By Abdul Ango
LEST WE FORGET, in the whole 8years of OBJ’S administration he did not see one single Hausa/Fulani northerner worthy to be appointed as a Service Chief, IGP or DG (DSS). From Victor Malu, Martin Luther Agwai, Jonah Wuyep, Luka Yusuf, Ibrahim Ogehi etc to IGP Balogun Tafa, Musliu Smith, Sunday Ehindero & Mike Okiro and to the DG(DSS) Col. Aare (rtd).
If appointments were to be made from Kano or Sokoto (whole seat of Chaliphate) he would look for the Adamu Baikis and Solomon Matankaris an indegenous Christians of the area. When the Hausas/Fulanis complaints, the answer was, all the appointees were your people and brothers from the North and of course they were. He even used that tactics to play a dangerous divide and rule politics, with his arrow – head men, Jerry Gana & Solomon as cabals and members of his kitchen cabinet that determined any appointment made by the govt. Check every sensitive position then, no single Hausa or Fulani there; CBN Joseph Sanusi later Soludo, Custom Buba Gyan, NNPC Edmund Dakoru to mention but a few.
Never forgeting that, OBJ flushed out more than 500 soldiers of Northern extraction from the ranks of Major and above who held any political appointments during the past military administrations, including orderlies and ADCs. Those who survived the plot, like Bamalli Nuhu were assembled and bombed in the mountainous region between Benue and Cross River State.
Let’s also note that, his civil service reform were mainly targeted towards northerners who mostly (80%) stood as victims from NEPA, NPA, Maritime, and Aviation etc., I do hope you know the replacements that followed were all from his kiths and kins & his god sons.
Prior to 1999, more than 15 international airlines operates or had their routes to Kano, but he made sure to decimate it to only 3 before he quited. Also fresh in our memories is how he stylishly killed the Northern agronomic economy, particularly the poultry through the hoax claim of the birds flu conspiracy that exterminated major players in the sector from the region, as well opening our boarders for all kind of agricultural products importation at the detriment of local producers and the attendant consequences.
Further more, in Kano alone there were more than 5000 factories / industries in Challawa, Bompai and Sharada industrial estates, but before his tenure ended 80% of those factories folded and the remaining 20% were operating at half or below capacities due to his skewed economic policies.
Remember the housing monetization and the privatization policies he implemented, he only did that to empower his kiths and Kins to owned choice properties in Abuja and Lagos, while the privatization was to catapult his cronies and surrogates / god sons to multi-billionaires, people like Mike Adenuga, Fola Adeola, Jimoh Ibrahim, Jim Ovia, Chris and Andy Ubahs to mention but few. Most of those mentioned, prior to 1999 were using night buses to & fro Lagos – Abuja, incidently within a span of shot period, all were riding private jets, at the detriment of the country and North in particular. I can go on and on, but you can see we all tolerated that.
On GEJ also check all his appointees including the service chiefs, none from the Hausa or Fulani. Those he inherited from ‘Yaradua he made sure to outrightly sacked them or refused to renew their appointments after 2011, appointees like Dambazau, Dikko Umar and Sanusi. 80% of GEJ appointments were either igbos or people from the south-south, simple click on Google will reveal that for you.
Again, GEJ didn’t find a single Yoruba Muslim worthy for appointment, yet his every appointment from the North Central States goes to a Christian even in States with Muslim majorities.
Yet the Muslim North or the Hausa / Fulani tolerated all that shits, not even mentioning the killing and profiling of their folks, sometimes without provocation on the Plateau, Southern Kaduna, and down ssouth. Then what are these people shouting nepotism or marginalization talking about?
If Buhari failed in dischargging his duties there are many ways to channel your grievances including offering a constructive criticism, but bullying him, dehumanizing him, insulting or blackmailing him on media or àny other avenues will not work, and such may be to dangerous and more injurious for the nation to bear. It’s apparent that the nation lacks any credible opposition or civil society organizations, but an assembly of enraged bad loosers and Cashivists who capitalized on idiocy and gullibility of their followers to foment troubles and obtain a foreign grant.
You can insult or blackmail the president from morning till night, you can demand for a restructuring or even dismemberment of the union, but in doing so why dragging his religion or tribe? We’ve Hausa and Muslim in all the parties do you think they are happy with the dangerous politics being played by the opposition, on the basis of religion, tribe or region, I pity the next president from wherever he comes cos a precedence had already been put in place. No Nigerian president will ever be respected by all.