By Ugo Egbujo
Tinubu has become an unabashed chauvinist. It’s a hard watch. It doesn’t bode well for national unity. Tinubu’s critical appointments have become the most lopsided in the history of this country.
A Yoruba is the police Inspector General. A Yoruba is the EFCC Chairman. A Yoruba is the Head of the DSS. A Yoruba is the Attorney General. A Yoruba is the Chief Justice of the Federation. And Tinubu, a Yoruba, is the President and overseer of all instruments of coercion. The entire criminal justice system is in the hands of one ethnic group.
For so long, the Afenifere was
the conscience of the Yoruba nation and Nigeria. It fought for good governance,
against oppression, and against what was often pejoratively described as
retrogressive and oppressive mediocrity-metastasizing Hausa Fulani hegemony. To
enthrone social justice and inclusiveness and enhance freedom, the Afenifere
sold the idea of a sovereign national conference as the recipe against internal
colonization, disunity and marginalisation. Those days are gone. Now Tinubu, an
Afenifere apostle and NADECO evangelist is going full throttle installing an
ethnic hegemony.
There is now a feeling amongst
many that Tinubu is settling scores. Otherwise, why is he so relentless?
But what score could he possibly be settling? Obasanjo, his kinsman, was
president a few years ago. The Yoruba have ruled the country longer than anyone
else since the fourth republic. So why is Tinubu’s ethnic patriotism so feverish
that after seizing all the important criminal justice system and handing it to
the Yoruba, he has also handed nearly all the critical economic roles to the
very same ethnic group?
A Yoruba is the CBN governor.
Another Yoruba is the Minister of Finance. Yet another Yoruba is the Minister
of Blue Economy. Then a Yoruba is the Minster of Digital Economy. And just two
days ago, a Yoruba became the Minister of Trade, Industries and Investment . A
Yoruba is the Head of the Bank of Industry. A Yoruba heads the National
Social Insurance Trust Fund. A Yoruba is the Coordinating Minister of the Economy.
A Yoruba is the Minister of Solid Minerals. A Yoruba is the Minster Of
Petroleum. At the height of the much talked about Hausa Fulani domination in
the military era, no government came close to this. What is driving
Tinubu’s ethnocentrism?.
The country is reeling. It’s
crime and corruption ridden. It can’t afford the distractions of corrosive
suspicions of ethnic domination. It can’t conduct decent elections. The
perception that Tinubu Yorubanized the critical levers of state will only
complicate the distrust. Our problems are huge. The Mo Ibrahim report is out.
It says Nigeria is one of the worst-ruled countries in Africa over the last ten
years. On the War Against Corruption, we scored a miserable 28%. In general
leadership, we have fallen into the same category as Sudan and Somalia.
So perhaps dwelling on
issues like the ethnic colouration of appointments rather than health and
education and security might be idiotic. But, one of the major problems Tinubu
inherited was virulent ethnic division. National unity ought to be an urgent
priority. Tinubu’s devotion to rabid ‘parapoism’ is counterintuitive. Military
juntas weren’t this aloof. Tinubu ought to know that Nigerians are not cows.
Taxi drivers and barbers on the street know the positions that define power in
a multi-ethnic third world country. Beyond sloganeering, Tinubu should know
that a shared sense of belonging across ethnic divides is the beginning of
unity and peace, and of sustainable progress .
A Yoruba heads the Army. A
Yoruba heads the Police. A Yoruba heads the Customs. A Yoruba heads the
Immigration. Again add the DSS to that. It’s staggering. The Yoruba are very
intelligent. They are perhaps the most sophisticated ethnic group in Nigeria
but the gap can’t be this wide. The government isn’t an Egbe Omo Oduduwa.
Many blame Tinubu’s baffling tribalism on Buhari. But this is disingenuous. If
anything, Tinubu should have learnt from Buhari’s shortsightedness.
Buhari was a little
narrow-minded. But he didn’t have the benefit of Tinubu’s political lineage and
exposure. A cursory look at Buhari’s lopsided appointments will reveal
that while he might have concentrated power in the north, it wasn’t this
brazen. Buhari didn’t concentrate critical roles in his ethnic group
or geo-political zone. Yet the country criticized Buhari heavily.
Comparatively and by any scale, Tinubu’s tribalism is utterly blind and
stubbornly headlong. Yoruba have taken the head, taken the heart , taken
the gizzard, taken the kidneys and liver. In the third world, people know
ethnic domination when they see it. People are not cows.
But don’t blame the Yoruba. Most
of them are embarrassed by Tinubu’s antediluvian antics. Indeed, the Yoruba are
the most welcoming group in Nigeria. They are self-assured and empathetic. They
are effervescent and warm. Culturally, their lives espouse harmony and
freedom. They are the most religiously tolerant, too. They never seek the
domination of no one. They are instinctively happy to compete on a level
playing field. They have been the loudest and sincerest champions of equity and
meritocracy. So this ethnic hegemony that Tinubu is weaving is patently not
Yoruba. The Yoruba live and let live. They didn’t send Tinubu on this errand.
One reasonable inference is that
Tinubu perhaps lost faith in One Nigeria while waiting to be president.
Tinubu’s loss of faith in One Nigeria is so stark that most of his personal
aides are all Yoruba . No pretense at all. The bigoted Onanuga, who thinks the
Igbo are second-class citizens in Lagos, is now his spokesman. Sunday Dare has
been brought back as a Special Adviser and implanted into the Ministry of
Information. Tinubu’s Chief of Protocol is Yoruba. The Commander of the Brigade
of Guards is Yoruba. The ADC is Yoruba. The Chief Security Officer is Yoruba.
For the first time, we have a
consummate politician who prepared for the role for many years. Yet again, we
have a president who trusts only his tribe. Tinubu became a prominent senator
over 30 years ago. He has an enviable national reach. Yet he distributes
appointments like Sunday Igboho. Tinubu’s approach should have been distilled
by the heat of the struggle to restore democracy. The clannishness we see today
ought to have been purified by the fire of NADECO. His critics now say that
having grabbed the coveted ultimate power, Tinubu has shed his cloak and
is manifesting his truest colours.
Ordinarily, nobody would bother if Tinubu went
for merit and chose only the people of Iragbiji or Isale Eko to fill the most
important government positions. But Tinubu’s morally flabby cabinet is full of
chaff. After removing five ministers whom he deemed to have performed woefully,
his cabinet is still peopled with some who lack integrity, retired governor who
looted their states according to the EFCC and got promoted to national service
to be cloaked with a dubious immunity against criminal prosecution. So Tinubu
hasn’t sabotaged the Federal Character spirit to drive prosperity and progress.
On the contrary, many Yorubas believe Tinubu’s ‘parapoism’ is aimed at building
a private political dynasty.
Nigerians don’t care if members
of one family dominate the Super Eagles on merit. They want the best to
represent the country. When Nigeria becomes truly one and we select players for
government and politics as we do for sports, no president will approach
governance with a Tinubu mindset. Nobody does that in the Super Eagles. That’s
why many feel that the federal character principle inadvertently makes our
leaders village champions. If the next president after Tinubu emulates this
parochialism the country may disintegrate from deepening of ethnic cleavages .
Rotation of power is supposed to serve inclusiveness not further alienation.
President Tinubu knows that in
a fractious multi-ethnic third world country, the concentration of the
levers of the criminal justice system, economy and security, in the hands
of one ethnic group will feed the system with disenchantment and paranoia and
corrode cohesion. The Yoruba don’t need this sleight of hand. So why
is Tinubu hell bent on this primitivity?
*Dr. Egbujo
is a commentator on public issues
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