By LANRE ADEWOLE.
In his successful re-election run in 2019, then-Kaduna governor, Nasir El-Rufai cocked a snook at the Holy Quran’s prodding in Surah An-Nisa (4:36) which expressly commands believers to be good to near neighbours, distant neighbours and companions.
El-Rufai is Muslim. In a state of about 10 million dwellers, with a slight majority being of his faith, his near and distant neighbours are bound to be Muslims and non-Muslims alike, particularly Christians who make almost half of the population. Holy Bible also teaches good neighbourliness with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus admonishes we love our neighbours as ourselves.
But El-Rufai chose to firm up the “house” on just one side as the Yoruba will describe deliberate, mean one-sidedness, scripted favouritism to aid a side in a plural setting or a jaundiced opinion. Governors before him reckoned the state a metaphoric bird, which would only fly successfully with two “wings” and Muslim-Christian governorship pairing became somewhat of a creed.
In fairness, he tried to sustain the arrangement, starting out as governor in 2015 with faith-balancing in the government house. But you can only pretend for so long. What is not in you isn’t in you. What is not you is not you. If El-Rufai has love in his heart for his neighbours, it isn’t borderless. His love isn’t faith-blind and before the expiration of his first term, he was done pretending to “love” his Christian neighbours. My people will say “eni amori i ba ku” (roughly translates “who cares”).
He ditched the “creed” for his reelection and though aware of likely consequences, he chose to ride the storm. And he survived; successfully keeping millions of Christians in the state away from governance mainstream for four years. And to demonstrate his total conviction that the seeming aberration should be the norm, he tied same arrangement around the waist of his hand-picked successor, now-sworn enemy, Uba Sani. The Yoruba will say a prawn thief hardly stops at just one crunch. If a bite is sweet even if a bit rattling for the molars, it’s certain there will be another go at it.
Possibly sensing his Muslim pick for the Christian replacement as some kind of a lucky charm, he added her to the succeeding APC ticket of 2023, but unlike four years earlier when the sail was manageably turbulent, the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the ruling party was practically ripped to pieces before it was scrapped together by the jurisprudential ingenuity of one man. El-Rufai, or more like the one who inherited his divisive ticket, found out the hard way that there is a limit to being polarizing. There are times it’s wise to let sleeping dog lie, regardless of the bile in the soul.
That four years ago, El-Rufai was also an active promoter of APC Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket, headed by today’s incumbent, Bola Tinubu. When the election was over and the ticket “succeeded”, he was seen in viral videos boasting in Hausa language to Islamic clerics that the “one-sided” option, would be the national template, going forward. He seemed to have his blueprint and appeared coasting until the ministerial confirmation crisis and he became a virulent opposition to the Muslim-Muslim presidency and Kaduna government he helped make.
Riro ni teniyan (Man proposes, God disposes). The man who didn’t want an inclusive national and sub-national leadership is today in forced seclusion, almost forgotten by all, save his family. This is not mocking him. But the man should check his heart. I overheard some of his new political associates in ADC rejoicing he’s locked up because he was already becoming a disruptive figure. Some are praying he won’t be out until after the general election.
Kaduna is also leaving his “legacy” in the bin, with practically all leading candidates for 2027 governorship including the incumbent Sani, settling for a “mixed” Muslim-Christian ticket. That was total repudiation back home.
But at the federal level, the presidential ticket of the ruling party, remains a relic of El-Rufai’s playbook. And APC is the only party fielding it!
To be clear, APC’s no-Christian presidential ticket isn’t novel. And the “victorious” Muslim-Muslim ticket of 2023 wasn’t even the first time such an idea would “succeed” in Nigeria’s political ecosystem. MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe “succeeded” with it in 1993, only that they didn’t become President and Vice. They had an unexecuted mandate. Tinubu and Shettima were however luckier 30 years after.
But the Nigeria of 30 years ago was different. Rats were somewhat squeaking like rats. Birds also chirping the way they should, as my tribe would couch a settling situation. There was no Boko Haram, which started by targeting non-Muslims and now operating without borders. There were no organised banditry syndicates. Occasional kidnappings then had little or nothing to do with an industry-like crime of today.
Miyetti Allah as a pressure/advocacy group, fighting for cow rights, only existed deep into the grazing forests (though it was actually formed in 1979), unlike today where its leaders shape national policies. Yes, there were occasional bloody inter-tribal wars and even sprinkles of religious bloodletting, but never on the scale being witnessed today.
