The case for a Northern Conference.

“You do not curve out the milk guard the day you intend to travel.” Hausa Proverb.

It took its time to state its position, but when it did, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) did not break any new grounds. It disappointed those who thought it will make categorical statements on the type of conference it thinks will be useful. It disappointed those who also thought that it will put out a position which substantially agrees with President Jonathan’s position that some form of engagement designed by him will heal many of our ills. Indeed, it earned a few additional admirers from people who thought leading elite groups in the North have lost those rare qualities of vision, courage and wisdom which built much of the old North that is now fast crumbling.

The ACF said it has no faith that Jonathan’s Conference will produce anything of value. It worried that the current exercise will suffer the same fate as outcomes of past conferences that have not been implemented. Nonetheless, it said, in the hope that “real issues of real concern to real Nigerians may be discussed,” it urges Northerners “to participate in the national conference/dialogue in the interest of national solidarity that goes with pluralism.” The forum made a few other recommendations which should ensure equity and quality of representations. 

With the ACF position out, the prediction that many different voices will be heard for one Northern interest was confirmed. Except for the lone and predictable position of Professor Jerry Gana which sounded as if it was written in the Villa to support President Jonathan, the preponderance of views from the North were emphatic on the futility of the proposed dialogue to achieve anything of value. Northern Elders Forum whose spokesman, Professor Ango Abdullahi wears the toga of reclaiming the Presidency for the North with unrepentant pride wants a Sovereign National Conference with full powers. Many other groups such as CODE Group dismiss the idea of a dialogue with limited powers. It is either a Sovereign Conference or nothing as far as much of the North is concerned. Of course there are also outright dismissals of the very idea from Governor Lamido of Jigawa State, and it is by no means certain that a few champions of ethnic interests will not toe the lines of Professor Gana before the hearings are concluded in Sokoto and Kaduna States.

Make no mistake about all these discordant voices, though. The North is taking the Jonathan gambit very seriously. Many states are raising formidable teams of intellectuals, technocrats and politicians to prepare for it. The dialogue advisory committee is being awaited in the remaining centers with prepared submissions which will all add to the complexities of Northern perspectives on issues. By the time the committee’s hearings are concluded, many groups would have played to targeted galleries, and there will be at least ten positions on any one of the more sensitive issues in the committee’s terms of reference. 

In more detached circles, the view that the political north is really the target of the national dialogue is becoming popular. The clamour for restructuring (a code for reducing the perceived dominance of the North) has always been the basic agenda behind the calls for national conference. With a majority in population and the bulk of the nation’s land mass, elaborate and sustained political engineering has been stubbornly unable to deprive the region of advantages in representation and numbers of federating units. The pronounced cultural and political pluralism of the North has been exploited to weaken it from within and outside the North, but the region’s opposition is frustrated by the failure to create permanent and immutable boundaries that will transfer advantages away from the region.

The North’s advantage in numbers of States and Local Government Areas is a prime target for interests which seek to cripple it politically. The staple propaganda is that this superiority in numbers is underserved, built as it is on false population figures and created by northern military officers who ruled the country for long periods. Even the arguments against strong centers in a federal structure which bore a strong military imprint has a subtle anti-northern sentiment behind it. Desciples of restructuring will make the case for stronger federating units and a weak center largely because in a democratic system where free and fair elections are determing elements for the emergence of leadership, the North’s majority in voting populations and a political process which is built around geo-ethnic sentiments are most likely to give the North unchallengeable access to the Presidency and majority of legislators. What the North lacks in oil and gas resources, the sentiment argues, it makes up for in statutory allocations owing to its advantages in federating units, and influence in executive and legislative arms. 

These arguments feed the sentiment that a Northern Presidency with additional advantages in federating units and majority in the federal legislature will give the region an unassailable advantage. At all cost, therefore, it must be avoided. There are many ways of doing this. One way is to prevent a northern presidency. If one has to be tolerated, it should come from smaller northern ethnic groups, which hopefully will sustain the campaign to whittle down the historic and organic unity and size of far – northern communities. Second is to create tendencies and developments that will fracture Northern unity in a manner that will relocate loyalties and loci of power. This can be achieved through the cultivation of attitudes and structures which balkanize the political North, for instance, in the emergence of a ‘non-Northern’ Middle Belt. A third is to assault the advantages of the North using arguments such as equity and fairness in numbers of states, LGAs and in the federal legislature. Another is the encouragement of development of militant ethno-religious sentiments and movements in the North, which can then be exploited in the context of its historic and cultural disposition to existence and practice of multi-partyism. Finally, there is the option of an engineered gang-up against the North, in which every one of its opponents will find an avenue to settle a grievance.

Fanciful as some of these options may sound, they should be taken seriously. The North is not the one asking for a national conference, even though it is  economically-disadvantaged; it is facing numerous threats to its security on many fronts, and its elites feel cheated out of a political process they engineered to allow an all-inclusive selection process. On the contrary, it is reacting to a proposed conference which may be used as a means to further weaken it. The North is in the throes of some massive political re-alignment in which some of its political elite are attempting to challenge for power and resources from other parts of the country that have benefitted immensely from having one of their own in power in Abuja. Most of the region will be classified as politically-hostile territory, and very little will be done to ease its most desperate problems between now and 2015. 

This is why the North should assess its position as a geo-political block now, and prepare itself for all eventualities. Its leaders feel the heat, because Northerners blame them for being ineffective against a suspected political onslaught against the region. They also understand, more than any other group, why the North today needs their wisdom and foresight, in a nation which seems to have lost all memories of the values of sacrifice and unity.

Just about every Northern leader has drawn attention to the need to reduce dangerous deficits in the manner the region organises its politics and security. Most have lamented the absence of serious thinking and strategies around the quest for, and exercise of political power. Opinions are sharply divided over the manner the North plays its political game. Many Northerners feel that Professor Ango Abdullahi’s we-must-have-power-back posture alienates the rest of the country, and creates enemies (including some northerners) for the interests of the North. Others see that posture as perfectly suited for a campaign that is just, practical and realistic.

What are core northern interests beyond 2015? How should it approach 2015? What can it do to arrest the alarming persistence of a murderous insurgency that is becoming more threatening by the day? How does the North address its crumbling economy; the deterioration of relations between communities in towns and villages; and the looming spectre that the contest for power in 2015 will make all these problems worse?

Even without Jonathan’s National Dialogue gambit, the North needed to talk to itself a long time ago. It will never get everyone to admit to being Northerner and sit at a conference, but a credible forum convened by leaders such as Gowon, Danjuma, Babangida, Buhari, Shagari, Abdussalami, Maitama Sule, Jeremiah Useni and Professor Jerry Gana and northern governors will generate very productive insights into issues that need answers now. Some of them may improve the quality of Northern outing at the proposed Dialogue, but its value will go far beyond the Dialogue, and could form the basis of a sustainable process of rebuilding the North.