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The Goodluck Jonathan political narrative, now consummated in his formal declaration to pursue the presidency, is anchored on the twin ideas of keeping the Boko Haram (BH) insurgency alive and making religion an electoral issue within the context of his supposed political reformation of Nigeria. It is now common knowledge that the beneficiaries of this narrative both economically and politically are located within the North-West/South-East/South-South axis, with the NW virtually getting all of its demands on how to re-launch Nigeria accepted by delegates at Jonathan’s National Conference.
In the First Republic, the North East (and parts of the Middle Belt) was the epicenter of opposition to the NPC with its headquarters in the North-West while the Western Region occupied the place of ideological and parliamentary opposition. With Boko Haram’s epicenter of operations now located in the NE, it is very clear that that Jonathan’s strategic goal is to render the Region politically impotent, thereby ensuring the dominance of the NW in the North’s political calculus. The way this works out is that the Jonathan presidency is able to retain the scions of the NW political establishment in power while it continues to ascribe Boko Haram’s successes to a supposed backing if not direct enablement by the opposition. In this scenario the Jonathan Presidency itself is a victim and is entitled to blame everyone, including the international community, about its ineffectual campaign against the Boko Haram insurgency. This will assure him of a deal with the NW. Meanwhile the SW will remain the only Region “outside the fold.” The “rush” into the PDP currently being engineered by a few pro-Jonathan politicians from a group of one-time followers of Awolowo political group in the SW, with an eye into “capturing” Lagos should be seen therefore as a move to corral the SW into the Jonathan narrative of politics of power and personal survival.
Yet this narrative is being played out without any element of democracy, even though generally dressed in the garb of electoral democracy. On the contrary, it has all the signs of creeping fascism. Jonathan’s faction of the PDP neutralized the Obasanjo faction in the SW by negating democratic principles, to the point of ignoring judicial pronouncements. Other instances were his illegal use of the military and police in Ekiti and Osun; his imposition of Ayo Fayose and Iyiola Omisore as the PDP governorship candidates in Ekiti and Osun respectively. Emboldened by the imperial backing of Jonathan, both candidates proceeded to act as occupying blackshirt commanders rather than politicians seeking a popular mandate. In Ekiti, a sitting high court judge was physically assaulted in Ayo Fayose’s presence and on his alleged instruction. In Osun, Iyiola Omisore continuously derided a pending judicial matter, whose outcome would have meant banishment from political office.
Such contemptuous treatments of the judiciary and abuse of the justice system are traceable to Goodluck Jonathan himself. Some of Goodluck Jonathan’s better known examples include the unconstitutional removal of Justice Ayo Salami from his role as Justice of the Court of Appeal, the removal of the then governor of Central Bank, Lamido Sanusi, for his questioning of the management of the nation’s oil money. Less an attack on institutions, but no less vexatious is the administration’s mix-messages over its handling of the Boko Haram insurgency. Less than 48 hours after the military’s Chief of Defense Staff announced that a ceasefire agreement had been reached with the murderous group, a further raid and seizure of citizens, men and women, was carried out in parts of the North East. Since the so-called “ceasefire”, the BH has taken over more territories. Notwithstanding all this, both the minister of defense and the national security adviser are still at their jobs, while President Jonathan asks Muslim leaders in the North to “fight” Boko Haram at the same time he accuses the opposition party, APC, as Boko Haram’s enabler.
Furthermore, the Goodluck Jonathan presidency introduced the religious card; yet the Yoruba are well-known for their religious tolerance and harmony. This is not only in their attitude to Christianity and Islam, but also implicit in their belief system and ways of life. It is no accident that the Yoruba traditional religion is made up of multiple deities and multiple worship systems, each of which is believed to have as much validity as the other. The traditional notion among the Yoruba that religion is more of a private matter than a political one explains why even after decades of received religions in the Yoruba region, husbands and wives cohabit as Muslims and Christians amicably. It is becoming increasingly clear that a key element of the Jonathan strategy in the SW is to undo this settled belief and attitude about religion. Mr Jonathan’s foot-soldiers are all over the southwest playing the religious card, claiming to be voicing the resentments of Yoruba Christians.
