By Dominic Kidzu
Is the Jagaban of Borgu loosing his friends on the other side of River Niger? There are indications that this might be the case, following the 2003 elections in which they gave him substantial support to help him win the Presidency.
I’m getting the feeling that they are sulking or feeling kind of cheated. It is only President Tinubu or his close friends who know in specific terms what he promised them that he has not fulfilled. Clearly they feel unfulfilled like a child who ended up with a half-plate, or something, you know. But of course I still acknowledge that prediction is a very slippery science.
There is no doubt that the man may want a second tenure on that hideous rock before the lights go out at last. Despite all the grandstanding, Tinubu might not be hanging around this planet for much more longer as a result of his age, but I bet he will like to go home with a song and bright lights on the stage. There are no Joe Bidens on this side of town. Certainly.
Zanga zanga is the Hausa word for protest, but some of the synonyms include demonstration and revenge. In the states of Kano, Kaduna and even Katsina, revenge may be the appropriate word that characterized the zanga zanga. It was so fierce that even aluminum roofing sheets and metal covers for drainage systems were removed.
That is real anger. A little boy of not more than 10-12 years standing in front of the Government House in Katsina with a big stone in his hand said he was waiting to kill the governor because he had cheated them. ” Ya chiuche mu.” In Kano Young people told the military men on duty that they preferred their rule to that of ‘Tunumbu’ ” Ku ne mu kie so.”
There were not many temper calming words in the North. The elders in the house didn’t lift a finger or raise their voices. In the North it was not a revolution of the youths. It was a rebellion of all. Anti- Buhari protesters were resisted by his friends in the West, even the corpses of the dead were hidden in his behalf. When the same measure was given to Tinubu, he had no friends in the North to speak for him, outside the governors who were more afraid for themselves and their uncertain reign than the fate of President Tinubu..
Yet the hunger is real and searing and there is disquiet everywhere, while the few big men in government are still eating and celebrating with scant regard for the rest of us. The hunger riots were real because there is real and pressing hunger in the land. The destruction of property and looting were criminality, while the brandishing of Russian flags was political. Those flags were a repudiation of the Bretonwoods institutions – the World Bank, IMF and all, who advised the President to choose the hunger option, for his people in exchange for the accord of international legitimacy.
The president’s popularity in the North is at an all time low. His nepotism in the sharing of offices, just like his friend, Buhari, has not helped his cause either. Nyeson Wike, his Federal Capital minister is already campaigning for 2027 for him, but the North might just be a tough nut for Wike to crack, if things remain this way. His Vice president is from the North, that should have calmed a few nerves, but the man is a wily fox as well. When he speaks the teeth remain invisible. What might he be hiding in his mouth? Is the antelope with child in its stomach?
Sometime in May the vice president accused political opponents of fermenting anarchy. He said that they are sabotaging Nigeria and willing to plunge the country into violent crisis, the Lebanon way. His evidence for the accusation was that food was being smuggled to Neighbouring countries thereby causing scarcity. He forgot, perhaps, that cross-border trade in Northern Nigeria has been there since the trans- Sahara trade routes were established in 7000 B. C. E. Mali, Songhai and Kanem Borno empires traded right up to and beyond the reign of Mai Idris Alooma. The Customs service which should stop the smuggling are also an arm of his federal government.
Or does he want to be lectured again that there is really no scarcity of food, the food is there, we can see food in the market, it is the prices that are too high. Does he require me to tell him that it is the price of energy and transportation that has exploded in this rash of inflation? What the protesters are saying is, bring back subsidy, tackle the criminality in its handling and fix the refineries so we move crude from the Niger Delta to Port Harcourt, Warri, Kaduna etc and refine for domestic consumption. That way the prices of petroleum products will fall and in falling will also take the prices of food items down with it. Is this too difficult for them to understand?
To say the truth, he and his team are not hacking it. They have to either go big or go home. And if they must stay on he has explanations to give to the North. He has to bring the Ibos back in the country. Right now the Ibos live here but don’t belong here. They go to their business places, come home for dinner, watch Nigerian television, chuckle to themselves and go to bed, because Nigeria has frozen them out. Tinubu has to bring the Ibos emotionally and psychologically back to Nigeria as well, and the work has to begin in Lagos. The Yorubas are already with him and reaping big time, but they alone cannot make him president again.
