Propelled to power by a delicate merger of his traditionally conservative northern Muslim support base working hand-in-gloves with the progressives of swing states in the South West and a formidable force of disgruntled liberal elements that broke out of the former ruling party, PDP, notwithstanding, Muhammadu Buhari has largely narrowed his presidency to the interest of his original support base, riding on the populist crest of a wave of ethno-religious consciousness that swept through the Muslim North shortly after the transition from military rule to civil democratic governance in 1999, which also meant a shift of power from the North to the South after 20 straight years (1979 to 1999) with the brief interlude of Ernest Shonekan’s 88 days Interim National Government.
By that time, the North had become used to power and the privileges that come with it. The elite of the North relished power to such as an extent that most could not economically survive without government. The period between 1993 and 1998, when Sani Abacha ruled Nigeria, witnessed an unprecedented high level of sectionalism, which was dubbed “Arewa Agenda” by critics of government. From the selection of military commanders to appointments into the Provisional Ruling Council (the highest executive decision-making organ) and state military administrators, the North was privileged to have a disproportionate share against the South. Several other “juicy” federal government MDAs were similarly colonised by northern elements. Together with Abacha’s sectionalism, the political crisis emanating from the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election by then head of state, Ibrahim Babangida, that was believed to have been won by Chief MKO Abiola, a businessman and politician from the south of Nigeria, his subsequent incarceration and death (all sad incidents under northern rulers) necessitated the shift of power to the South in order to assuage deep feelings of resentment that threatened the continuous existence of Nigeria as one nation.
Beginning from 1999, in an attempt to give every section of the Nigerian nation a sense of belonging, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration instituted an economic management of resources that was predicated on a carefully evolved political strategy that redistributed government appointments across board, as well as physical development and general patronage through the mechanism of zoning and rotation of top public offices. This process ensured an equitable distribution of resources among the governing elite at the time that resulted in a considerable level of political stability and economic prosperity. However, a redistribution of state resources equitably meant a drastic reduction in the excess baggage from state capture by the northern region that was disproportionally favoured in the years preceding 1999. For a people that had over time become imbued with an enlarged sense of entitlement of first choice of refusal over the resources of the Nigerian state and a “born to rule” mentality, the equitable distribution of state resources to reflect federal character meant marginalisation.
In reaction to the new liberal order, the conservative North coalesced under a rising feeling of ethno-religious regional nationalism. The first in the series of moves towards challenging the new order was the launch of the Sharia legal code in Zamfara State in January 2000 with other states following almost immediately. By March 2000, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) was formed in Kaduna as a political northern regional pressure group that championed the myth that the North was being marginalised under the new order. The convergence of politics and religion in the North birthed a new far-right political culture that was heavily dependent on the sentiments of ethno-religious and regional nationalism. Unable to bear the new order, ACF and other groups and individuals from the North were already asking for a return of power to the North as early as 2002. With liberal elements in the North firmly committed to the new order and fidelity to the power shift arrangement that oscillates power between the North and South every eight years, which meant an unchallenged second term for Olusegun Obasanjo, Muhammadu Buhari would step forward to champion the course of the conservative North.
A former military head of state and prominent figure in the Sani Abacha junta as head of the juicy Petroleum Trust Fund, Buhari became a strong voice in defence of northern, Fulani and Muslim interests, as a regional ethno-religious champion. He openly supported the introduction of Sharia law in Nigeria and on was quoted as admonishing Muslims to vote fellow Muslims who can protect their interests in government. As a chieftain of the Fulani ethnic group, Buhari never pretended about the right of his kinsmen to graze openly and unrestricted anywhere in Nigeria. And he eventually put himself forward to wrest power from Obasanjo in 2003, the entire Muslim North filed behind him in its bid to take power back from the South. That was the beginning of Buhari’s hero status, mass following and eventual cult of personality in the North.
Unfortunately, Buhari’s rise to political prominence also negatively transformed the northern political landscape from conservative to ultra-conservative far-right leanings. In a clear departure from a political culture in the North that was significantly liberal despite the conservative nature of the people, the region became reactionary and ultra-conservative. A liberal North that voted massively for Abiola, a southern presidential aspirant, against Bashir Tofa, a fellow northerner, in the annulled June 12 election and agreed in 1999 to cede power to the South for the sake of unity and stability has been supplanted by an ultra-conservative North that now aligns its democratic choice with regional ethno-religious sentiments. This new northern political culture would reflect in voting patterns during the 2003, 2011 and 2015 presidential elections when the contest was between a northern Muslim and southern Christian. Welcome to Buhari’s North.
Eventually, in 2015, when Buhari’s North prevailed as a result of its merger of forces with disgruntled northern liberals who were dissatisfied with Goodluck Jonathan’s violation of the zoning formula within the PDP, expectations of a better life for the mass of his devoted followers were high. Buhari did meet some expectations. His obvious sectionalism in favour of his Muslim northern regional base is reflected in his disproportionate number of appointments and other forms of government patronage reminiscent of the pre-1999 era. The fact that three years into Buhari’s administration nothing seems to have changed for the better in the life of an average northerner, but rather things have become worse, clearly exposes the folly of sectionalism.
Despite appointing more northerners into Nigeria’s security services (Defence and Interior), insecurity in the North has heightened to unprecedented levels in recent history, making it the most dangerous part of Nigeria today. Northern Nigeriam farmers, like their southern counterparts, are not protected from the onslaught of killer herdsmen, while cattle breeders are also left at the mercy of armed cattle rustlers who have greatly decimated their livestock. That Zamfara State is the home of the minister of defence, Mansur Dan Ali, did not prevent bandits from killing hundreds of people in his backyard. Similarly, that Chief of Army Staff Yusuf Buratai and National Security Adviser Mohammed Munguno are from Borno State has not resulted in the defeat of Boko Haram insurgency or prevented the Dapchi schoolgirls’ abduction. That Buhari appointed himself minister of petroleum, Maikanti Baru, a northerner, as GMD of the NNPC and about 15 other northerners into strategic positions in the oil and gas sector didn’t prevent an acute fuel shortage that resulted in “12 million” northerners paying double the official price. Despite the appointment of Adamu Adamu, a northerner and veteran journalist with accounting background, as the substantive minister of education and a university professor from the South as his subordinate, it has not reduced the number of out-of-school children (about 10 million) roaming the streets of northern Nigeria.
By the end of his first four-year mandate as President, Buhari would not have succeeded in solving any of the North’s most fundamental problems of educational backwardness, economic underdevelopment, insecurity and a diseased population. This is so because no part of Nigeria can be developed under a sectional agenda but under a pan-Nigeria framework. There are no separate interest rate, exchange rate, foreign policy, etc, for different regions. Sectionalism is only a form of political protectionism deployed by Buhari’s northern political establishment to guard against poaching from their southern rivals. By pandering to their ethno-religious and regional sensibilities, the mass of uneducated and bigoted followers are kept in the line of loyalty and devotion to the cause of political domination. Of what use is political power without economic development?