The mirage of ‘one Nigeria’ is fast fading as ethnicity and religious difference have taken prominence in our national life. Encouraged by the actions, and statements of the country’s leadership, Nigerians have been forced to “take a side.” Most Nigerians have become disconnected from the country partly due to the subtle messages that the Nigerian elite have passed, directly or indirectly.
Following the Easter sermon by the Catholic Archbishop of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah, and the vicious response by the Presidency, it is important to cite some examples that show that Kukah is correct.
If we start from President Buhari’s 97 percent vs 5 percent utterance in 2015, so many people have taken their cue from that: Danladi Umar, the chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), fell short of moral conduct when he victimised a security guard at a shopping complex and in his defence, reached for the ethnic stick. Yet, he remains the chairman of the CCT, more than a year after the incident.
As long as we run this system where there is a belief that some animals are more equal than others on the basis of ethnic, religious, or party affiliation, we will not make any progress, …
IPOB, a nefarious group of noise-makers, had not taken up arms against the Nigerian state as at the time they were proscribed. Contrast that with the government’s reticence to proscribe various bandit groups in the North, or the failure of the government to go after Fulani herdsmen after massacres in Benue despite groups such as the Miteyyi Allah Cattle Breeders Association owning those attacks.
A state that shows that some of its citizens are superior to some others – where the same sets of laws do not apply equally to everyone – is bound to breed a low-trust state such as Nigeria. This inevitably makes most people retreat to their ethnic enclaves feeling that it’s the only way they’d get to share in the “goodies” of the state.
This has shown up in the incident around the Obafemi Awolowo University, nominally one of the country’s best. Michael Ukonu, a senior lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, captured this clearly when he spoke with BusinessDay about the kerfuffle regarding the appointment of a non-Ife indigene to head the OAU.
Ukonu said, “The problem is that most political umpires use their offices to direct resources and dividends of democracy towards religious and ethnic inclinations, hence, benefiting some specific zones both at the federal, state and local government levels at the expense of others, thereby creating the impression that that is how things should be.
“The systematic scenario to sideline people from the system brings about the agitations we see in various federal universities. They are not agitating because their person can perform better but for inclusiveness in the system.”
Ukonu’s statement explains the reason why Ile-Ife indigenes protested the appointment of Adebayo Bamire, as the substantive vice-chancellor of the OAU despite the fact that Prof. Bamire emerged tops at the end of the selection process. He was deemed unfit simply because he is not an indigene of Ile-Ife, despite the fact that he is a native of Oyan in Odo-Otin LGA in the same Osun State.
For the record, in 2003, such an ethnic protest followed the emergence of my father, Professor E.A.C Nwanze, as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Benin, precisely because he is ethnic Igbo. But the national leadership at the time insisted on the right thing being done, and so it was. 20 years later, things have gotten worse simply because people are taking dressing from the kind of leadership we have had.
Nominally, it should be an aberration that Professor Rufus Adedoyin, a professor of physiotherapy, who did not even emerge among the top three after the selection process is being preferred on ethnic grounds.
But then, this is expected as, for example, the leadership of the country’s security architecture is dominated by Northerners. The Director-General of the State Security Services, Yusuf Bichi; the three successive Inspectors-General of Police appointed by President Buhari; the National Security Adviser to the President, retired Major General Babagana Monguno; the three chiefs of army staff under Buhari; the chief of naval staff, Awwal Zubairu; and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Rufa’i are all Northerners.
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As this stands, there are fears of domination of the country by one ethnic group. The direct implication of this is that there is heightened suspicion and animosity between the Fulani and other ethnic groups in the country and many more people are retreating into their ethnic tents.
Sadly, it is not just the ethnic inequalities that have been allowed to proliferate under the Buhari government. Favouritism for members of the President’s party has also sown discord, and it is almost certain that there will be no justice for an aggrieved person if the offender is either in the ruling APC or joins up. For example, in November 2020, not long after he was caught on camera assaulting a shopkeeper, Adamawa senator, Elisha Abbo, joined the APC. He still walks around freely.
As long as we run this system where there is a belief that some animals are more equal than others on the basis of ethnic, religious, or party affiliation, we will not make any progress, because it is important for everyone to have a sense that they are all playing by the same rules. In Buhari’s Nigeria, that sense does not exist.
Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence
