RELIGION, THE CABINET AND A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE ‘NORTH’

By

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

sanusis@ubaplc.com

WWW.GAMJI.COM

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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