Former Governor of Zamfara State, now Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, has ordered politicians serving in President Bola Tinubu’s government to speak up for the administration or quit.
Former Governor of Zamfara State, now Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, has ordered politicians serving in President Bola Tinubu’s government to speak up for the administration or quit. He also told the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), that it has lost relevance and no longer commands any electoral value. NEF should shut up, he commanded.
Matawalle said: “In as much as many have overlooked them in respect of their utterances, it is pertinent to underscore their overbearing attitude on issues that affect political unity and cohesion. They cannot offer any positive idea or thought about the future of northern Nigeria or, indeed, of Nigeria and its unity and togetherness.
He added: “President Tinubu is poised to do a lot for the North as President of Nigeria, elected by the people of Nigeria, not by one ethnic group or other, therefore, anyone mistakenly seeing President Tinubu as a failure or a weakling is making a mistake and should rethink.
“Such a person is either blind or misguided and unable to see the new Nigeria that is emerging. Therefore, the NEF’s statement allegedly expressing regret for voting for President Tinubu is unfortunate. NEF is not more than a group that has refused to accept reality and is living in delusion.”
The trigger for Matawalle’s outburst is the northern elders demand for their communities to be protected from the evil activities of bandits and terrorists. Terrorism and banditry in the North did not begin today, but the peddlers have expanded and gained territories during the eight years of President Buhari.
In those eight years, Zamfara became their headquarters in the Northwest, and Matawalle endured four grueling years of it as governor. Now as Minister of Defence under President Tinubu, the government is yet to make impact on insecurity and citizens in the North are saying this was not what they bargained with the new government. Famers are unable to engage the land. Students are kidnapped with ease and in droves; and all of that have compounded the people’s economic pains.
The NEF has thus aggregated and communicated the frustrations of voters in the North, who they say, gave Tinubu the winning votes in 2023, in the belief that he would tackle their problems. The NEF suggested that they (voters) may have a rethink in 2027, if the harsh economic policies and aggravated insecurity situation of today are not addressed.
The NEF, like any other pressure group in any liberal democratic setting has responsibility to articulate on behalf of the people they represent. In the buildup to the 2023 presidential election, NEF announced through its Spokesperson, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, that the body “will subject all the candidates through a rigorous process and they had better be willing because, believe me, we carry the responsibility on our shoulders to advise people in the North where to go…we will exercise that responsibility seriously.”
And they did that in detailed interactive sessions with the major candidates at Arewa House, Kaduna. There was no better way to adumbrate a social contract between the people and those who aspire to serve in government; and the elders have been consistent on this.
To now canvass that northern elders or regional elders anywhere, have no locus to demand value for their electoral expectations is, to say the least, disrespectful and fraudulent. To say that NEF no longer has electoral value is to deny the existence of the building blocks that oil democracy.
Matawalle, apparently, felt spotlighted as the minister in charge of fighting terrorism. The failures are glaring because the killings are ongoing in Plateau and Kaduna. Zamfara and Katsina remain unsafe. The angry pushback against northern elders does not diminish the fact that performance in the area of insecurity is poor. It is also shortsighted to hurriedly discount the pristine place of elders in shaping and preserving group interests, just because governors have come of age and can steal elections. Or because the elders have become overbearing and insular.
In the countdown to the 2023 elections, former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, had similarly profiled and dismissed the northern elders as electoral paperweights, when he alleged there were conspiracies to deny power shift to the South.
In a chat with the BBC Hausa Service, he had taken umbrage at the elders when he boasted: “I am 63 too, I have children and grandchildren, I am also an elder. So, who are the Northern elders? They should come out and contest for elections. I was elected twice. Those claiming to be elders, ask them if they had ever contested for any election, even councillorship position. They are liars, it’s we the Northern Governors that are the real Northern elders and leaders of the region.”
El Rufai added: “The battleline is drawn, we are determined, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be the next President, and we will disgrace them.”
