THE GHOST OF JUNE 12: A REFERENTIAL TO "7 FATAL DELUSIONS AMONG SOUTHERNERS"

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By Yahaya Balogun

"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." - Saul Bellow

The way we democratize deliberate ignorance in the southern district of a failing Nigeria (i.e., the Southern part of what I call f-Nigeria) is beyond pale. The current agitation for the Oduduwa Republic is mused in the wrong footings. The agitators for the emancipation of the Oduduwa republic are Oduduwa patriots. But the method being used by them to liberate the intellectually resourceful geolocated region within a troubled Nigeria is wrong.

Some of the southern stakeholders are fully packaged in fool's paradise. They are languishing in a faded country that can be a bright light compass for other African countries. But Nigeria is now a dark compass for a beleaguered Africa and a seeming pariah continent. A sad commentary and development in our moments of history. Southern Nigeria has always been a contextual entity within Nigerian geopolitics.

Realistically, if you are a clear-sighted Southerner and you want to face facts and not be in the cocoons of delusional people, please, go and read the exposé titled: SEVEN FATAL DELUSIONS AMONG SOUTHERNERS authored by Mr. Moses Oludele Idowu. The article, dated June 5, 2021, is a brilliant exposition for thoughtful minds in Yorubaland and beyond. The writer couldn't have exposed our delusional state of being better in his masterpiece. I had similar intent to pen down the delusional unseriousness of some Southerners, but Mr. Moses Oludele Idowu did justice to the structure and substance of the article. The Southerners are now caught in the cobwebs of a failing state called Nigeria. 

Sadly, we are fighting a 'crude' and a "just war" to save ourselves from ourselves and the barbaric and heinous exploits of the Fulani herdsmen and the Nigerian state. We are fighting for a just course with once-upon-a-time (dis)honest warriors and traitors. From time immemorial, Our progenitors ignorantly sold a formidable race to invaders and brutish British with the bad taste of history. We got our independence without a thorough negotiation of severance or disunity from the constituency of fraudulent masters. 

Different people with different mores, cultures, religions, and ways of life were jam-packed for the administrative convenience of the colonial rulers. While their reigning periods were being dismantled at independence, the imperialists left us in false unity for future perils. The chicken of our forefathers who sold our generations to perfidy has come home to roost. Our current generation is reaping the sour milk of our forefathers' quiescent thoughts and deliberate ignorance.

Today, the conglomeration of Nigeria is a bitter union or entrapped marriage. Southerners are the worst enemies of themselves. Some Southerners cannot be counted on. It seems a generational curse that needs to be broken. The Northerners are very united at perpetrating evils and destruction against their perceived enemies. They suffer from the born-to-rule syndrome. Born-to-rule syndrome is a generational curse that the north must break. The Easterners are good at being used as an administrative convenience by the Nigerian rulers. Easterners have never been fully united for a common purpose and achievable course. It is a generational curse that needs to be permanently halted. Who will be the first to break the collective curses and unending condemnations plaguing each geopolitical zone in "a mere geographical expression" called Nigeria is a daunting task.

Meanwhile, we all remember how the late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo's political efforts were thwarted by the six- unwise men in the Southwest(i.e., the Yorubas). Late Chief MKO Abiola and Late Chief Akintola were used against Awo's ideals and ideas that would have transformed the Southern and entire Nigeria for good. Southerners were used to impede Awo's laudable agendas for Nigeria. We remember how the man in Minna used some six unwise notable men in the Southwest to annul the June 12, 1993, presidential election. The debunk of history will reveal their names at the appropriate time. June 12 is the most peaceful and freest presidential election in the history of a contrived and troubled Nigeria. June 12, the late MKO Abiola's victory was invalidated using southerners to hatch the eggs of southern conspiracy.

Aiyekooto, but truth be told, some of us who supported Buhari's political (in)competency suffered from political amnesia, thinking Buhari will assuage the southerners to bring the much-needed change. We were deadly wrong. Buhari's orientation is tailored towards Western self-containment and preservation. With all evidentiary facts, it's obvious that Buhari loves Hausa-Fulanis first before Buhari loves other tribes in Nigeria.

