The Bola Tinubu administration came to power in Nigeria following its victory at the February 25, 2023 presidential election where it enjoyed massive support from northern voters.
Specifically, the North West region, which comprises Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara States were the game changers for Tinubu.
The region, which prides itself on having the largest voting bloc among Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, fetched the President about 30 percent of his total votes in the political contest, considered by analysts to be one of the fiercest in the history of the country.
Moreover, the President’s vote tally from the North West, the most he accrued across all the six regions in the country, also ensured that his below par performance in the South West where he hails from, did not rob him of victory.
However, the relationship between Tinubu and the North went sour after the subsidy on petroleum products was removed by the government on May 29, 2023 and shortly after that, the devaluation of the currency, the naira, followed.
The attendant hardship on northerners soon became unbearable, spurring the region on to accuse the President of melting out economic hardship on them as well as poverty up in the North.
When it was time for the government to appoint competent and qualified Nigerians into key positions and Tinubu began to make appointments, the North complained that the majority of those called up were from the South West.
The region, therefore, cried foul, claiming that its people were sidelined and excluded from holding juicy positions as they were not among those the president considered as important enough to be in his cabinet.
The North also complained about a lack of government visibility in and neglect of their region so that when there was a blackout in the region that lasted several days, they accused the government of a grand scheme to set the region backwards.
And it did not stop there: policies by the government that were perceived to favour the South, such as the country’s tax reform bill, were overwhelmingly condemned by the North.
Additionally, Northerners not only said that federal projects were in short supply on their side of the country, they also claimed that the government was shifting attention to the South West, especially Lagos State, where they said some mouthwatering projects had begun.
Consequently, when the #EndBadGovernance protests kicked off in August 2024 in Nigeria and citizens took the opportunity to protest the rising cost of living and “bad governance” in the country, the North was not left out.
Northerners, including women and children, came out in their droves to vent their frustration and it was in the North that pockets of violence first erupted before spreading to the South.
There were sporadic lootings and violence in states like Kano, Sokoto and Adamawa. The protests got really awry and many northern youth did not stand down.
Some policemen in the North, sadly, lost their lives in the mayhem and properties worth millions of Naira were destroyed.
In a surprising turn of events many Northern youths waved Russian flags during the protests and many more called for military coup to topple the government.
“No soldier should listen to politicians about taking over the government. Any soldier that does that and truncates this democratic regime will write his name in the hall of infamy”
The youths, who had likely seen citizens of neighbouring Niger Republic, Mali and Burkina Faso throw their colonial master, France, out of their countries and invited Russia in, called on Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, to come to their aid and liberate them from the Nigerian government.
Many Nigerians will recall vividly how the actions of some of those youths nearly jeopardized their future.
They were promptly arrested and ferried to Abuja for prosecution but the ages of some of them drew widespread attention and sympathy for them, ingredients that eventually helped to get them off the hook.
After the episode with the Northern youths, it was then the turn of some northern elite to cry marginalisation and discrimination by the government against the region.
These northern elite have even threatened Tinubu’s potential 2027 re-election bid and on top of those sitting on this accusation chain is a former Tinubu ally and immediate past Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai.
When Tinubu’s then-nominated ministers were undergoing ministerial screening, El-Rufai, who was one of the nominees, failed to make the cut and did not take his exclusion from the government lying down.
After the ministerial screening fiasco, El-Rufai disclosed to Nigerians that he was going back to school. And so for some time, no mention was made again about him as he disappeared into political obscurity.
But that was until Nigerian-American professor of journalism, Farooq Kperogi, wrote his piece “Tinubu’s Buharisation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.”
In the article, Kperogi implied that Tinubu has a “yorubanisation” agenda. He said the former Governor of Lagos State appointed “Yoruba people” to significant positions in the NNPC.
And El-Rufai, who knew that the immediate past President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner, was also accused of having a “fulanisation” agenda while he was in the saddle, said “two wrongs do not make a right” and preached “sensible inclusion” over “arrogant exclusion” to Tinubu.
Before long, El-Rufai, still disgruntled with some unnamed civilians whom he said were behaving like the military in their babaringa and suits, declared a national emergency on the state of political affairs in Nigeria, stressing that a military intervention could be looming.
He said, “For those of us who lived half of our lives under military rule, we know what it is.
“We don’t want military rule, but we also don’t want civilians behaving like the military in their babaringa and suits.
“This is a national emergency, and we must act before history repeats itself.”
Although his remarks were made last month and called “irresponsible” and “coup-baiting comments,” analysts have said the Tinubu administration should not handle El-Rufai’s assertions with levity.
Last week, the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, while refuting recent comments made by another Northern elite, Babachir Lawal, regarding the 2027 presidential ambition of Tinubu, said that the President had made significant contributions to all regions, including the North.
Matawalle then added, “The people of the North will rally behind Mr. President to build up on the achievements and reforms he has initiated.”
And last year, Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, said that people making calls for a military takeover do not love Nigeria and her democratic achievements.
Musa had sounded off, “We want to make it clear that the armed forces of Nigeria are here to protect democracy.
“We all want democracy; we do better during democracy, and so, the armed forces will continue to support democracy.”
A political and current affairs analyst, Collins Ugorji, told The Point, “Military coups will not serve anyone well. We don’t need it in Nigeria at all.
“Democratic governance is still far better than military rule.
“Any politician calling for a coup now or later is selfish and power-drunk. We must all be guided.
“And as for the question whether the North will support a military coup in the country, I will say a big no.
“The North wants development and they will not get it with a military regime in place in the country.
“Did they get development when all of their own were heading some of the military regimes of yesteryears? They did not. It was democracy that truly gave the region a sense of belonging and purpose.”
Another analyst, Benedict Njoku, said, “No soldier should listen to politicians about taking over the government. Any soldier that does that and truncates this democratic regime will write his name in the hall of infamy.
“I believe only the dividends of democracy will make the North warm up to Tinubu, nothing else.
“We must not get this current democratic arrangement wrong. If we do so, we will set ourselves thirty years back in our democratic experience.
“But let us be careful. We can’t simply wish military coups away. It will take the collective efforts of all democratic forces to remind the military boys that they belong in the barracks, and not at the helm of affairs in this country.
“This is why a group like the Arewa Consultative Forum must always speak up whenever desperate politicians from the North, or anywhere else, keep inviting the military and more will do so as we approach 2027.”
