By Is’haq Modibbo Kawu
FOR three days, last week, Vintage Press, the publishers of Bola Tinubu’s THE NATION newspapers, hosted a Legislative Summit on Regional Integration, in Ibadan, regional capital of the old Western Region of Nigeria. It brought legislators from the states that make up the Southwest of today’s Nigeria.

The summit, predictably, ended by demanding for a new constitution, to reorder what it described as Nigeria’s “malfunctioning system”. In more ways than one, the three-day gathering offered us an aperture into the thought process of the most advanced segments of the politics of Yorubaland and a peek into their subtle and not too disguised agenda, in the contestation for Nigeria.

Of course, looming large on the entire roadshow, was the image of Bola Tinubu, whose newspaper not only organised the event, but who, in the past decade, has become the most important politician of the old West; he literally holds sole proprietorship of the politics of Western Nigeria!

Orchestra conductor

One of Tinubu’s main sidekicks, Rauf Aregbesola, the Osun state governor, became the central orchestra conductor in what was a well-choreographed display. Aregbesola, in obvious flight of exaggeration, described the conclave as “the most important gathering of the Southwest people in the post-Awolowo era (this afterall, is the era of Bola Tinubu, one could almost hear him say!)”. Aregbesola was then quoted by THE NATION newspaper, as having “directed that the printed Osun State anthem, crest and logo should be distributed to all participants”.

That was no Freudian slip, but a piece in an elaborate political jigsaw, because the Deputy Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Adetunji Orisalade, also moved a motion “for the adoption of Osun State Anthem as the regional anthem”. Orisalade went further: “The time to start integration is now. I move that we start the integration by adopting the Osun State Anthem as the Yoruba anthem, so that our children should recite it in our schools”.

Lagos State Special Adviser on Regional Integration, Rev. Tunji Adebiyi, who seconded the motion, “clarified that the anthem is the Afenifere anthem sung by Yoruba at home and abroad”. So a “Yoruba Anthem” was let lose on Nigeria and the following day, a beaming Aregbesola, on the front page of THE NATION newspaper, displayed to all “the proposed Southwest flag”.

Secessionist moves

If anybody was worried that there was something suspiciously secessionist about these moves, Rauf Aregbesola, tried to allay fears: “the push for integration should not be misconstrued as the clamour for secession from Nigeria (either because it really is or it suspiciously appears so!).

A certain Prof. Adesegun Banjo did not calm worries about the implicitly secessionist motives embedded in the gathering, with his suggestion, that the Southwest states should “devise intelligent (intelligence?) agencies (!) to help combat internal and external threats”!

There were many items on the shopping list for Southwest Regional integration, but there are also obstacles that “are not easy to remove, but with determination and skillful political efforts, including bipartisan collaborative effort with the leadership of the Southsouth, southeast and Middle Belt (where is that?) geo-political zones, which are also for true federalism, we will succeed” (well, the cat finally was let out of the bag of intrigues; the effort as ever, was always to isolate the North; that old North that is the eternal enemy for the Yoruba political oligarchy!).

If anyone thought this was not a dress rehearsal for something grand, the doubt was removed by essayist Adebayo Williams, who presented a paper at the summit and also returned to the theme in his weekly column for THE NATION ON SUNDAY, of February 19, 2012. He argued that “the Lockean contract stipulates that while people freely and willingly give up their sovereignty to an elected ruler, they have the right to demand it back when the state fails in its sacred covenant of providing political, economic and spiritual security to the people.

When and where elections become an empty ritual for the perpetuation of a debased and thoroughly debauched status quo, the situation calls for a more fundamental reorganisation of the polity before anarchy takes over”.

Ibadan conclave

In the Southwest, the political elite is forcibly attempting to “fundamentally reorganize” Nigeria, almost like ZionistIsrael does, through theft of Palestinian land, and the creation of what they call “facts on the ground”!  The Ibadan conclave in Williams’ summation is “the most solid and constitutional challenge to federal overlordship in Nigeria. It is a charter of freedom and the right to self-determination. If the governors and leaders (of the Region) were to give muscle and teeth to the bill, it remains to be seen how the current structure of Nigeria could withstand the tidal wave of revulsion and indignation (contrived or real!)”. And he warned ominously: “This is not to be taken lightly. Ibadan is always where it all begins and ends”. An appropriate historic tour-de-force was then conscripted to make the case.

