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2023: Is Hakeem Baba-Ahmed living in fool’s paradise?

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IT is no longer news that each time, Nigeria is about holding its general elections, several theories and unfounded fallacious dramatic predictions comes to bear on the nation’s political landscape. In 2015 for instance,  the United States of America’s National Intelligence Council report was pragmatically definitive that the year was going to be a do-or-die period for the country.

Indeed, then the intelligence agency had predicted that Nigeria would no longer be in existence by 2015 if it does not acknowledge its home truth of increasing horrific holistic violence, insecurity and killings in the country. Even as it drew its research statistics from the unending excruciating difficulties necessitated by unabated conflicts, confrontations, and dogmatic radicalization of young Nigerians into accepting extremist’s ideologies and causing great havoc with impunity in the country.

However, we must not also forget that the intriguing disposition and behavioral attitude of our politicians before the 2015 general elections also contributed to the high sense of insecurity and polarization of the polity. Though Nigeria proved bookmakers wrong with the help of God surviving the 2015 general election aftermath with some little bruises, it seems that we are still going to have another huge task come 2023 if recent revelations are anything to go by.

This is because, some selfish and self-centered politicians have stared knowingly and or unknowingly drumming songs of war through their actions and or inactions. Some of them out of acts of personal aggrandizement are beginning to betray our collective trust reposed on them.

Just recently, the Director of Publicity of the Northern Elders Forum, (NEF) Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed stirred the hornet’s nest noting saying that the north could retain the country’s presidency irrespective of the wishes of the south, if the region’s numerical strength was factored in. For those who are not attuned with the arithmetical foundation of Nigeria’s rotational  presidency agreement, it was in the best interest of the nation that both the north and southern regions went into a comprehensive gentleman’s agreement that each region should be allowed to hold on to power for two tenures of eight years in a rotational manner.

As it is, the north is about concluding its two terms of office which would eventually necessitate the south benefitting from such a gentleman’s arrangement. Therefore, come 2023, it is anticipated that it would be the turn of the southern region to produce the next president of Nigeria.

This however, according to Baba-Ahmed should not be since the north was in the process of rebuilding itself and was not prepared to play second fiddle in a nation where it enjoy numerical strength. “ We will lead Nigeria the way we have led Nigeria before, whether we are president or vice president, we will lead Nigeria. We have the majority of the votes and democracy says vote who you want. Why should we accept a second-class position when we know we can buy a form and contest for first class and we will win?”, the director was further quoted to have said in a keynote address at the maiden edition of the Maitama Sule Lecture series organized by the students’ wing of the Coalition of the Northern Groups at the Ahamdu Bello University Zaria in Kaduna State.

Though the Southern and Middle Belt Alliance has dismissed vehemently such a divisive and outrageous notion propagated by Baba-Ahmed, yours sincerely must further put it on record that such remarks are not only uncharitable and reckless but that which if care is not taken may polarized the country even before the 2023 general elections are held. For the avoidance of doubt, anyone who would want to tow this line of thought must take into cognizance the implications of such a statement uttered in an academic setting as such.

The question begging for answers at this very moment however is; why is the core north interested in abdicating from such an arranging after it was allowed to enjoy it in the first place? Why are some of the elders of the core northern oligarchy refusing to accept this reality of political arrangement only after one of their own in the person of President Mohammadu Buhari has benefitted from same and is about rounding-up his second term of office?

Thus, it is becoming quite clear that there is more to it than meets the eye as to  this positional standing and  disastrous fallacious recipe unabatedly propagated by these class of people. It is obvious that anyone who is neck-deep into this ideological philosophy lacks the cotemporary ingredients of the spirit of give and take for national integration and nation building. Though for the records, this political arrangement is not enshrined in the constitution of the nation, if my humble submission would be taken into consideration, this gentleman’s arrangement which was arrived at by our leaders of thought was to help facilitate an enabling environment for democratic sustainability in the country.

In any case, since the advent of the incumbent democratic dispensation, the Middle Belt has been the weeping region of this arrangement. In this same political arrangement, the Middle Belt has never and will never be given any sense of belonging.

Obviously, when it comes to taking such an outrageous stance, the core north is always in the habit of dragging the Middle Belt into its baseless  calculations. Reminiscent of how the Middle Belt region was conscripted into the Nigerian civil war, here we are again where the core north is cunningly struggling to conscript us into a fallacious and baseless concept not beneficial to us but them.

Thank God, however, this time around, leaders of this marginalized region are beginning to wake up from their slumber in the interest of their people. Therefore, even as Baba-Ahmed and his cohorts continue to stay aloft in fool’s paradise, they must be informed that times have changed for the good of us all. If Baba-Ahmed in the spirit of justice, equity and fair-play should  re-examine himself on this matter, the reality of the matter is that the north has benefited from this political arrangement and the south should be allowed to enjoy same.

Anything short of this is not only a daytime robbery but an attempt to truncate and put our democracy in complete jeopardy. It is an attempt to perpetrate a greedy dream capable of creating chaos, destabilization and anarchy in our collective journey to nationhood which must be disregarded by all well meaning citizens of Nigeria.

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