I have always opposed zoning formula because the concept is anchored on a myopic understanding that a given community, tribe, or a religious denomination will not get anything out of the Nigerian project unless the President is from its neck of the wood. Though President Obasanjo, Musa Yar Adua, and Jonathan tried successfully to put a lie to that thinking, President Buhari, in the last four year, exacerbates it to a scale unprecedented in the history of Nigeria independence due to his lopsided appointments favoring his tribe and a coterie of his religious adherents and feudal thinkers.
The appointment of his daughter who is just out of Law School into the Board of NNPC as well as the faces and names of those managing our security networks lends credence to the narrative that Nigeria is not a federation of states after all, but a modern democracy beholden unrepentantly to medieval serfdom and feudalism.
In light of the forgoing anomaly, it is reasonable and justifiable for a Kanuri Man or a Ndigbo or an Esan man to demand that it is the turn of their region or tribe to produce the next President. So, Mr. El-Rufai must first, accepts the polarizing underlying question of nepotism and bigotry that gave life to Zoning demands.
Nevertheless, I support Mallam El-Rufai espousal of competence wholeheartedly. I am less worried about the region, tribe, culture, or the mode of worship of my President. But I am totally and unequivocally dissatisfied and opposed to the quality of leadership the Northern political power brokers like Governor El-Rufai have collaborated with their Southern stooges to impose on Nigeria since October 01, 1960.
May it interest Nigerians to know at this juncture that Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his Action Group followers built the first Olympic size stadium, the first television station, free healthcare program throughout the Western Region, the best-ran free education program in the World, and one of the strongest economies in the Developing World before October 01, 1960. The Treasonable Felony Trial of Papa Awo and his followers, including Uncle Anthony Enahoro of Great Esan, put an end to that astronomical economic growth and social emancipation of the citizens of the entire Western Region.
But for the Treasonable Felony Trial of Awo and his men, there would not have been the coup, the counter-coup, and the civil war. Today, thanks to the bigotry, nepotism, and the willful blindness of the existential necessity of our unity in diversity culture supported by President Buhari and his Advisers, Nigeria is once again cascading precariously to pre-1966 first coup.
Right now, if Governor El-Rufai wants me or Nigerians to take him seriously, he has all the time in the world to prevail upon President Buhari and reminding him that the time has come for the Cabal and the Aso Rock Press Boys to go. That President Buhari is an alien in his own country is not an understatement; otherwise, about 60% of the names in his yet to be installed cabinet would not have been there.
There is no reason under the sun for any member of the previous executive council to be reappointed. Mr. Lai Mohhamed, for example, doesn't know what is required to be a Minister of Information. And what is it, for instance, of the Abike Dabiri-Erewa lady, when you have a Minister of Information and a Minister of Foreign Affairs. It is like having a Ministry of Niger Delta and NDDC. It is the appalling incompetence of NDDC and the large scale embezzlement of public funds by its leadership that gave life to the Ministry of Niger Delta.
A family member traveled from Abuja to Benin City yesterday and it took him a whole day to arrive in Benin City. That journey is supposedly about five hours. And he spent about three hours between Irrua, Ekpoma, and Iruekpen. Ordinarily, a fifteen minutes ride. It is the same story with Apapa Wharf Expressway and the Lagos-Badagry International Highway. Yet, the man who was the Minister for Works under the Buhari Presidency in the last four years is on the list again as a Minister-designate.
Today, we have the Ministry of Justice, the ICPC, the EFCC, the Professor's Sagay Presidential Action Committee on Anti-Corruption (PACAC), and the Special Investigation Panel on the Recovery of Public Property (SPIP) under the leadership of the now-suspended Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla, all catering to one issue - fighting corruption. In spite of the plethora of independent public agencies involved, corruption is fighting back relentlessly without ay sign of capitulation. The people the President trusted to work with him or to fight the war against corruption for him are the epitome of what is wrong with Nigeria.
What am I saying: it takes enlightenment to know the enlightened, just as it takes leadership virtues to discern quality leadership in others. The theory is no longer tenable that President Buhari doesn't know Nigerians as this author has alluded to severally previously. The truth is, he seemingly has issues discerning leadership qualities in others. I will cite two examples.