Everybody is now trying to put their money where their mouth is to ensure their portion isn’t used as toppings for others who already have in excess and you are trying to remove their mouth? How does that guarantee peace and unity?
In many majority-muslim Northern states, their official protocol list is always a one-sided compilation, regardless of the population of the adherents of other faiths. In Kebbi for example, the first 10 citizens of the state under the current administration are of the same faith.
The question is, who speaks for the rest, in a system the Yoruba will describe as everybody grabbing, holding and steadying their heads. A less conservative rendering will put it as everybody carrying their mother’s breasts.
When El-Rufai was running the Muslim-Muslim governorship, all the heads of the three arms of government in the state and at least the first five citizens, were of same faith! He was governor. Hadiza Balarabe was deputy. Two assembly speakers who served during his terms; Aminu Shagali and Yusuf Ibrahim Zailani. Then the state chief judge; Muhammad Bello Lawal! This is in a state almost evenly split between the two major faiths! While Muslims dominate 12 local governments, Christians are mostly found in 11, with very visible presence in the Kaduna metropolis (you can mistake some parts of the city for Onitsha. Nearly all the shops I branched during my last visit had non-Muslim Ibo operators. The shoes I got, were from a charming Ibo lady).
So how about the El-Rufai model for fairness in a state where the Christian community has shouted itself hoarse over alleged sustained persecution. Same for Kebbi, where a whole emirate is almost 90% Christians, densely located in multiple local governments. This is the part where Sani is handed his flowers for course correcting.
In any state in Nigeria where the minority; by faith or tribe, is up to 25% of the population, it should become a documented convention for the minority to be represented at least among the first three citizens of the state; regardless of faith or tribe domination. The Kaduna, Kebbi situation isn’t limited to Muslim-majority states. Christian-majority states with enough population of non-Christians, should also stop the majority-take-all approach. Without inclusion, there won’t be peace, except if there are other agenda beyond the minority trying to get their voice heard.
With the retention of Muslim-Muslim ticket by President Tinubu, he has stopped being pretentious with agitators, including Washington, for a “mixed” ticket for his re-election. And he’s confident of the “untainted” ticket taking him through, though things are likely to be rougher than last time in 2023. Just like El-Rufai, the first win had bolstered the confidence of the President. If he could do it as a private citizen, just like he boasted the other day to his party men, what or who would stop him now, as president. The Catholic Bishops who went to “see” him, didn’t factor his current mindset into presenting their worries. And then their leader went and sprinkled frankincense on a smouldering situation. What was the Kabba-born cardinal expecting? A hug and a peck?
Yes, in 2023, Asiwaju’s camp would have found ways of deodorizing the effects of such criticism without appearing to be damning the over 40-million catholic faithful in Nigeria, about one-sixth of the country’s assumed population. But who needs the catholics now, even with their numbers? An election had been won without their open support, so what can their open opposition do? And the President apparently sanctioning the skewering and stewing of Onaiyekan should be a warning to other faith leaders, who might want to tutor the Nigerian leader on governance. They would have to moderate themselves or being challenged to throw off the cassock and find a way to be on the ballot. That was what El-Rufai did in 2019 and repeated in 2023.
But APC, his party then, almost paid dearly for it. Isa Ashiru of then-PDP and now of ADC (the one El-Rufai fought just about four years ago, all the way to the Supreme Court on Uba Sani’s behalf is now the governorship candidate of El-Rufai’s party and embracing Muslim/Christian ticket) who stayed with the “balanced” Muslim-Christian ticket, is widely believed to have lost the election to sleighting by the party at the centre, controlling critical election infrastructure. As ADC candidate for the next year poll, Ashiru is staying the course. Uba is also now a “believer”, with his new Christian running mate, Jerry Adam. Only the President is holding on to his political “faith” and the gloves are off. Christian leaders, caveat emptor!
Even at the risk of sounding immodest, I will say my south west represents the closest to the model of ticket “unity” being preached here.
Currently it has five Christian governors with one Chrislam. The five govs, all have five Muslim deputies. For my state’s Chrislam gov, his deputy is Christian. The equitable “ticketing” is likely to subsist beyond 2027 as projections favour a mix, though of the four APC candidates seeking to rule Osun, Oyo, Lagos and Ogun where governorship elections are pending, only Solomon Adeola of Ogun is Christian. This can’t be deliberate. Or is it?
