By Bolanle BOLAWOLE
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There is a shadowy group of powerful Nigerians once described as the “owners of Nigeria”. They can be counted on our fingertips – not more than five of them. If you add their foot soldiers, then, they may be up to 10 or a dozen. They decide who rules and who does not. They decide the direction the country goes and which it does not. They decide what is and what is not. The destiny of the country – and of its citizens – is in their firm grips. They are our own Napoleon Bonarparte; when they sneeze, everyone catches a cold. If you read H. Rider Haggard’s “Ayesha: She, who must be obeyed” you will understand what they represent. Domineering, insatiable, they always want their wish to be our command (Does that title of a book sound familiar?).
These cabals are largely from the North: two are from Minna in Niger state while one is from Gusau, Zamfara state. They are all Fulani or minorities from the North who owe their meteoric rise in the military and the country’s political landscape to their allegiance to the Fulani and its cause. One is, well, from the South-west but whose ancestry remains a matter of conjectures and controversies. Let us assume, then, that he straddles the South-west and South-east!
The preponderance in, and dominance of, the Fulani/North in this shadowy group is testimony to the vice-like grip that the Fulani ethnic group, negligible as its population is, has on the destiny of the country called Nigeria. Little wonder, then, that the loquacious ones among them have often boasted that Nigeria is their inheritance, bequeathed to them by their fore-fathers! Nothing can be farther from the truth – but that is the hallucination that informs their “Aryan race” mentality that cannot be divorced from Nigeria’s fundamental problems! Hence, the struggle by some other ethnic groups that make up the country to exit it.
Taking advantage of the disquiet in the country as a result of the unimaginable suffering ravaging the land, the “owners of Nigeria” met recently after which one of them read what appeared as the communique of their meeting. A news medium reported the meeting of the retired generals thus:
“State of the Nation: Former military leaders, others meet in Minna behind closed doors. Three former military rulers and some other generals yesterday met behind closed doors in Minna, Niger State, over what many considered as the state of the nation.The trio were former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former military president Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, and former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Also at the meeting, which took place at the uphill residence of Babangida, was former National Security Adviser (NSA), General Aliyu Gusau. The trio were reported to have long been waiting for Obasanjo at the IBB mansion before he eventually arrived.
“Although details of the meeting were not known, it was speculated to be around the security situation in the country and the refusal of the PDP to sign a peace accord ahead of the Edo governorship election. It was gathered that the meeting lasted for about two hours, after which former President Obasanjo returned to Abuja. Obasanjo had arrived at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Airport, Minna at about 4.30pm in a GulfStream 5 aircraft believed to have been chartered and he departed in the same aircraft at about 6.30pm. He was received at the airport by some protocol officers from the Niger State Government House. The Niger State Government also provided the vehicles that took him to the uphill home of Babangida and back to the airport, while the same protocol officials saw him off at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu airport at about 7pm.” That was last week Tuesday, I think.
The security situation was a mere alibi; a smokescreen. There must be more to that meeting than meets the eyes. There is no “State of the nation” discussion these days that will not include the ongoing hardship in the land. Insecurity, yes: economic hardship, no less! Subterfuge and elements of surprise are time-honoured military tactics which cannot be lost on these old foxes as we shall soon see from another meeting addressed by one of the retired generals who had attended the first meeting. A news medium reported the event thus:
“Abdulsalami: Hardship getting out of control in Nigeria. Former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, has said the hardship in Nigeria is getting out of control and that the distribution of palliatives is not the way out but sustainable action to end the people’s suffering. The former Nigerian leader spoke at his residence in uphill Minna when he received the leadership of the Campaign for Democracy and Human Rights led by Comrade Abdullahi Mohammed Jabi.
“General Abdulsalami said ‘The hardship in the land is getting out of control. Everybody is crying about this hardship and it seems to get out of control. People cannot afford three square meals. The issue of transportation, the hike in fuel price, the hike in school fees for the children, and the lack of funds in everybody’s pocket make life difficult for everybody. I would like to inform you that in some of the proposals we have given to the government on another platform (he did not mention the platform), giving palliatives is not the answer to the high prices of food and other items in the country,” he added.
“While saying that ‘There is need for government to flood and saturate the communities with food, let them (Government) buy food and sell it at lesser prices to the people so that people will try to buy some of these food items, depending on their pocket/income,’ he reiterated that palliatives are not sustainable. He said their forum (he did not name the forum) had made recommendations to the federal government on the way out of the economic hardship in the land. He said ‘We have passed these recommendations to the government; we hope they will implement them’.
