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*Why you gain nothing from ethnic bias*
*by*
*Professor Pat Utomi*
Never get yourself involved in *ethnic hatred or religious bias*.
I'm a Christian from Niger Delta, but *most of the things I've ever achieved occurred through the help of non-Christians and non-Niger Deltans*.
1. I was actually looking for a way to get a banking license for a wealthy Nigerian so I approached one Fulani prince whom I've never met before. After telling him my mission, he told me that I should register my own bank instead of being another person's agent for registering banks. I was shocked, wondering how an ordinary me will be able to afford the process of owning a bank. The Fulani prince told me that I should not worry, that he will get me a banking license and even arrange for wealthy Nigerians to patronise me as a help for me without demanding for any kobo. That was how Platinum Bank came into being through the help of a northern Nigerian I never knew in my life
2. I was a young graduate during Shagari Adminstration when one man came to my residence in a massive car with escorts and told me that the powerful Yoruba Chief Bayo Kuku wanted to see me in his supermansion in Ikoyi. I got there and the great Chief Bayo Kuku told me that he has always read what I wrote on taxation policies and he had personally discussed me with Nigerian Vice President Alex Ekwueme. He proceeded to ask me how much I will receive if I was told to write a single position paper for Ekwueme on taxation policies. Then, the price of Volkswagen Beetle was N2,000 so I told Chief Bayo Kuku it will cost Ekwueme N2,000. Chief Bayo Kuku burst into laughter and said : "...so, all those your grammar is only worth the price of a Volkswagen Beetle...?"
Chief Bayo Kuku then opened a briefcase, brought out N10,000 cash (brand new Mercedes Benz was then sold for N5,000) and gave me to write just one position paper, even though I've never met him in my life, and he was not even from my tribe
3. Chief Bayo Kuku took me to Vice President Ekwueme, and within one week of knowing Ekwueme, I was shocked one day when Ekwueme told me : "...lest I forget, President Shagari read your position paper and insists on employing to replace the professor that left his administration..."
This was how I became an employee of the Nigerian President Shagari (a Muslim Fulani) without having met him before
4. When I was writing my PhD, I distributed my questionnaire as expected. One day, a man arrived in a big car with escorts and told me that his boss wanted to see me. I followed him and when we got to the boss, I was shocked to the marrow to see that the boss was the highly powerful Alhaji Alhaji. Alhaji Alhaji (a northern Muslim) told me that a fellow northern Emir read my questionnaire for my PhD and recommend that he, Alhaji Alhaji, employ me as his PA on financial matters. I couldn't talk for almost 2 minutes because of the shock. You need to know how powerful Alhaji Alhaji was in those days
*Summary*
I've been helped by Yorubas and northern Nigerians particularly Fulanis far more than my own Niger Deltans. Don't allow anybody to push you into ethnic hatred and religious bias because you only stand to lose, not gain, from it
- *Professor Pat Utomi, speaking to an audience in Ikorodu, Lagos State, Nigeria, yesterday 14th July, 2019*
A few weeks ago, Dr. Femi Aribisala, wrote a provocative but logically unassailable article in this newspaper, entitled “No Yoruba president in Nigeria for another 20 years” (Vanguard, May 21, 2019). He argued that when it’s the South’s turn to produce the president in 2023, it must go to Ndigbo, not the Yoruba. He posited that, having produced Nigeria’s president for eight years and vice president for another eight years, since the return to civil rule in 1999, the Yoruba shouldn’t expect to govern Nigeriaagain until 2038!
Well, Dr Aribisala is right. I expressed the same view in this column. In a piece entitled, “Southwest APC’s betrayal of Yoruba cause” (Vanguard, January 24, 2019), I said: “Given that, since 1999, the Southwest has produced the president for eight years and the South-South for six years, the Southeast should provide national leadership in 2023 when power returns to the South”.
But some Yoruba leaders self-interestedly disagree. Last week, a Southwest APC leader, Adeseye Ogunlewe, a former minister, said that Bola Tinubu, APC’s national leader, “is a natural successor to Buhari”, adding that “to shut out the Yoruba is undemocratic”. The idea of the Yoruba producing the president again in 2023, when the Igbo, another major ethnic group in the South, hasn’t produced any for, by then, 24 years, doesn’t strike such people as risking further endangering Nigeria’s fragile unity.
Sadly, those who should rise above such ethnic jingoism also fuel it. Earlier this year, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who repeatedly said “Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable”, put ethnic sentiments above that presumed unity by urging the Yoruba to re-elect President Muhammadu Buhari in order to clinch the presidency in 2023. “We are not looking at the 2019 but 2023,” he said, adding: “If we get it in 2019, Yoruba will get it in 2023”. Of course, what he meant was that if the Yoruba help re-elect Buhari, the North would, as a quid pro quo, help the Yoruba secure the presidency in 2023. It was difficult to reconcile Osinbajo’s preachiness on Nigeria’s unity with his failure to recognise that any ganging up by the Hausa/Fulani and the Yoruba to exclude the Igbo from providing national leadership would severely undermine that unity!
