By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Constitutionally, Nigeria has 36 states and a Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja. But under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch, the country seems to have added one more state – Niger Republic – making it 37. The 37th state, ironically enjoys more federal attention than some of the country’s bona-fide states. Nigeriens enjoy more rights than most Nigerians.
It may sound absurd that the president of a country has greater affinity for another country than his own. But that is one of the incongruities that the Buhari government has thrown up in the last seven and half years.
It didn’t start today, though. As military head of state in the 1980s, Major-General Buhari allegedly supported a Nigerien, Ide Oumarou, rather than a Nigerian, Peter Onu, for the post of the Secretary-General of the then Organisation of African Unity, OAU, which is now African Union, AU.
An editorial comment in the Vanguard Newspaper of February 3, 2015 put it thus: “Between 1983 and 1985, Peter Onu of Nigeria was Acting Secretary-General of the OAU. At the 1985 Summit in Addis Ababa, statesmen like Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania, lobbied for his election as substantive Secretary-General. However, there was a major stumbling block to Peter Onu’s candidature: his Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, was campaigning against him.
“… In the election of the OAU Secretary-General in 1985, Buhari voted against Nigeria and for Niger instead. He secured the election of Ide Oumarou, a Fulani man from Niger; as opposed to an Igbo man from Nigeria. By so doing, Buhari became the first and only Head of State in the history of modern international relations to vote against his country in favour of his tribe.”