The truth is that while we might have had our own deranged proselytizers, of both Christian and Muslim varieties, the Yoruba have historically been at home and at peace in the matter of religion. For us the motto is faith is jolly good as long as it does not get in the way of social progress and human achievement. Nothing must be done to unsettle the unstated but heavily implied consensus in Yorubaland that religion is personal and should stay as such.
It should be obvious that behind the orchestrated Christian versus Muslim issue in Yoruba politics is a calculated move to subvert what is left of radical political tradition in Yorubaland, if not a wholesale overwhelming of the region. This is to make it possible for those who would rather like Nigeria to be kept in a state of permanent underdevelopment – unable to protect its citizens or achieve its potential as a possible beacon of enlightenment for the rest of the African continent to have their way. For all our difficulties, the Yoruba remain a glass is half-empty rather than a glass is half-full in our collective understanding of politics and nation building. Everything must be done to protect that tradition of plurality of perspective and tolerance of difference.
For all the supposed complexity of managing Nigeria, the roots of many of the country’s current political difficulties are traceable to the failures of past years, especially the subversion in the First Republic of the constitutional and democratic order put in place at independence. It is worth stressing, not least for the education of those who now speak of the present moment as if it was exceptional, that the Independence Constitution was a negotiated document that was mutually agreed by all the nationalist-political leaders of the day. That it was subverted shortly after independence by those feudal elite whose political interests had been promoted by the British in the run up to independence is the real issue at the heart of Nigeria’s failure, not the unworkability of the Independence Constitution.
To all intents and purposes, the Jonathan presidency is following in the same but thoroughly discredited tactic of using a crisis, in this case Boko Haram insurgency, which it has failed to address, as the leitmotif for its own continuation in office. Had Nigeria built a truly democratic culture, such a declaration would have been inconceivable. The recent governorship election in Ekiti and Osun states respectively showed how the Jonathan presidency might ‘capture’ the South-west to return its incumbent to power. We would do well to resist the violence that is surely to be unleashed at the elections by extending the lessons learned from Osun state to the rest of Yorubaland. All that we want is for our people to be allowed to exercise their democratic right as they want, and in a free and fair atmosphere.
Demanding answers from our own leaders, however the demand is phrased, must therefore not be misconstrued as an invitation to those less historically developed than us in matter of society and politics to come and sweep leaders currently representing our tradition of progressive politics away. We do not need outsiders to do our duty for us. Those who sought in the past, often with good but misguided intentions, to use the template of others outside our culture to ‘liberate’ us ended in abysmal failure. None was more so than the brilliant late Colonel Victor Banjo who collaborated with the ill-fated Republic of Biafra.
If Yoruba leaders are to protect and support Yorubaland effectively in the years ahead, they will need to demonstrate that they understand and respect Yoruba history and ideas of state formation and use that to commit themselves to the idea of True Federalism for the whole of Nigeria.
For the Yoruba, the 2015 presidential election is not only about who is preferable as president, but also about what sort of country do the Yoruba want to belong? This is a vital question if the Yoruba energy and resources are to be mobilized and channeled towards meeting many of the challenges that lie ahead of us as a people and culture.
Hence,”ooduapathfinder“ calls on the SWAPC, National APC and whoever emerges as the Presidential candidate to commit to returning Nigeria to the 1963 Constitution, with the necessary adjustments/changes, especially in terms of Regions and commit to use its legislative forces, both at the National and Regional levels to neutralize any form of Constitutional amendment by NASS and the Jonathan presidency to enthrone further unitarization of Nigeria in the event of its being tabled before the 2015 election.
Furthermore, “ooduapathfinder”, in association with others, is Convening the “Yoruba Parliament”, as a Standing but non-official body whose task include, among others, preparations for a Yoruba Constitutional Convention to ratify the Yoruba Constitution, the Draft of which is once again, published in the “Messages” section.