Now That Atiku Has Spoken

By Abraham Ogbodo

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the one better known as Turaki Adamawa has spoken. It is not as if he had been struck dumb by a strange spirit, or something close to such and there had been protracted efforts to recover his speech and good result only came last Tuesday when he spoke at a book launch in Lagos.

In fact, the man has been talking since the beginning of this democracy on May 29, 1999. It is just that he has been saying other things that do not command hot attention. Things like how his love for the new found democracy in Nigeria pushed him and others to stop former President Olusegun Obasanjo from evolving into a life president as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

He has also been talking on his unequalled leadership prowess, and how such had put him in a better stead to occupy Aso Rock Villa in 2007, instead of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua; in 2011, instead of Goodluck Jonathan, and even in 2015, instead of the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari. It was while waiting till 2019 to represent the same matter that the Turaki, launched more forcefully into the subject matter of Restructuring Nigeria.

He got the right attention for the first time since 2007. Essentially, he said this Nigeria that Nigerians love so much would vanish, leaving everybody fantastically short-changed if we continued in our ways. His words: “our current structure and the practices it has encouraged have been a major impediment to the economic and political development of our country. In short, it has not served Nigeria well, and at THE RISK OF REPROACH (emphasis mine) it has not served my part of the country, the North well. The call for restructuring is even more relevant today in light of the governance and economic challenges facing us. And the rising tide of agitations, some militant and violent, require a reset in our relationships as a united nation.”

Atiku said much more in his about 2000-word message. The choice of that quote is actually to underscore the inherent hesitation in his speech. He came close to confessing that he was being compelled (apparently by forces beyond his control) to say something he shouldn’t say as a Fulani man from Northern Nigeria. In all, ‘Restructuring of Nigeria’ is not among the high topics taught at all levels of intellectual engagement up North. And if it is ever discussed, it is to explain that restructuring of Nigeria into anything other than what obtains currently, is a sin against the North and Islam.

This is why Atiku, in all sincerity, shall need some support from his northern constituency to be able to stand by his big message, come rain or shine. If he remains a lone voice in this wilderness of political restructuring, his people may think he is ‘possessed by demons.’ Although Alhaji Babarabe Musa and even Dr. Junaid Mohammed have said something, voices with higher pitch are required to make the Atiku’s message get close to a reflection of Northern thinking in the light of current national challenges.