By Elliot Uko
NIGERIANS are amused to no end once again as a section of the northern elite who despise President Goodluck Jonathan passionately, have once more embarked on their usual campaign for Jonathan albeit unwittingly, as usual.
The vituperations of both the Northern elders forum and the Northern delegates to the confab to wit that Jonathan should not run in the February 2015 elections. This is déjà vu is of the 2010/2011 Northern faux pas.
This excessive display of paranoia does not only suggest that the north has run out of ideas and arguments but it confirms that the Boko Haram madness is political.
Are our Northern brothers treading this familiar road because of their love for Nigeria? Or just a last ditch effort in the desperate battle for central power and insatiable hunger for eternal domination of the rest of Nigeria.
This is déjà vu, the last time our northern brothers took this road four years ago they only succeeded in frightening the rest of the country and forcing them to gather behind Jonathan. A mere repeat of the same road that didn’t pay any dividend. They terrorised him endlessly, gave him seven days to resign, chose a consensus candidate, and campaigned ferociously on religious and regional pedestal, all these failed. Then they promised to make Nigeria ungovernable. Jonathan is still trucking on.
The strategy of threat of soaking dog and baboon in blood is not capable of snatching power from Jonathan as only Nigerians will decide on 2015.
It’s amusing that those who are threatening to reject a new constitution cannot see that they would only be making a bigger mistake than their GREAT MISTAKE at the Jos PDP convention 15 year ago.
Fifteen years ago, the same people who are fiercely resisting restructuring Nigeria through a new constitution stormed Jos, to stop, a former vice president and the only man who would have handed over power to the North after four years. Instead they brought out from Yola prison their Northern choice who dealt them a blow the north is yet to recover from. Once again as the world watches, the North is about to seal her fate as she opposes the only open route to a peaceful stable and functional Nigerian a new constitution adopted at a referendum.
Their parochial mind tells them, that they would seize power and keep it forever, hence their preference for the unworkable status quo. A mistake for which they could pay dearly, sooner than later.
Reminds us of the great Northern mistake at the Jos PDP convention 15 years ago. What a déjà vu.
*Mr. Uko, a social critic, wrote from Enugu, Enugu State.


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north always deceiving themselves since 1914