‘Niyi Akinsiju argues that rather than promote invidious ethnic nationalism more Nigerians should awaken to the need to emplace leadership that will ensure transparency in government and integrity in the business of governance
It is important to explain why The Nigeria Agenda chose Kano for its inaugural national sensitization advocacy. It is the outcome of a rationalization that was premised, not only on the city’s central positioning in Nigeria’s North-West geopolitical zone, but more significantly, because of its robust history of citizens’ engagements made manifest in the historical sublimity of the Talakawa political culture and tradition that still define the politics of the city and to a large extent, the politics of the state in contemporary times.
Thus, while citizens, especially of the social and economic category pejoratively described as commoners, in other states of the Nigerian federation, in bemoaned their burden of existence and listless fate under a political system materially dominated by an elite minority, which is usually driven by narrow self interest that mostly bothered on selfish expropriation of collective patrimony, the Kano commoners, the Talakawa, had long ago found and aggregated a common social, economic and political identity and purpose in their numbers. And, earlier than any citizens’ movement anywhere in the country, made commitments to not only the contest for democratic power, but to, by concrete class action, insist on making the people the center of both government and governance working through the covenant inherent in the Sawaba Declaration of Principles of 1951.
This inaugural advocacy of The Nigeria Agenda in Kano city is in deference to this precocious act of political self enablement and activation, consumed about 71 years ago under Mallam Aminu Kano, the teacher, whose boundless humanism inspired a mass based peoples ideological movement and a political trend that is still a reference item in the simplicity of its context and at the same, its conceptual sophistication which helped the ordinary people overcome spurious divisions in their ranks. And, in honor of those patriots that have continued to propagate and sustain the ethos of that era.
Whilst Kano’s political and ideological pedigrees provide a strong ground to host this advocacy, we equally find an alluring proposition in the testimonials of the political activism of its political history, which continues to evolve through contemporary times, as a paradigm of adaptation for The Nigeria Agenda .
History is replete with politicians and peripheral political activists of different hues and characterizations, who, at convenience, and in pursuit of vain political and material gains, routinely verbalize, in vicious excoriation, the challenges and deficiencies of Nigeria’s nationhood and, sometimes, in the most delinquent manners, engaged in brazen revisionism as they fraudulent maneuver to manipulate public sentiments with the end to set one group of Nigerians against the others, in mind, with primary intent at securing places and advantages within the nation’s political leadership hemisphere.
So, while the nation is treated to cacophonous scenes of sometimes curious and needless disagreements by these protagonists of our divergence, we continue to witness a unity of a small numbers of individuals on the higher hierarchy of the political tree, sated by privileges of power and offices despite their coming from different ethnic groups and religions.
Nevertheless, their willfulness becomes manifest in the face of any possible threat to their continuous holding of their places in the privileged political class, they veil their self interests in lofty text as engineer disaffections in the public space as they incite the civil population in effusive proclamation and protestations of denials of rights, marginalization, injustice, inequality, inequity flavored with a large dose of invidious ethnic nationalism and prodigious explications of verses that underscore national differences.
The outturn is that there’s a lot of victim’s mentality on display with an equal size of entitlement mentality playing out in the public space, as professional vendors of disaffections criminally seduced innocent citizens on a cocktail of twisted logic and fraudulent scenario painting in the bids to argue the justification for the stratification of the nation along ethnic and other jaundiced lines. All these in an enterprise of sophistry in the service of a few that have become adept at dividing the nation along primitive sentiments.
I do not in desire to dismiss occasions of injustices and marginalization in our country in this presentation, not at all. These, in fact, are hallmarks of the characterization of any community of human beings and there are many examples of such in our records as a country. It is, however, the industry of magnifying our differences which now flourishes as an alternative national option that I, here, submit, is not a true representation of the Nigerian circumstance.
The truth of our history is in contradiction to what these subject-matter experts and champions of our national chasms want us to believe in with their bizarre venting of an alternate reality, as they frivolously argue to indicate that despite our more than 150 years of social and economic interactions as peoples of different tongues and ways of worship within this common geographical space, we are yet to evolve into true nationhood. This is a deliberate misrepresentation of our reality. While, indeed, nationhood is a journey and constantly evolving, Nigeria has, from all markers of national identity, arrived at the anchorage of nationhood. And this at no small price; from a population size of just above 56 million people in 1963, we have together, journeyed through a treacherous terrain dotted with eight known coup d’états with their violent and peaceful variants; including variegated uprisings, mostly triggered by local differences over tribal boundaries and religious differences. Plus, of course, social dislocations and economic deprivations of all sorts in our 63 years as a sovereign state. Yet, our numbers have grown to a humongous two hundred and six million people, this is a singular testimony to our unity as a people.
Indeed, since the 1914 amalgamation, Nigerians and Nigeria have increased and grown stronger and resilient, marrying across religious and ethnic divides, trading and doing business between and among ourselves, migrating and settling down across tribal geographical boundaries, even within the political firmament, politicians crisscross party lines in shifting affiliations that have become a peculiar character trait of democracy in Nigeria. We have grown to share in the pains and joy of our compatriots across tribal and religious lines. As a people, we have learned together to continue to feed on the hope and prospects of Nigeria transforming into a hugely great country, with all its social, economic and security implications. Even as our faith and resolve in this country, no matter the talk-down and dangerous cynicism thrown around in some quarters, have remained unshaken. One good reason we are still standing solidly together today.
But as we aspire for greater economic returns and ennobling social conditions, the significance of recruiting the right kind of leadership at all tiers of governance to facilitate these is crucial. This is where the Kano political paradigm that I had romanticized earlier, applies; the recognition of our inherent and growing unity as a people because of our shared history and experiences, and the need to galvanize the capability to make leaders responsible and answerable to the people by acting and thinking beyond cleavages of our differences in the recruitment, evaluation and monitoring of the performances of political leaders. The Talakawa of Kano were able to transcend primordial sentiments by bonding around the virtues and attributes of their commonalities to achieve political ascendancy through solidarity of a single mindedness to dominate the political space for the good of the people.
In borrowing from the phenomenon of the Talakawa, there is a need to band together in conscientious vertical and horizontal solidarity, the more than 280 different tongues-ethnic groupings, divided along the two mainstream religions, must transform into active leadership recruitment officers, conscious of their rights, duties and responsibilities as Nigerian citizens and made potentates in the democratic space by jettisoning base appeals to primordial differences. And, as a collective, demand of leaders, the requirements of social progression, economic growth, security of lives and properties at all tiers of government. And to that extent, emplace leadership that will ensure inclusiveness, transparency in government, and integrity in the business of governance rather than those that will excuse abysmal performance or criminality in the conduct of government on the smoke screen of ethnicity and religious persecution.
This translates to making political leaders answerable for their deeds in office to the citizens; to ensure compliance by leaders to ethos of equity, equality, right of access to material assets, to justice, and to the enjoyment of unhindered peaceful existence anywhere we may find ourselves within the Nigerian geographical space without let or hindrance. These are the pillars on which the The Nigeria Agenda is pivoted, and to which we invite you to review and adopt, and to join us to amplify and propagate across Nigeria, conscious of our Nigerianess.
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