YAR’ADUA DUMPS NORTHERN PROGRESSIVES FOR SURVIVAL

by Farouk Martins Aresa

The conspicuous pursuit of Northern progressives who had worked across the Niger with their fellow Nigerians is disturbing to say the least. There is a message here. No matter whom you are, even if you have blue blood in you and you play what they characterized as some Robin Hood, the conservatives will catch up with you and deal with you severely.

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These are the same people who were complicit or sat idly by as Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’adua was wasted. They, including Obasanjo, also dictated to Babangida not to hand over power to Abiola. Immediately Gowon took over, the first thing he did was to reassure them. Though a flagrant display of power obvious to all, it has to be restated to emphasis their influence in our memories.

The debate has gone on for a long time about who are the progressives in Nigeria. Generally they belonged to Aminu Kano’s PRP or Tarka’s camps in the North and those who were in Azikiwe or Awolowo’s camps; some of whom later became Governors of their respective mini states. But that in itself can be a simplistic classification, in view of those like Wada Nas who was one of the disciples of Aminu Kano that later became a staunch supporter of Abacha until the end.

In the same vein, the South-south of the Country became part of the conservatives out of fear of domination by their neighbors while the North-central generally voted as progressives. But the military rulers from the same North-central had alway s aligned with the conservatives. So any attempt to generalize has its own fault lines. It may be fair to say that most of the Northern progressives are themselves products of conservative North that have defied that tag in place of pragmatic politics, trying to unite the Country by democratic means.

It is in light of this we must view where Shehu Yar’Adua the brother of our present President belonged. There is no doubt that Shehu Yar’Adua, and Atiku as one of his disciples were progressives who had extended their hands across the Niger in SDP. It is not even a stretch to say that the death of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua in the hands of Abacha and his colleagues in the Army created a sympathy vote for his brother that led to his selection as the PDP Presidential candidate.

Some of the finders of PRP’s Umaru Yar’Adua as Presidential candidates are themselves young Northern progressive by the lose camp defined above. Moreover, these finders were young, educated and popular in the North and South. For exactly these reasons, they are not trusted in the North by the conservatives. Many of them are seen as rebels who are ready to give, take20or bargain power away in favor of the Southern progressives.

This alliance between Northern and Southern progressive youths had been taking shape for a long time. It came out of university movements where professors and students combined their affinity to define the future of Nigeria as they had hoped. Some of these graduates, as Ojukwu, joined the military. However, the conservative climate in Nigeria cannot be easily displaced. In view of this analysis, we wonder what went wrong with the great prospect of PRP’s Umaru.

Judging by what is going on in Umaru Yar’Adua Administration these days, it is very difficult to say that he has not been magnanimous and forgiven those who took the life of his brother, Shehu. According to Islamic doctrine, it is written that his brother would die the way he did, Insha Allah. Nevertheless, some of us cannot but watch in amazement under his reign how he has deserted these courageous progressives of his brother and the young progressives that are being hunted.

Politics have neither permanent friends nor foes, your enemy’s enemy may become your friend.

It must be hastily added that chasing the supporter of Obasanjo is not necessarily an unwise prosecution because we want each administration to balance the prosecution of its predecessor but not out of blatant spite. What we do not want is using firing squad to eliminate small petty thieves while the crooks get away. That insult our intelligence in the name of due process. We are not sure if the President is loyal to his colleagues as a former governor, those who threatened him with a coup d'état or both against the interest of Nigeria. Speculations were rife if Yar’Adua had lost his election on those who were ready to take over, before Supreme Court’s confirmation.

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The bottom line may be his survival. All through the different camps we know who the winners and the losers. The most prominent among the winners are Babangida, a special goodwill envoy to Guinea glorifying coup d’état he had said was old fashion in Africa. Ibori who is identified as fun ding his campaign with Niger Delta allocation, predicted each stage of prior EFCC downfall. Tinubu who was the first AC member to support him against the wish of the party he co-funded, now parading himself as a Yoruba leader. Etc . No matter what, this cannot be in the interest of Nigeria because these are spent forces that never benefited our Country in the past.

The impression in many parts of the Country is that EFCC is no longer after these former governors whose immunity have expired but we are now chasing what can be considered lesser petty criminals. It must be pointed out that during the time of Obasanjo some people felt that way too, except that the victims and fear of EFCC were equally spread across Nigeria. Now sacred cows are back bigger than ever and nobody dares touch any friend of Yar’Adua like EFCC did to those of OBJ who were slammed. After all, their defense lawyer is now the Attorney General.

We can spare Yar’Adua this guilt by association, but show me your friends and we can make our own assumptions. There may be comfort in silver lining of the association, friendship or party amongst Atiku, Tinubu and Ojukwu to check PDP spread if it turns out to be true. They will find their match in Ojukwu as a formidable, equal and opposite force to reckon with as in Aburi.

It was Balarabe Musa who had warned us not to expect anything better from Umaru Yar’Adua. For one thing, he deserves the name of Baba-Go-Slow. It seems Nigeria has not moved forward and others claimed that we are moving backwards. The triple headed evil of corruption is still with us and former governors are walking majestically free to emulate. The fear of being caught for corruption by the powerful and the mighty is gone. We are back to status quo that has never worked in our interest. How much Nigerians can take before the last straw breaks the camel’s back is anybody’s guess. The camel has been carrying too heavy a load for a very long time.

The progressives in the North like those in the South supported Yar’Adua because he is the least of all the other evils lea ders. We justify it by the fact that he is the first educated Executive Head of State Aminu Kano PRP Nigeria has ever produced. Those progressives in the North and South think that he would be a thoughtful and pragmatic ruler based on his academic substance. Others wonder about what makes him tick and if he is aware of what is going on around him. I bet he is.

This analysis is quite reasonable, i was beginning to wonder whether i am not seeing things clearly.

I think that one of Yar'dua's really big mistake will be to leave behind a country with even a sharper divide along ethnic/religious/ideological lines. You can see the perception of some on his stand on the Jos issue. Look at the concentration of his power base, to me these are very stupid mistakes, they will flare ethnic and religious sentiments. They are already building up.

OBJ was smart enough to concentrate his power base, not in Yoruba nor Afenifere but in the PDP, elevating the party to the strongest force in the land. That provided a base for generality, he had alliances with individual from various parts of the country and you cannot accuse him of favoring even the Yorubas in appointment. This guy(Yar'dua) doesn't even understand the hole he is digging for himself. I guess the system will heat up gradually and by 2011, ethnicity will become of greater interest to voters(assuming their vote will count). The suffocating frustration he is creating is already paying off with the reported Atiku/Ken Nnamani/Tinubu alliance. This is just 2009. More will come, even from the progressive northerners who see future in healing instead of exacerbating ethnic and religious divides.

I dont like some of OBJ's policy but i love his statecraft and native wisdom, his courage and ability to get things done(Odi bombing and stemming the incessant plane crashes included)

Remember what Vincent Ogbulafor said after the 'interesting' ruling last December, "at least, we can now begin to work together as a party". I guess he meant more.