’s
prestidigitation may have shocked his northern political allies. The
establishment may be uneasy, but the masses are not. Sadly, they can be taught
unease, and used as destabilising agents by those who live off sectarian
acrimony. The only protection against this is good government, and the sense
that their conditions are improving. That, ultimately, is the final test.
As for politicians of the Muslim north, if they genuinely believed that with a Southern president, it would remain, for them, business-as-usual, then ( it must be admitted) they have long been given more credit for their intellect than they deserved. The decision to willingly cede the presidency to the south and promote the candidacy of Obasanjo came with certain obvious sacrifices. Politicians took the decision without consulting the ‘poor north’. They must not call upon the ‘poor north’ to fight their war for them. Wake up, elders! You have lost it.
You can read more about my article from my web page at http://www.gamji.com/sanusi.htm
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