By Kabir Isa Gafaiw

The Arewa Elders Assembly seems to be the latest name among the plethora of organizations that claim to be speaking for the hapless, beleaguered people of the North of the country. But, if the Arewa Elders Assembly sounds strange and perhaps, dismissed as just any one of those frivolous, opportunistic and self-seeking ethno-cultural, regionalist and religious interest groups, Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura, Dan-Masanin Daura, is neither an unknown entity nor can he be dismissed as insignificant.

In fact, at well over seventy years, a former Commissioner in several ministries in his home state, a one-time Chairman of IMPRESIT BAKOLORI, a chieftain of the defunct NPN and SDP as well as a Minister in charge of the strategic Ministry of Agriculture  and Water Resources in the immediate past  regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo, Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura is an eminent personality by all Nigerian and indeed, global standards.

One of the earliest graduates of the University of Lagos, when Nigerian graduates were as good as products of the best universities in the world, you must also give to the man that he had a sound educational background. For these and several reasons, the words, stand-points or views of Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura, especially on critical national issues cannot be dismissed as the whimpers of a no-body. Such deserve analysis and then, given appropriate response if necessary.

Writing on page 13 of the 27th May edition of the Daily Trust Newspaper, under the caption: “Zoning Arrangement for North and South,” Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura made some far-reaching and weighty comments which according to him, are the views and stand of his Arewa Elders Assembly on the question of President Goodluck Jonathan’s political career beyond 2011.

Harping on how much the “North and its people have given” to keep Nigeria away from disintegration “for the collective  good of all of us,” Dan Masanin Daura in the article warned that, “the North is not prepared to play second fiddle to anybody during its allotted time.” That is, in reference to the location of the Presidency which, in the PDP’s much talked about zoning formular, should be in the North between 2011 and 2015.

“Formally,” urging President Jonathan to “ignore calls by groups of unpatriotic Nigerians that he should contest the presidential election in 2011,” the spokesman of Arewa Elders Assembly proceeded to give a terse warning: “We therefore put it emphatically to all responsible Nigerians who believe in the unity of the Nigerian state, to come out clean and identify with the truth and nothing but the truth.”

Haba Dan Masari! Which North are you speaking for? The new generation of enlightened northerners, who like their compatriots from South of the River Niger, have since pulled off the retrogressive hood of division along the primitive lines of ethnicism, religion, regionalism and personality cult? Or, is our elder and leader speaking for the pathetically impoverished talakawa, who are barely living to produce the almajiri children and equally unfortunate, befuddled street beggars found on the streets of all cities, towns and villages in the North, East, South and West of Nigeria?

An honest answer to the latter question would be that the Steering Committee member of the Arewa Elders Assembly has in mind a President Muhammed Aliyu Gusau in whose campaign machinery he belonged in 2007 or, a President Ibrahim Babangida and, very very remotely, a President Atiku Abubakar. That’s why, the nests of “Arewa Leaders” are best feathered. Contracts, ministerial and other choice appointments are best assured for selves, children, loved ones and cronies. Or else, how does the Dan Masari explain the opulence of a few and the abject penury of the majority of the people of the North which paradoxically evolved and matured in the era that Arewa ruled the country?

According to Bernard Shaw, the English Playwright, Poet and Philosopher, only fools debate the best form of government because, in concrete terms, the best of governments is that which impacts the most positively on the lives of the governed. In the context of the prevailing Nigerian situation, Sani Zangon Daura, the Arewa Elders Assembly and other persons and groups of their ilk, in the North or South, should better awake to the reality that Nigerians have come of age.

They have come beyond that stage when some self-seeking individuals could hood-wink them into a civil strife along regional lines. They have become so wise by their bitter past experiences that, the Nigerian masses have come to realize that their so-called leaders and defenders are only so to the extent that their pursuits result in their own narrow interests.

*Kabir Isa Gafaiw writes from Abuja.