For the North to rise again

Written by Dapo Thomas

The caliphate and the emirates have declined. Their spiritual fountain is drained. Their political influence has withered. Their command structure is stunted. The foundation of "One North, One People" has crumbled. The Abubakar Saddiq III legacy has been imperiled. All his 50-year efforts to have one formidable north are going down the drains. The House of Sardauna has cracked. The winds are torturing the troubled souls of the mullahs. The people of the North are in disarray. The elite have scattered. The politicians are fighting. The peasants are grieving. The almajiris are grumbling. The haramists are in the trenches running helter skelter. The picture is real and the message is clear: the North has fallen. Its ancestors are crest-fallen wondering if a region whose present is in jeopardy can boast of a future that is politically worthy. The power of the North has gone awry and the Arewa has lost its aura.

Sir Ahmadu Bello and Sir Abubakar Saddiq III were great visionary leaders of the North whose pertinacious astuteness and political ingenuity were aimed at the consolidation of the Northern hegemony and unity within the complex polity of the Nigerian state. Leveraging on the Uthman Dan Fodio's enigmatic persona, both men inspired in their followers the imperativeness of protecting and sustaining the vision of dominance. Some people always confuse dominance with domination. Dominance is about relevance and influence while domination is about subjugation and conquest. The intention of these two great leaders, as evident in their populist sentiments and philosophy, was not for the North to dominate other components of the Nigerian State, but to carve a solid political influence for themselves to be able to protect the interests of the North. More fundamentally, these two great leaders were mindful of the incursion of Christianity into their territory. They wanted a North that will remain compact as to guarantee the immutability of their religious character and cultural identity.

The cracks presaging the fall of the North were there all along but regrettably, nobody considered them ominous. First was the query issued by Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, the then governor of Kano State, to the Emir of Kano, His eminence, Alhaji Ado Bayero, on July 9, 1981. Next was the dissolution of the Muri emirate headed by Alhaji Umaru Abba Tukur by the then governor of Gongola State, Col. Yohanna Madaki in July, 1986 and the climax of these institutional desecrations was the dethronement of the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki by Sani Abacha on April 20, 1996 after reigning for 8 years. All these were portentous actions signposting the decline of the oneness of the North. But they were discountenanced because circumstances took care of them. The Kano riots which followed Rimi's disrespectful query, the unceremonial removal and retirement of Yohanna Madaki by the Babangida administration and the celebrated death of Sani Abacha.

Until the Abacha-Dasuki debacle in 1996, the military overwhelmingly defended and fortified the political interest of the North. It showed massive respect to its institutions and its spiritual leadership and also provided the resources for the training and capacity-building of its civil personnel in a bid to consolidate its grip on political power in all facets. This relationship was not strange. Instead, it reinforces the belief that the leadership of the North, anticipating the future role of the military in Nigerian politics, enlisted their sons into the Armed Forces during the colonial era to ensure that the elite corps of the Army was not only dominated by the North but well positioned to play a crucial role in the political future of the North in particular and Nigeria in general. Unfortunately, while this was going on in the North, the leadership of the South was more interested in the dignity of university education for their own sons whom they were preparing for post-independence political administration.

Both regions seemed to have achieved the objectives of their strategic planning. Between1966 and 1999 when the military finally returned to the barracks, the North dominated more than 90% of the military tenures leaving the South with just a 3 year interventionist leadership after Olusegun Obasanjo succeeded Murtala Mohammed in 1976. This was even at the instance of General Theophilus Danjuma who declined to take over as the Head of State on personal grounds. Otherwise, all the military regimes could have been headed by officers from the North. During its many years in power, the military, substantially led by the Northerners as earlier noted, made sure that most of the administrative and civil structures including the civil service, federal parastatals and agencies were firmly controlled by Northerners, some of whom are still there today or had replaced themselves with those they mentored. Conversely, the south too seems to be dominating the new democratic dispensation since 1999 with the North credited with only 3 years out of the 14 years of the democratic project. And very likely going by GEJ's ruthless adventurism and desperation for a second term, the North may have to wait till 2019. Even this contemplation is still in the realm of speculation. Anything can happen to prevent the return of the North to the centre after Jonathan's tenure, for instance, the personality crisis brewing among the political class.

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) inspired by people like Alhaji Mahmoud Atta to act as a mechanism for political control and continuity is now a symbol of political cacophony. The forum is gradually sinking into depravities. Disturbed and rattled by the forum's present degeneracy, prominent and influential northerners who did not want to be part of this mess have stopped attending its meetings. Some are engaged in shady and dirty deals that the government is aware of but keeps secret for as long as such unscrupulous elders keep undermining the interest of the North to Jonathan's advantage. Some so-called northern elders have also compromised their principles by flirting with the Jonathan administration at the expense of the collective interest of the entire North.

It is no secret that there is no love-lost between the political class and the military elite of the North. The political class is evidently not in favour of overlapping functionality and opportunistic professional migration. The politicians are unwilling to admit into their group the military boys whom they believe, and rightly so, had had their own opportunity. This is the problem Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammed Buhari are facing. Though, the masses in the North admire Buhari and have nothing against him, the political elite who determine who gets what do not believe in the choice of the talakawas whom they regard as political nitwits lacking the feudal orientation to determine quality leadership.

The Boko Haram had exposed the obvious decline in the spiritual authority of the Caliphate and the emirates. The helplessness, inability and failure of the northern traditional rulers to end the siege of horror by the Boko Haram is an indication of the collapse and ignominy the northern traditional institutions had suffered lately. It is unimaginable that a time would come that the Sultan and the Emirs who had a god-like image in not-too-distant past would be reduced to their present siddon look figures. The Sultan, the emirs and their durbars were impeccable delight for local and international tourists who came from far and wide to watch the sovereigns of the North display the beauty of their power and culture. Aside from the emirs, the Sultans until the fall of Dasuki, were rulers of adorable imperial grandeur. Such was the majestic aura of the Sultanate that Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, who ostensibly was the candidate of the North for the presidency after Ibrahim Babangida, had to sacrifice his presidential ambition to become the Sultan of Sokoto in 1988.

I sympathize with the present Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Dr. Muhammed Sa'ad Abubakar who is occupying the position at a difficult time like this. He needs to be pragmatic. His response is not to wallow in self-pity but to rise to the challenge of restoring the declining grandeur of the Sultanate.

The fall of the North has nothing to do with their losing power at the centre. It is about political opportunism, mistrust, greed, betrayal and conspiracy of its elite that have been unfaithful to the founding fathers' creed, which binds them together. I am not surprised, these days, the legacy and vision of the dead is immaterial for as long as the living have their own vision especially one with strong commercial viability and potential. It does not matter if such vision is capable of causing the political mutism of the whole North.

The North needs an inspirational and credible leader with imposing and intimidating profiles in politics and business. A leader who is philosophically and emotionally committed to the northern cause and will do everything within his capability to revivify the dying vision of their founding fathers. I am in no position to suggest who. Period.