“Speaking also on the #Endbadgovernance protest slated for the 1st of October, 2024, Gen. Abdulsalami said ‘For God’s sake, when you demonstrate, do it peacefully’ ”.
So, you can see what we mean! There is no way the four generals would meet without the hardship in the land forming the kernel of discussion. But his Forum’s recommendation to the government to buy stuff and flood the market with them beggars the issue, just like the palliatives they had rightly said palliate nothing. We should be thinking of increasing our productive capacity now and shunning what we do not produce instead of encouraging mindless importation of stuff that piles more pressure on an already weakened Naira, impoverishes our local farmers and producers while helping to develop other nations’ economies.
The Forum referred to by Abdulsalami cannot be a new creation. In last week’s “Fear history”, we had quoted Obasanjo as referring to the same or similar shadowy group decades back. Saturday PUNCH newspaper report of August 20, 2016 with a screaming front page headline titled: “I and others brought Buhari to salvage Nigeria – Obasanjo”, ran the story thus: “Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he and four other eminent Nigerians brought President Muhammadu Buhari to salvage Nigeria from its current challenges. He said they took the decision when they felt that the country stood at a crossroads.
“Obasanjo said, ‘Three or four of us from different parts of the country got together and said to ourselves: what do we do? We said, what is the problem with us and why are we still not growing? We got talking and knew we needed to do something. What do we need to deal with, for this Nigeria of ours to become what God has created it to be? A land flowing with milk and honey; that is the intention of God for creating Nigeria…’ “. We should end the story there!
So, you can see that there are a few Nigerians who have vested themselves with the power and privilege to decide here what Professor Harold Lasswell defined as the very essence of politics: Who gets what, when, how! Is Abdulsalami’s verdict of last Thursday the considered opinion of the “owners” of Nigeria? I think so! Is it a vote of no confidence in the Tinubu administration? Yes, I think so! Is it a yellow card or a straight red? If it is yellow, then, President Tinubu still has the opportunity to make amends and keep his seat. If a straight red, then, the die is cast and the battle line drawn. It is then a question of when and not whether; a question of how and not if!
Except the Jagaban Borgu is able to meet force with force. Will Tinubu’s wily horse outsmart the generals’ smart foxes? Perhaps the Battle of Philippi will be sooner than expected. The valley of decision may be nearer than imagined. “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining”(Joel 3: 14 – 15).
But should we pause and look closely, we will see that those now posing as the messiahs of Nigerians were the same people whose tenure brought untold ruination on Nigerians and dug the pit that we today find ourselves in! The man who introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that began the merciless devaluation of the Naira; who handed us over to the IMF and the World Bank; who introduced the settlement syndrome, weakened the military to curtail military coups and frittered our Gulf War oil windfall!
The one under whose watch MKO Abiola died in detention in controversial circumstances: Ask him how he got to own his own hilltop residence!
And the one who entered office a pauper but left as one of Nigeria’s richest men; who spent the larger part of his second term in office fighting phantom wars against his deputy and whose third term fiasco littered the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly with bribe money!
These are the men pretending to be our messiah today! When they had the opportunity to salvage the nation, they savaged it instead, fiddling like King Nero. In saner climes, their voices would be muted for ever and they would not be bold enough to show face in public, as they say.
Now that someone else is trying – although clumsily – to clean their Augean stable, their highfalutin pontifications will not let us hear word, again, as they say. With saviours like these, no one needs a messiah!
FEEDBACK
I read your piece on Ajaero with a smile. It seems you are forecasting the end of the matter! How far do you think the police can push their case against Ajaero? Those of us watching from the sidelines know that two laws operate in Nigeria: one for the poor and the other for the rich. Ajaero is a member of the latter group and this will be on top of the issue at the end of the day. Let’s wait for the drama that will envelop Ajaero and the police! As for ASUU, the government should be proactive in attending to the problems in the universities and not wait till there is a threat of strike action before the minister starts thinking of what to do. ASUU should also know that it has overused the weapon of strikes to the detriment of the entire nation. It should now explore dialogue to its elasticity limit in resolving issues with the government. – Oripeloye Henri.
* Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/ Editor-in-chief of The WESTERNER newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday TRIBUNE and TREASURES column in NEW TELEGRAPH newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television