What Mr. Moses Oludele Idowu, the author of the referential article, espoused are our delusional expectations that the Western world will come to African aid when African Africans roast or eat Africans. The Southerners' delusional fixation can also be juxtaposed with the delusional expectation that Buhari will leverage Southerners' interests for the sake of Southerners. Like Western countries against Africa, Buhari's tribalized persona and ethnicized administration will never leverage anything at the expense of the Hausa-Fulani's interests and oligarchy. Buhari is an unconcerned, stealthy, and unapologetic bigot. We hyped Buhari's integrity at the expense of our patriotism and blurry political eyes. Buhari's silence, ineffectual, and tired hands at handling and tackling the insecurity in Nigeria is one of the worst things to have happened to Nigeria. It is high time he woke up from his slumbering demeanor.

Nigeria is jinxed. Buhari, the perceived providential child, has morphed into a circumstantial child racing backward to align with the immediate past. The situation in Nigeria is imminently precarious pre and post-Buhari. After Buhari, what next? The delusional coexistence and utopian Nigeria now and after Buhari is obviously null and mirage. If I have siblings or family members living in Nigeria's Northern and Eastern parts, I will unequivocally ask them to begin sauntering back to base. Nigeria is an illusion, and our delusional unity is a question of time. Nigeria is at the point of inflection to deflect into the chasm of time. Unfortunately, our state of disequilibrium in Nigeria is a slippery slope to the unknown.

With no equivocation, all the 7 bullet points highlighted by the brilliant author, Mr. Moses Oludele Idowu, cannot be overlooked or overemphasized. This is the auspicious period we must begin to unite in the Oduduwa enclaves to liberate ourselves from a forced marriage of convenience. Nigeria as we know it is delicately sitting on k-legged tripod stands that may not stand the test of time. Mr. Moses Oludele Idowu's well-researched article, expectedly, may not be widely read by the Aiyékòóto?´ and apathetic Southerners who may not see themselves as the most delusional, confused and well-learned region in our false geopolitical conundrum called Nigeria. Until we appease the ghost of June 12 through the true national conversation, Southwestern Nigeria will continue to pour needless libations at the void entrance of a house of lamentations.

From Jibril To Pablo: The Jagabanization Of Democracy As Nigeria Moves Closer To Tyranny

David Hundeyin

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By Boyejo A. Coker - Editor-in-Chief

In my preceding piece, I alluded to the fact that, it actually does not matter what aisle of the political spectrum you belong to, the problem with Nigeria is not one of ethnicity or a lack of resources, both human and natural to propel that great nation to its deserved lofty heights, Nigeria's problem remains the same - the rudderless, improvident and imprudent band of usurpers and brigands, masquerading as leaders since the inception of the 4th Republic in May, 1999. 

For those who thought 2023 was going to be different, I must ask what they were smoking to have thought it possible for one to put old wine in a new bottle and expect a different taste. In what parallel or alternate universe would that have been possible giving the antecedents of Nigeria’s crass political class and the generality of its people? When you have Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi as the standard bearers of the three main Parties, was anything actually going to be different? 

Most people conveniently forget that Peter Obi launched a third force as a form of ‘grievance’ against the PDP. Obi felt he was never going to win the nomination ticket to be the presidential candidate of the PDP. Obi was in fact the first protagonist of the spirit of Emilokan, or in his case, Awalokan, as he felt it was the turn of the Southeast to produce the next President of Nigeria. Peter Obi is not new to the political arena in Nigeria. He is in fact an integral part of the establishment and while many laud his purported achievements when he was the Chief Executive of Anambra State, one remains puzzled as to exactly what his signature accomplishments were, besides being a supposed egalitarian steward of the coffers of Anambra State, as governor. 

  

For the record, Obi was Atiku Abubakar's running mate in 2019 under the auspices of the PDP, the Party that had held sway over Nigerian politics for 16 years from 1999 to 2015. He and Atiku lost the election to the then incumbent (and outgoing president) Muhammadu Buhari.

Obi was also named in the Pandora Papers controversy. The result of the Pandora Papers leaks, the Premium Times reported on Obi's involvement in offshore companies in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands and Barbados. This was before he held any political office in Nigeria. Further reporting showed that in 2010 as well, Obi had Access International help him set up and manage Gabriella Investments Limited, a company in the British Virgin Islands named after Obi's daughter. 