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in a true federal system, “no part of the federation should be so dominant that others have little opportunity to provide national leadership”. In other words, a true federalism doesn’t only guarantee equal opportunities and fair material treatment for all constituent polities, it ensures balance among them.
But there is no balance among Nigeria’s constituent nationalities. The North is so politically dominant that it will always provide national leadership or determine which of the three Southern geo-political zones does. Given ethnic bloc voting in Nigeria, all the North needs is to speak with one voice and then align with one Southern geopolitical zone. For instance, in 1979, Shehu Shagari became President without the votes of the Southeast or the Southwest; in 2015 and, indeed, this year, Buhari won without the Southeast and the South-South. So, if, for instance, the core North continues to align with the Southwest, the Southeast may never produce the president. But that will fan the flames of disintegration.
For instance, the agitation for Scottish independence in the UK stemmed largely from the fact that the Scottish people felt their votes didn’t count because, for nearly 20 years, in the 1980s and 1990s, the Conservative Party won successive general elections and controlled Westminster by relying only on English and Welsh votes, without winning a single seat in Scotland. This was seen as an affront to Scottish sensibilities and led to a feeling of alienation and then agitation for independence. Truth is, in a multi-ethnic nation, concerns about how power is shared and exercised can create real tensions and schisms.
Nigeria’s sensible solution to that problem is an informal power-sharing arrangement to rotate the presidency between the North and the South. It was in recognition that the presidency must return to the South in 2023 that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, PDP’s presidential candidate in this year’s election, vowed to serve for only one term, if elected. So strongly did Atiku feel he must reassure the South of his intention that he said: “If there is an iron-clad legal document that binds me, I am willing to publicly commit to it”.
Some questioned whether Atiku would have kept the vow. But that’s hypothetical; the fact is that he recognised the imperative. In the same spirit of the politically imperative power-sharing, no one, except the self-interested ethnic jingoist, would say that once the presidency returns to the South in 2023, it shouldn’t go to the Southeast; it should!
But where does that leave the Yoruba? Well, their future lies in a properly restructured and decentralised Nigeria. Think of it: if the presidency is rotated among the six geopolitical zones and each does eight years, it means that it would take 40 years before a zone gets the presidency again! Forty years? Well, that’s partly why Nigeria must be restructured along regional lines, so that each region can develop at its own pace.
That has long been the priority of the Yoruba: to develop at their own pace. Which is why they must fight for a properly restructured Nigeria and not a divisive contest for a symbolic presidency in 2023
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/06/yoruba-must-fight-for-restructuring-not-2023-presidency/
Alimotu Pelewura was the strong and radical woman who led the Lagos Market Women’s Assossiation (LMWA) in its oppositions to the taxation policy and other unfavourable ordinances of the British colonial government.
Alimotu Pelewura was born in 1865 in Lagos to a polygynous family. She was the elder of the two children born by her biological mother. She took over her mother’s occupation of fish trading and rose from being an ordinary fish trader to the most important market woman in Lagos. In 1910, she was given a chieftaincy title by Oba Eshugbayi Eleko. In the 1920s, she became the head of the meat market and later, with the help of her political ally, Herbert Macaulay, she became the leader of the Lagos Market Women Association (LMWA).
As the leader of LMWA, Alimotu Pelewuraused her position and influence to oppose any unfavourable policy passed by the then British colonial government. Alimotu Pelewura, an uneducated fish trader, wielded so much power that she became a source of concern to the colonial government. Disregarding several jail threats, Alimotu Pelewura continued her activism and struggles to make life easier for women, market women especially.
In 1932, she led other market women in the protest against imposed taxation, and the price control plan which was popularly called the ‘Pullen Scheme’ after Captain A.P. Pullen, its director. Also in the 1930s, she led a strong protest against the relocation of Ereko market to the Oluwole area of Lagos. She got herself jailed but was eventually released after several rallies and protests by Lagos market women.
Also, Alimotu Pelewura was politically conscious during her days. In 1939, she joined the Nigerian Union of Young Democrats (NUYD), a political party closely associated to NNDP of Herbert Macaulay. She was also a member of the Nigerian Women’s Party led by Oyinkan Abayomi. In 1947, few years before her death, Alimotu Pelewura was given the title of ‘Erelu’ for radically representing and promoting the interests of women
Alimotu Pelewura died in 1951 and was succeeded by Abibatu Mogaji, the mother of Bola Tinubu. Alimotu Pelewura will forever remain one of the greatest women in the history of Nigeria.
Contributed by Opeoluwa Elisha Ademoyegun
#yorubaculture
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