One, about a week to the release of his Ministerial list, President Buhari told Nigerians that he didn't really have a clue or a good understanding of the background and antecedents of those he appointed and worked with during his first term in office. Adding that it is going to be based on competency and records of performance this time around. Do the names on the released list evidence a history of grace, competence, and high-achievers? You know better.
And two, it has been copiously reported that the President's modus operandi from his time as the head of the Petroleum Fund under Abacha, made use of outside independent consultants, who were not answerable to anyone. He did not exercise substantial supervisory function over the activities of the consultants to be able to have a first-hand understanding of their performance and evaluation. They were reported to be Lords onto themselves. It takes diligent staff-assessment to enhance values and upgrade productivities. The President has been totally wanton in those areas. As long as the listed projects in his region are completed as intended, he is okay.
And that is why we are where we are today. The President doesn't know who is who in Nigeria. His Cabal and his Media Operatives who ought to be his eyes and ears, do not know Nigeria either. In addition, they don't have what it takes to identify diligent leaders, even within their circle of friends and believers of the same faith. You may want to argue that the Presidency is not in control of activities in the state and at the local government councils and that corruption still thrives those areas. The answer is about the leadership you have at the top, the life he lives, and the examples he set.
In sum, the quality of the leadership coming from the South, East, and West are concomitants of the leadership coming from the North, which the Northern power brokers like El-Rufai are forcing down our throats and had forced down our throat over the years. It is going to take miracles to fend off and defeat the ills of nepotism and godfatherism in Nigeria under this administration. Governor Obaseki of Edo State is still standing today because of his audacity, goodwill and the overwhelming support of the Edo State indigenes. He fought Comrade Adam Oshiomhole and the culture of greed with a clean hand and rare shrewdness emerging gradually in Nigerian politics.
On a collateral note, that was where President Jonathan suffered a major fallout with Nigerian independent progressive commentators and the influential global leaderships. He couldn't extricate himself from the culture of greed rampaging the length and breadth of the PDP leadership. That the children of PDP leadership (children of two past chairmen of his party) were some of the bogus Petroleum Markets who depleted the NNPC of the subsidy funds was too much for some of us to accept. That's by the way.
I would like to conclude by drawing Governor El-Rfai's attention to how the leadership he represents impeded the overall development of this great country. Granted, this information has been stated copiously by this author somewhere, it is quite germane to the nature of the narrative presently being defined. Before the creation of Mid-West Region in 1963, the free education and quality health care that were available at Abeokuta, Ikare Ekiti, Ogbomosho, Ilesha, Ibadan, etc, were also available in my village in Ishan. As at the end of 1959, my village, Ewohimi (I don't know why I keep calling it a village), had about thirteen Elementary Schools, Two Modern Schools (my eldest sister graduated from one of them), and a Grammar School (the great PBGS). Papa Awo knew what he was doing, and he did it equitably and equally across the board.
I have been rebuffed, though privately, by a learned friend that Papa Awo did give undue deference to the Yoruba in the allocation of industries and political positions at the expense of those of us from the Mid West. That may be true, but what I do know is that following the creation of the Mid West region in 1963, and a new government came in under a different political party, the free education program and free healthcare of Action Groups collapsed irredeemably in the new Mid West region. My elder sister told me that and Mr. Odia Ofeimun said so as well in one of his essays in the Guardian Newspaper.
So, where are we today? You invented wars. You invented crisis. And you invented bandits and Boko Haram when political power is getting out of your control. The Western region is yet to rise beyond where Papa Awo and his Action Groups left it before the Treasonable Felony Trial. Without equivocation, the leadership the El-Rufais of the North are producing and imposing on us as a country are holding the entire country down in terms of development, unity, religious tolerance, and technological breakthrough. I am a one-man-gang. And my Sovereign National Conference started the day Asiwaju Tinubu, Comrade Adam Oshiomhole, and INEC concocted a diabolical election result that was not supported by facts, law, science or logic and declared the defeated candidate the winner. Yes, I support competency and the elimination of Zoning Formular, but I also support qualified candidates, whose mental and physical attributes, as well as religious and tribal neutrality, are not in doubt pursuant to every known element of a free and fair election. I beg to conclude.
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