AFTER a long break from the public domain, former Military Governor of Kaduna State, Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (retd), last Sunday published an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, accusing him of betraying his pledge to “belong to all Nigerians”.

Buhari had uttered a striking soundbite: “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody” on May 29, 2015 in his inaugural speech. By so doing he raised the hopes of Nigerians that he would carry all groups along despite his past series of failed elections.

If Buhari had carried through with this solemn pledge the country might have been more united and, therefore, better able to face the problems confronting the people together.

But unfortunately, on July 25, 2015, the President during his official visit at the United States Institute for Peace, USIP, told an interviewer that he would not treat those who gave him “97 per cent and five per cent” of the votes that gave him victory equally.

Since Buhari came back for a second term, the vast majority of his appointees have tended to be Northern Muslims with the South West now increasingly sidelined. Extreme nepotism has been a major fault in the Buhari eras, both as a military leader and an elected president.

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This runs contrary to Section 14(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It says: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the Federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or any of its agencies”.

It appears that the President might have been breaking the laws of the land with impunity and getting away with it.

The major fallout of this is exactly what the constitution had sought to prevent: unprecedented divisions and antagonisms between the North and South and between Christians who feel marginalised and mainly Northern Muslims who have been unjustly favoured.

A sampling of comments on social media shows that Nigerians are at daggers-drawn with one another across the divides.

It is unfortunate that the media, social activist groups, Labour, the opposition parties and lawyers’ groups have allowed this anomaly to go on without giving it the hot and relentless challenge and focus it deserves because it threatens the very fabric of the nation.

We commend Col. Umar for speaking out and urge him not to relent.

VANGUARD