2023 Presidency: The ‘Blackmail’ Of South West And South East Leaders

Southern Governors Forum

 If there any doubt that the North is Nigeria’s overlord, the speed with which the South West and South East leaders moved to dissociate themselves from the few sections of their peoples advocating for secessions from Nigeria because the North demands for that from them dispelled that.

Remember that no one made similar demands from Northern leaders in the run-up to the 2015 presidential election even though Boko Haram killings and destruction of property were at their height for which many Nigerians rejected the reelection bid of incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. Boko Haram wants a Caliphate run under Islamic law, yet no one demanded from Northern politicians to publicly denounce the group and declare their support for one secular Nigeria.

I support one Nigeria in which there is justice, peace, and equity, but to be literarily compelled to do that by the Northern political elites who are now using the 2023 presidency as a bet to browbeat Southern leaders in line is what is objectionable and in bad faith.

As a matter of fact it is the Southern leaders that ought to have levied the Northern leaders to declare if they still want to be part of Nigeria because of the activities of its people who have been terrorizing the country as Boko Haram, killer herdsmen, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and bandits and have made Nigerians the most terrorized people in the world. The Northern leaders are the ones that ought to be apologetic that their kinsmen whether as Nigerian herders or foreign herders have spread killings, kidnapping, raping of women and destruction of farmlands to the South in a manner never seen before. The North ought to have been told to rein in its children making this country ungovernable and also state whether they support the Islamic Caliphate that Boko Haram wants to create or the Islamic State West Africa that ISWAP wants to create with Nigeria as its headquarters or whether they still want to be part of Nigeria. Strangely it is the North that has been exporting terrorism throughout the country that is making demands on the Southern leaders to show their loyalty to one Nigeria. And the Southern leaders have obliged them because they are jostling for 2023 presidency. And they have been made to apologize for the ‘sins’ of their children advocating self determination.

Self-determination is recognized by international law as legitimate aspiration approved by the United Nations and African Charter on Peoples Right which has been domesticated in Nigeria thereby making it part of Nigerian laws that ought to be respected. This is what the Southern leaders are apologetic about.

While this author believes in Nigeria and that the country could still be salvaged if our leaders do the right thing, it is important to interrogate the reason why Sunday Igboho began to agitate for Oduduwa Republic and why IPOB that had been largely peaceful in its agitations over the years, which was the reason the rest of the world did not agree with President Muhammadu that it is a terrorist organization, became violent through the so-called militant wing, Eastern Security Network (ESN). The reasons are not farfetched.

The killer herdsmen’s menace in the South West, which the federal government failed to address, made people like Igboho in the South West take matters into their own hands to protect their land and people. Having seen that the government appears more sympathetic to the herders than to the host communities, how do you blame those who may feel that Nigeria is not worth being a part of and thus want a separate country. A similar thing also played out in the South East where the killer herders were killing and maiming with impunity and on few occasions where they were arrested they were soon released thereby arousing anger and bitterness against the state for failing in its responsibility.

The failure of South East Governors to emulate the South West Governors that established and gave legal bite to Omotekun to address the insecurity in their zone created a vacuum that non state actors like IPOB began to fill. The ESN at onset, from what we read in the mainstream and social media, was to confront the killer herders and protect their people. How they later turned to the killing of police personnel, burning down of police stations, and INEC offices beats ones imagination. Although one is not unmindful of the capacity of the Nigerian state to infiltrate such an organization and remake it in its own image. We saw it play out during the #EndSARS protests where the protests was very peaceful and orderly for which the organizers received tons of praises, till government imported thugs in Abuja and Lagos and turned the peaceful protests into a violent ones and the same government turned around and clamped down on the protesters saying the protests have been hijacked.

Therefore what the South West and South East leaders were apologizing for was the failure of leadership by the federal government dominated by the North especially in the area of security that was at the centre of anger in both zones of the South. The first to organize a meeting for the dissociation of themselves from the Oduduwa Republic agitators is the front-runner in the 2023 presidential ticket in the All Progressives Congress (APC) platform and former governor of Lagos State Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

On May 23 at the behest of APC national leader Tinubu, the APC leaders in the South West gathered to dissociate themselves from separatist agitators and declared their faith in one Nigeria even as they called on the Federal Government to ensure devolution of powers to the federating units to address Nigeria’s instability.

Party leaders at the meeting were APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; former APC Interim National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande; former Ogun State Governor, Chief Segun Osoba; House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila; Governors Babajide Sanwo-Olu (Lagos), Gboyega Oyetola (Osun), and Dapo Abiodun (Ogun); Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Niyi Adebayo; former APC South-West Vice Chairman, Pius Akinyelure; and elder statesman, General Alani Akinrinade (retd). Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and his Ekiti State counterpart, Dr. Kayode Fayemi were, however, absent at the meeting. It was largely because of 2023 presidency that could have made Tinubu and the South West leaders succumb to the Northern antics.

That of the South East was even more pathetic and at the same time well orchestrated by the North. First Northern women held poorly attended rally at Abuja, saying that Federal Government should allow the Igbos to go and form their Biafra. It was shortly followed by Coalition of Northern Groups (remember them, the untouchables who issued quit notice to Igbos in the North in the past) addressed a press conference where they say that they can no longer inhabit the same country with the Igbo, saying the National Assembly should jettison the ongoing constitutional amendment and hold referendum for Biafra to leave Nigeria. Following on the heels of the Coalition of Northern Groups which are seen as speaking for Northern youths came the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) whose spokesman Hakeem Baba-Ahmed was doing media runs from one television house to another saying that Igbo should be allowed to leave Nigeria through a referendum and demanded that the Igbo leaders must condemn IPOB and ESN and declare whether they are for one Nigeria or Biafra. With that they obfuscated the political and social discourse in the country even as killings was unabated in the North that should ordinarily be the NEF concern. The Igbo succumbed. And on June 18, 2021, the Igbo leaders including the state governors gathered in Enugu to declare that they are for one Nigeria. The North wins ones again against the South as it has continued to do since 1953 after the discovery of oil in the Niger Delta, when it insisted that unless it was given half of the seats in the Parliament it would secede from Nigeria. How much more would the Southern leaders concede to convince Buhari that the region deserves the Presidency in 2023? Support for the implementation of grazing reserves and grazing areas in the South? Only time will tell!