Contextualizing Bafarawa’s
BBC Interview
By
GATAWA M. BAGOBIRI
“Bafarawa is a politician who knows his
colleagues very well and I believe there is sense in what he said.”
-
Emmanuel Tanko, New Nigerian
Weekly, August 19, 2006, p. 11
Above is an opinion expressed by one of the
respondents to the New Nigerian Weekly’s enquiries regarding the
political implications of the recent interview Sokoto State governor,
Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa granted BBC Hausa Service. Ever since the
interview was aired by BBC, Nigerians, notably Northerners, have been
reacting to it, viewing from different perspectives. For two months now,
the discourse has been going on, culminating into its critical analysis
by the New Nigerian Weekly of August 12, 2006.
However, what exactly did Bafarawa say, in
what context and for whom remain some of the unanswered questions by
most of the analysts. It was disturbing listening to a VOA Hausa
reporter asking listeners to comment on the interview they confessed
they have not listened to. Typical of unprofessional journalist he went
about by asking them whether it was right for Bafarawa to say all the
northern governors and Vice-President are to blame for the problems the
region is facing and that all of them have not performed. Expectedly,
respondents ignorantly used to respond by saying that Bafarawa was wrong
in making such an assertion.
The media, to some extent, played the major
role in making the interview an exceptionally controversial issue. Most
papers and radio stations are fond of quoting phrases and parts of
sentences from interview text and giving it literal meaning, thereby
preventing the ignorant readers and listeners from having a clear
picture of the text and context of the interview and its implications
for the political future of the north.
For instance, New Nigerian Weekly quoted
Bafarawa as having said that “the north at the moment has no credible,
competent and honest candidates for the presidency”. When a paper throws
this kind of statement for public discourse, there is tendency for
people cry foul and prone at Bafarawa. It is not surprising that most of
their respondents came out to openly attack the statement accredited to
Bafarawa.
As if it has escaped his memory, the New
Nigerian correspondent who compiled the report somewhere said the
Bafarawa simply “accused the present political office holders from the
north of failure” and that he said “all of us have failed and didn’t
live up to the expectations of our people, then how can they come out to
say the want to be president of the country”. The paper goes on to quote
him as having said, “The most annoying thing is that the governors from
the north who are clamouring to be president are not competent and it is
just amazing because I cannot even believe seeing these people in the
presidential race, considering their status in the country and how they
executed their previous mandate”.
Also, after blaming the governors for
inability to implement resolutions affecting the interest of
northerners, Bafarawa couldn’t see “the justification behind the
aspirations of some of the governors from the north or any other
political office holder from the north contesting the presidency of this
great country because we have failed”.
What the media ought to bring to light for
public enlightenment is the context of the interview as highlighted
above. The dominant political discourse in the country is who succeeds
Obasanjo come 2007 and from which part of the country. In the north, a
number of contenders have so indicated their interest to contest,
including some serving state governors. Are they all credible, competent
and honest? Bafarawa believes that all the serving governors in the
region that have so far joined the race fall short of this criterion.
Going by records, Babangida and Atiku may be
credible and competent, Buhari is all round: credible, competent and
honest. Bafarawa’s interview was, however, centred on current political
office holders from the north; hence not extended to evaluation of
former Heads of State now in the race. After all, he has said it loud in
the course of the interview that “the north has well respected and
credible aspirants who can lead the country to the Promised Land and
they are there if given the opportunity”. It is this aspect of the
interview both listeners and readers are not aware of and ignorance of
which make them accuse Bafarawa of condemning the whole north. What the
statement implies is that non-performing governors from north and
Vice-President have no moral justification to vie for presidency. That
it is the level of performance of a serving political office holder that
should justify his contest for a higher office. Period!
What I expected Bafarawa to add to the list
of criteria for the serving political office holders nursing ambition
for higher offices is the role each and every one of them played during
the Great Battle Against Third Term. The attempt by a section of
political office holders to strangulate our nascent democracy through
constitution burglary will remain in our memory for a long time. It was
an all-encompassing struggle that each and every Nigerian was either
with Third Termers or with the heroes of democracy. No on-looker or
fence sitter. On May 16, 2006, the combined forces of democracy defeated
the pompous bunch of traitors.
Considering the importance of the battle to
the political future of Nigeria, we must continue to safely keep the
register of Third Term debate and hearings, with a view to providing
guideposts to nominating and electing our future political office
holders. In this regard, northerners must question the moral
justifications of some of serving governors in the region that played a
central role in the criminal conspiracy called Tenure Extension Project
that now parade themselves as presidential aspirants. If Abdullahi Adamu
and Ahmed Makarfi know they are performing, why supporting Third Term?
Have they forgotten that 2007 is nearer and Nigerians are daily becoming
democratically conscious? How can Abba Ibrahim of Yobe advocates life
presidency to Obasanjo and turn round to say he wants to succeed him?
Nigerians ask: When, 2007 or when the present occupant dies? Rubbish!
Saminu Turaki and Yerima are the jokers of
the 21st century. The former has just decamped to PDP having
failed to execute the contract of dragging his former party, ANPP, to
support the obnoxious Third Term plan. To cover up for misdeeds and
typical of politician with no clear principles, he jumped to President’s
party and now wasting resources on a futile Presidency project. If not
that PDP has lost focus and direction, it would have called him to
order. Anyway, if Third Term has been buried, Saminus are still needed
as they can dubiously re-incarnate it in the form of Interim Government
Project.
Yerima’s case is very regrettable. He was an
Anti-Third Term apostle. But his level of performance as a governor is
very low to justify his contest for presidency. Developmental projects
and infrastructures are lacking in his sate. His political Shariah is
detested by his subjects who yearned for Islamic Shariah. Also, he is in
the same party with Buhari who is far more credible, competent, honest
and acceptable aspirant than the lavish Yerima.
As for the Vice-President, his Anti-Third
Term stance is the only thing that earned him sympathy among northern
electorates. Nothing more! He was instrumental in the 2003 elections
fraud, the formulation and implementations of the harsh economic reform
programmes that seek to exclude northerners from the mainstream Nigerian
politics and economy. Atiku needs to review his role as Chairman of
Privatisation Committee to see how far the north has gone in the whole
journey. What of Federal appointments and projects? What has ordinary
electorate from the north benefited from Atiku’s Vice-Presidency? While
the north pity him for the humiliation he is receiving from the man he
greatly helped to be where he is today, it remains a fact that the
region has more competent presidential aspirants than Atiku.
In conclusion, we ask: which way northern
presidential contenders? Down the memory lane, in his famous “The
Northern Political Agenda: the Way Forward” Speech during the Second
Anniversary Seminar of ACF in 2002 at Kaduna, Bafarawa admonished that,
as 2003 general elections dates were then approaching, “we must put our
heads together and mutually present a consensus candidate that has the
genuine interest of the North at heart, irrespective of faith or party
affiliations. We should be under no illusions; nor should we allow the
mistake of the past to repeat itself. We must never mortgage the North
again for the pleasure of a few individuals who do not have our interest
at heart. We must strive to live by the examples of Sir Ahmadu Bello,
the Sarduna of Sokoto and Premier of Northern Nigeria”. Indeed, it is
today, more than any other time that northerners must listen to and
agree to work on this wise counsel.
One North, One People, One Agenda.
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