One of the directors was also the director of a Belize-based shell company that was issued 50,000 shares in Gabriella Investments. In 2017, Obi reorganized the company under the name PMGG Investments Limited and created a trust named The Gabriella Settlement which became the sole shareholder in PMGG Investments Limited. Obi was not holding any political position at this time. 

The Premium Times report claimed that Obi had broken several laws due to his business dealings. The report claimed that firstly, Obi remained as director of Next International (UK) Limited while serving as Governor of Anambra State, which is in direct violation of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act. Obi described that claim as misleading and wrong in an interview with Arise News stating that he resigned from all companies before taking the office of Governor of Anambra State. Secondly, it claimed that Obi's non-declaration of his offshore companies broke the Nigerian Constitution's provision that requires public officers to declare all their properties, assets, and liabilities. 

For the record, no criminal case has ever been filed against Obi. 

 

To his credit, Obi's Labor Party (LP) galvanized a movement that threatened the very foundation of Nigeria's entrenched political establishment. He selected a charismatic running mate of Northern extraction, Senator Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, a Nigerian economist and politician who served as Senator for Kaduna North from 2011 to 2012 and member of the House of Representatives from 2003 to 2007. 

The 'Obidient Movement', as it was aptly named, re-invigorated the youth of Nigeria and energized a political base that had been marginalized, oppressed and suppressed for far too long by the Kleptocrats who had run roughshod over the Nigerian populace for far too long. For the first time in the history of Nigerian politics, the entrenched political establishment had to reckon with a veritable third force, and Bola Ahmed Tinubu's All Progressives Congress (APC) ruling Party as well as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Atiku Abubakar, were left reeling in the face of a formidable display of organizational discipline and focused messaging by the Obi-Datti led LP. 

While the Obi-Datti led LP sought to project a unity of purpose coupled with disciplined messaging, Tinubu's APC took the often travelled path of ethno-religious bigotry by presenting a Muslim-Muslim ticket with Tinubu's running-mate Kashim Shettima having a well-documented history of being in bed with the Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, while the Atiku-led PDP again put forth someone with a well-documented record of not only losing major elections dating back to the early 1990s, but also being one of the most corrupt individuals in the history of Nigerian politics.  

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigeria's supervisory electoral body promised a free, fair and transparent election with a veritable voter authentication mechanism, as well as real time upload and transmission of election results. At the end of the day, the 2023 elections were at best a sham with widespread issues of voter suppression through intimidation and in some cases, murder, including the blatant altering/falsification of results to favor the ruling APC.  

Even more damming is that Tinubu’s own organization, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which was formed on 15 May 1994 by a broad coalition of Nigerian democrats to challenge the then military junta of the sadistic dictator, Sani Abacha, challenged the transparency and legitimacy of the just concluded 2023 general elections. 

Worse still is that barely a month after the elections, the Islamist terrorist groups have once again resumed their blood-letting, perhaps in recognition of the fact that the incoming administration of Bola Tinubu and his second-in-command, Kashim Shettima, will subtly acquiesce to their ethnic and religious killings, as the two (Tinubu and Shettima) are known sympathizers and benefactors of Boko Haram and its sister band of killers. 

 

If President Buhari's goal was to leave a legacy beholden of the true tenets of democracy, he failed woefully, which is not surprising when one considers the rudderless leadership, he has subjected the country to over the last 8 years.  

The legitimacy of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, if he is sworn-in will always be a viable conversation piece. He will be the first person chosen to lead Nigeria to get less than 50% of the votes. There are also doubts as to the veracity of his educational qualifications, as to date, his purported degree from Chicago State University in the United States of America, remains unsubstantiated.  

Furthermore, there are serious legal questions surrounding his forfeiture of close to $500,000 to the United States government in 1993 for his involvement in drug trafficking. The latter, as well as the specter of the fact that he may have presented fraudulent educational credentials may be enough to cast a shadow over his fitness for that exalted office.  

There is a palpable air of illegitimacy hanging over Tinubu's hollow victory, and regardless of what the Supreme Court rules in response to the petitions filed by both the LP and the PDP, near irremediable damage has been done to the collective psyche of Nigerians, as well as the nation's nascent democratic institutions.