Minorities, Jonathan presidency and Isyaku Ibrahim’s bigotry

THE  extended interview granted by Alhaji Isyaku Ibrahim, who was a member of the Nigerian Parliament in the 1960s, published in the Sun newspaper of Saturday, August 14, 2010, is an outright diatribe on the minorities of this country, President Goodluck Jonathan and some prominent Nigerians of Southern extraction.

It is nothing more than an attempt at getting cheap political popularity and a feeling of relevance through the newspaper. It is, to say the least, condemnable!

But then, Ibrahim’s unfortunate position which he canvassed with unabashed relish, would appear to flow from a mindset that is contemptuous of ethnic minorities wherever they are in the country, particularly minorities of the South-South geo-political zone.

At the end of that interview, Ibrahim succeeded in doing only one thing- that is demonstrating his deep-seated frustrations arising from his failure to re-launch himself back to the epicentre of power since he lost out in 1983.

Only frustration could have led Ibrahim into the blunder of making the categorical assertion that “Jonathan would lose the 2011 election, if he contests”. Asked how, and his answer was: “I am so sure because it has never happened in the political history of the world where a minority will override the wishes of the majority”.

He does not believe that Jonathan should be in Aso Rock because his notion of democracy is narrowly majoritarian to the exclusion of justice, equity, fairness, rights and such other essentials of a true democratic system.

The warped character of Isyaku Ibrahim’s reasoning became obvious when he argued that “Kano and Kaduna are more than the South-South. So if 70 million are going to be registered, tell me where Jonathan will clear 20 million votes to back him?”

How can a man who claims to be vaster in politics than Tony Anenih and Olusegun Obasanjo ever assume that the entire electorate of Kano and Kaduna would vote for the opponent of Jonathan?

Does Ibrahim have any idea of the pattern of voting and the process that produced President Obasanjo in 1999 and 2003 or, indeed, the distribution of votes that brought the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua into power in 2007?

Ibrahim couldn’t have followed these political trends because he was too busy looking for  sources of making cheap money. Those who knew him in those days don’t need any reminder of the man’s kind of business, how he made his money and what money did to him in return.

It is an established fact that in our political history, there have been men and women who used the cover of politics to indulge in all manner of shady and ignoble businesses believing that the end justifies the means. And, some of them have become extremely rich.

Those dishonest businessmen and women in the corridors of power are responsible for the unfortunate economic and political mess in which we find ourselves today. The good thing is that Nigerians know them in and out, and who is who.

For the information of Ibrahim – if he is still capable of learning – in the 1999 Presidential elections, Olusegun Obasanjo (PDP) scored 18,738,154 (62.78%) while Olu Falae (AD–APP coalition) scored 11,110,289 (37.33%). In  2003, Obasanjo (PDP) scored 24,456,140 (61.94%), Muhammadu Buhari (ANPP) polled 12,710,022 (32.19%) while  Odumegwu Ojukwu (APGA) had 1,297,445.

In 2007, the pattern was the same: Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (PDP) polled 24,638,063; Muhammadu Buhari (ANPP) scored 6,605,299 (18.2%) while Atiku Abubakar (AC) had 2,637,848 (7.47%). Let us compare the votes of the North-West (the zone with the highest population) with those of the South-South.

The table shows that in all the elections, votes from the South-South were overwhelmingly higher than those from the North-West zone.

In 1999, the North-West zone accounted for 3,884,536 votes as against South-South’s 4,226,330 votes with a differential of 341,794 in favour of South-South; in 2003, the North-West accounted for 9,065,816 votes while the South-South accounted for 15,260,081 votes with a differential of 6,194,265 in favour of the South-South.

In 2007, the North-West accounted for 5,224,633 votes while the South-South zone accounted for  6,461,11 votes with a differential of 1,236,478 votes in favour of the South-South zone that Ibrahim attempted to disparage.

So, what majority is Isyaku Ibrahim talking about? It is important to emphasize that the critical votes needed in the making of the President are those votes cast for the PDP and not the entire electorate of the North-West or the whole North. As a PDP member, this should be the interest of Ibrahim rather than the parochial interest of the North.

Ibrahim’s inability to grasp the essentials of politics explains why he had to concoct the so-called clear majority that would stop Jonathan from winning the 2011 elections. If the entire population of the Northern electorate were PDP members or belonged to one single party, that would be understandable.

But it is not, as Ibrahim knows very well, which unfolds the truth of the man’s unfortunate disposition. He simply has absolute contempt for President Jonathan and, indeed, anybody from that part of the country.

That is the truth; Ibrahim still harbours the prejudices of the past in which people from the South-South were treated almost as second-class citizens.

In the USA just as in Nigeria, the number of such political bigots is dwindling fast. In fact, the new crop of political elite in Nigeria is not on the same page with Ibrahim. For them, the North, South, West and East are together, which is why extremists of Ibrahim’s kind have become the focal point of resentment by the generality of Nigerian youths.

Ibrahim reminds one of two situations: the bigotry of Adolf Hitler who could not tolerate other human races; and, America where, in spite of a Black, Barack Obama, being in office as President, there are racist Whites who still believe that the black man has no business aspiring to be the President of that country.

Mr. Uruma Omatseye, a political analyst, writes from Warri, Delta State.