Of course, the governors prevailed, at a time the polity was confused and divided. The All Progressives Congress (APC), the elders and the Presidency couldn’t make up their mind on where to shift power. That was when the northern governors hijacked the process, not because they mean well for the polity. They mean well for themselves and needed to remain politically relevant post Buhari. It’s sad that El Rufai is yet to be compensated for his service.
It needs to be stated, before governors rewrite the history of the Fouth Republic, that when military rulers were made to leave the scene in 1998/99, they did not hand over to some errant and power-drunk civilian governors. They handed over to political parties that were licensed by the electoral commission as stated in the Constitution.
It was a sensitive matter because of what the polity suffered under Sani Abacha, and every segment of society was careful to ensure that the transition survived. The parties that emerged from that initial process were groomed by elders of the geo-political zones, particularly in the Southwest and in the North.
It took the Southwest a painstaking engagement, almost failing to meet deadline, to come up with what it considered the best deal for the zone. Before it agreed to register the Alliance for Democracy (AD), the elders (Afenifere) had gone to other regions, to seek alliances and partnerships that would enhance the region’s vision and development in the new dispensation.
When the elders were not satisfied, they returned home and proclaimed the AD. Majority of the people trusted the elders and surrendered their political future to them to manage on their behalf.
The northern elders have always been there, even in the days of the military. They have always influenced decisions that benefitted the region. It was therefore not a tough assignment for them to link up and establish the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the biggest and most resourced of the three foremost parties.
They reached out to like minds in the Southeast and South-south and that was it. The All Peoples Party (APP), as it was then, was also formidable, but not as endowed as the PDP in form and size.
The elders have done their bit to keep the polity alive. It is not true that they no longer have roles to play or value to add. It depends on how they present themselves and manage their interests. We cannot begin to deny the place of Northern Elders Forum, Afenifere, Middle Belt and South-south leaders and Ohanaeze Ndigbo, among others in this union called Nigeria. These were the building blocks upon which the union of Nigeria was negotiated.
It was foremost Nationalists (elders) who went to Lancaster House Conference, London in 1957 and 1958 to negotiate a federal Constitution and independence for Nigeria. The delegates represented different shades of tribes and tongues.
At every significant political epoch, when the polity needs revival, Nigerians return to their leaders (elders) to articulate and deliberate on the stakes and the way forward.
Unfortunately, today’s political office holders have no sense of history. They also lack a critical understanding of the notion power, beyond its roughness and material accruals. They talk and behave anyhow, someone said, like drunken sailors.
Last week, members of Afenifere assembled in Aso Rock for a solidarity visit to President Tinubu, after some militia wanted to take over Oyo State. History has documented the relationship between Afenifere and Tinubu. But just to reflect that Matawalle and El Rufai could have taken their lessons from Tinubu, in the manner they mishandle elders who paved the way for them to be where they are.
It was Afenifere that groomed the AD, whose ticket Tinubu and others used to access office in the six Southwest states in 1999. After four years, the young politicians disbanded Afenifere and attempted a replica they could easily manipulate. It was a poor imitation that has caused mortal impairment in the political family.
The damage done to Afenifere by that rebellion has been incalculable. The socio-political body is in tatters, segmented into partisan camps, whose miserly offerings do not sum up to the original concept that positioned Southwest as the shining example in leadership and development.
It is therefore a matter of curiosity, that it took a pack of poorly clad and imperfectly rehearsed infant revolutionaries, who desired to enthrone their notion of the Yoruba nation, to procure momentary limelight for remnant Afenifere in the court of Tinubu’s Presidency. All politics is local after all, and this could signal a new beginning.
The message is not lost. That as Nigeria totters under the dead weight of bad governance, insecurity, misery and distrusts across geo-political centres, the elders should not abandon the survival of the Union to election riggers.
We still need them to articulate for their regions and peoples. But they must be fair and not overly provincial in the debate for a better Nigeria.