Nigeria will overcome all its current problems. Yet many Nigerians have lost faith, convinced the country will collapse under its own weight. This is the opinion of ethnic jingoists who think the best way out for Nigeria is for the over 350 ethnicities to go their separate ways. This is never going to happen. Those who are discerning will know that the problem of Nigeria is to enable its citizens to know what has been built wrongly or not built at all and to rebuild.
The North can no longer be blind to their reality again. Even though many, especially the political elites are still living in denial, there is a growing number who are well educated and are pointing out the excesses of these political elites and prescribing the way out. It seems that all the major problems of Nigeria are located in the North to the extent that the reverence accorded the first and only premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello has begun to fade away. Now they see what was not obvious to the generation at the beginning of Nigeria’s independence in 1960 that Ahmadu Bello saw a potential nation before him but rejected the opportunity to build a nation that embraced the North and South. They saw that even the North that Ahmadu Bello postured to have built was only for his Fulani stock and for the propagation of Islamic religion. The hen has come home to roost and things have fallen apart in the North. We are not crying wolf where there is none, but it is very clear that the North is imploding. Nobody needs to fight the North again, the North is fighting itself. If the Fulani don’t realize it now, that the vision of ownership of the entire country given to them by Ahmadu Bello is not only a mirage but a vision of self destruction.
As Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who his contemporaries caused to be misunderstood, said in those early years of independence that many of the minorities who the majority tribes cheated will get education which will open their eyes and will fight back. If anybody thought the agitation of the Hausa, to which the Fulani had cleverly aligned themselves in order to conquer and dominate will not succeede, that person had better look very well. The Fulani will have to negotiate peace with the Hausa so that both of them can have an equal share of the land and political power.
We must not deceive ourselves, banditry and insurgency are manifestations of that agitation by the Hausa and the reaction by the Fulani which if not managed may lead to the eventual termination of Fulani dominance. Now, because of the terrible evil of banditry by those claiming Fulani identity, the remainder of Nigeria has directed hatred towards the Fulani clan like never before. If Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo, and Azikiwe had unified Nigeria through true federalism in 1960, many of the contemporary conflicts, including those affecting the Fulani, might have been avoided. Nigeria has lost decades, but the opportunity for federalism remains.
Though Nigeria has lost many vital years, there is still opportunity to get back to build a united nation through federalism, which Chief Obafemi Awolowo spoke and wrote so much about. One feature of that will be examined shortly. They are the traditional institutions of the country. Because of his tribal and religious orientation, Ahmadu Bello left Nigeria where the British left it. He empowered the emirs and ensured that all of them were Fulani. The British also empowered the obas in the south, especially in the South West, after the image of the Fulani oligarchy in the North. If any king or traditional leader in the middle belt will lead their people to Islam, such will be made a first class king.
In Yoruba land the British gave those kings more power than they had in the traditional mode. This made indirect rule possible in Yoruba land. The oba was not primus inter pares. He was selected by a process and could be dethroned if he did wrong by that same process which gave him a covered calabash which everybody knew was a sign that he should honorably exit or commit suicide. Chief Obafemi Awolowo did not accept this and indeed wrote in his first book “Path to Nigerian Freedom” that the institution of Obaship had been corrupted. People who should not be oba by tradition were made one. The oba exercised the power of life and death over the people.
In the North the emirs were powerful and nobody could question them, whoever they wanted the people to vote for is who they voted for. They were feudal lords. Awolowo said that feudalism would not continue forever. Now, with more education and more boldness, the Hausa are rejecting that power. They will no longer vote for anybody except those who have a concrete plan of inclusion for the Hausa. Even the bandits in the north, who are mostly Fulani, have been kidnapping and killing emirs. The emirs are complaining that their powers have been curtailed. Some wise ones among them have asked their people to rise up and defend themselves. So private ownership of guns and other instruments of violence is becoming widespread in the North. In the East, warrant chiefs were forcibly created. It was resisted, but it stayed. Now everywhere in the nation, the Igbo man who has acquired wealth wants to be an Igwe outside of his territory and even abroad.
In Yoruba land the obas are losing their authority. Character is no longer an issue in the coronation of an oba. The Oba of Ipetumodu, Alapetu, Oba Joseph Olugbenga Oloyede had to be dethroned when he was imprisoned for wire and tax fraud of $4.2 million in the US. The Governor of Osun State, Ademola Adeleke had to be compelled to dethrone him after a long period of inaction. There is a running battle between a journalist and a columnist with Punch, a popular tabloid, Tunde Odesola, who has been using the expose by the Daily Mail and Sun that the Oba of Iwo, another town in Osun State, Oba Abdulrasidi Adewale Akanbi, who was allegedly convicted twice in the US for fraud and was banned from entry into the US for life, to compel Governor Ademola Adeleke to dethrone him. Oba Abdulrasidi Adewale Akanbi has been especially controversial, alleged to have committed many offences that were unbecoming of a monarch. His martial life does not win the approval of his people. Some have accused him, including his ex wife that he smokes marijuana, though he denied. About three of his fellow monarchs have also dragged him to magistrate courts on allegations of forgery and assault against a fellow oba.
The prominent Alafin of Oyo, late Lamidi Adeyemi, was found in distasteful acts that rubbished the institution. For example, he confessed to his involvement along with a prominent and disgraced political thug in Ibadan, late Lamidi Adedibu, to organize an illegal impeachment of Rasidi Ladoja as governor of Oyo State, which was prompted by former president Olusegun Obasanjo. The impeachment was later overturned by the Supreme Court. Between the recently appointed Alafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade, and the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, there is no love lost. The fight is over who of them is superior.
As I write, eleven Yoruba obas have been killed by bandits in Kwara State, thirty towns have been deserted because of repeated raids by bandits. These are obas that are regarded and reverred as “ekeji orisa.” Orisa is the god and the oba is next to him. That is the reverence the Yoruba give to their obas. Now they are desecrated, they are jailed by earthly men. They fight with their wives in the open and their subjects see them. They are instruments in the hands of politicians to swindle their people. They collect bribes, and rumours are rife that they collect part of the ransom collected from their people by bandits.
The Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Rasidi Ladoja when he was enthroned said “the days of glamour are gone.” He was letting us know that the obas do nothing but chased after glamour; big cars, expensive wears, expensive neck laces, expensive shoes, big palaces. Ladoja was going to be involved in economic development of his city of Ibadan. Ibadan was decayed and he was going to renew it. Ladoja thus told us a reformation of traditional institutions were due.
If bandits are killing emirs in the North, if the emirs there have no power to protect their people again, if the obas in the South West are being kidnapped and killed and some have deserted their domains, it means that another institution must replace them that will effectively provide development and protection for those territories. The suggestion of this writer is a regrouping of these territories with mayors administering the territories who will be subject to the people’s power and their votes, who will give a covenant to the people periodically. Traditional rulers should retain cultural and advisory roles, but governance must shift to elected officials. Only then can Nigeria rebuild what was never built and fix what was built wrongly. Then our ungoverned spaces will quickly witness rapid development inspired by men and women who know what development is all about.
First Published in METRO
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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
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