But strip of the flanking
manouevres, a triple-track policy seems to be unfolding before our eyes in Yorubaland. Bola Tinubu is consolidating his political hold on the region, as I stated earlier, almost with his sole proprietorship of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) Party.

He has been able to plant loyal sidekicks in power in the different states, with the “painfully notable exception” of Ondo State under Olusegun Mimiko. So his removal is the main agenda of the next one year, to complete the Bola Tinubu takeover and his final coronation as the Obafemi Awolowoof the new era (the imitation pair of glasses isn’t just an empty metaphor of taking possession!).

Then there is the planning for 2015; because one of the most open secrets of Nigerian politics is Bola Tinubu’s presidential ambition. He needs the complete control at home, as Launchpad for the presidential bid. The final track is the secessionist card.

It has always been an important card for the Yoruba political elite. It is one of the supreme tragedies of Nigerian life, that the most advanced detachment of the nation’s bourgeoisie, the Yoruba faction, which controls the most important levers of economic power in Nigeria’s private sector, is also the most regionalist and sectional.

A nation building agenda for this very capable and enlightened faction of the Nigerian bourgeoisie starts and ends, either in retreat to its ethnic laager or a perpetual scheming for the break up of Nigeria. These three tracks were all brought together in Ibadan, last week

Presidential ambition

If Bola Tinubu did not show up, his absence was in fact a major statement of his dominance. His sidekicks adroitly choreographed the occasion, while he made a grand return to Nigeria from a trip abroad, and was making the right noises about finding the dialogue to end the Boko Haram insurgency, as a sop to a different constituency. It was not accidental.

The man has a presidential ambition to nurse and must therefore appear to be a pan-Nigerian patriot. But back home in the Southwest, the broth is cooking, with three main ingredients thrown in, as part of an overall political agenda. There is a remarkable interconnectedness in the political affairs of the Southwest that other Nigerian political actors must sit up and endeavour to understand!

Poverty statistics and crisis in Nigeria

IF there ever was a need to remind about the connection between grinding poverty, social injustice and hopelessness and the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria, former American president, Bill Clinton, effectively did that the other day. But a more authoritative presentation on the matter came from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), last week Monday. Its 2010 report showed that 112, 519 million Nigerians live in relative poverty conditions, out of an estimated population of 163 million people.

Furthermore, the absolute poverty measure puts the country’s poverty rate at 99.284 million or 60.9percent; the dollar per day measure puts poverty rate at 61.2percent and subjective poverty level at 93.9percent.

Significantly, the North-West and North-East recorded the highest poverty rates in the country in 2010, with 77.7percent and 76.3percent respectively. NBS Statistician-General, Dr. Yemi Kale added that “using the absolute poverty measure, 54.7percent of Nigerians were living in poverty in 2004 but this increased to 60.9percent 0r 99.284 million Nigerians in 2010”.

There are many who refuse to see the direct linkage between these troubling figures and the breakdown in the social order in Northern Nigeria. Our Region is in ferment, because the young people, who make up the overwhelming majority of the population, live without hope. There is deficiency in education; they have no skills and cannot find jobs.

Modernity is not working and the various factions of the elite: traditional, religious, political, bureaucratic and economic, are mainly corrupt and disconnected from an increasingly urbanised young population. They are attracted to radicalising Salafist Islamic groups, like Boko Haram.

Last weekend, Kashim Shettima, the Borno state governor, told an audience of media commentators that Muhammed Yusuf, the slain leader of Boko Haram, had instituted a welfare package for members of his group, ranging from daily meals; soft loans for businesses and even assistance for marriage. He provided succor, in the context of the hopelessness and the uncaring society, which SAP and neoliberalism, had foisted on our country.

Our corrupt ruling elite turned crony capitalism into a license to steal society blind; so the chickens came home to roost in the fury unleashed by militant Islamists. Those who interpret the insurgency as a Northern conspiracy against the Jonathan administration miss the whole point. For as long as basic issues of social injustice are not addressed, we will lurch from one crisis to others!