![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ictnetworldltd.com\/newvor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/David-Hundeyin-267x300-1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBy David Hundeyin<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A few days ago, I was in a Clubhouse room where the speaker made reference to a 1993 conversation between MKO Abiola and Umaru Musa Yar\u2019Adua. Following the annulment of the June 12 election, Yar\u2019Adua had sought an audience with Abiola to ask him one simple question \u2013 \u201cWhat is your plan now?\u201d
\nAbiola as it turned out, had none, which an unimpressed Yar\u2019Adua told him was simply not good enough.
\nAccording to the speaker, Yar\u2019Adua told Abiola, \u201cI cannot be part of something that has no plan.\u201d The inference of that statement was that Abiola could no longer count on Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s support going forward, as he would not endanger himself by opposing a military regime on behalf of a political movement without a plan or strategy to achieve its goals. Thus, MKO lost an important ally, and became increasingly isolated within Nigeria\u2019s power circles, culminating in his imprisonment and eventual death in detention.
\nThe takeaway from that anecdote was not Umaru Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s open opportunism and lack of loyalty to a supposed friend and ally \u2013 those things are to be expected in the politics of a society like Nigeria. The real issue is that in 2021 as in 1993, the political energies of Southern Nigeria continue to display a chronic lack of planning, strategy, cohesion and vision. Whereas the political formation of Northern Nigeria is cohesive and united in execution of its plans, the south has a total lack of intention and conviction.
\nJust like MKO Abiola apparently intended to breeze into the presidency using the infamous \u201cvibes and inshallah\u201d method, and was completely blindsided by Ibrahim Babangida\u2019s decision to annual the election, today\u2019s Southern Nigerian political elite still seem to have no idea what they are up against. Vibes and
\nSu
\np
\ninshallah continues to be the animating political and cultural philosophy of this half of Nigeria that seemingly has no idea that it is existentially threatened.
\nRead also: Clubhouse\u2019s Android app gets 8m users 2 months after launch
\nObjectionable or not, the North has a plan
\nHere is a question. Who was the first high profile personality in 21st century Nigeria to make loud calls to ethnic solidarity and advocate for rebellion against the Nigerian security services while claiming that the military was partisan and acting on behalf of a tribalistic president? Was it Ralph Uwazuruike? Maybe Nnamdi Kanu? Perhaps Sunday Igboho? Not even close. The person\u2019s name is Nasir El-Rufai \u2013 the one who now sits in the government house in Badiko, Kaduna State.
\nNot only did El-Rufai infamously incite Fulani racial sentiments against the Nigerian military in a series of tweets and statements, which are still up and have never been taken back, but he also referred to the Nigerian military as the \u201cJonathanian army.\u201d If you take a cross-section of El-Rufai\u2019s ethnonationalist statements between 2011 and 2015 and put them alongside those of Nnamdi Kanu or Sunday Igboho, those of the latter two might seem tame and restrained in comparison.
\nYet while Nnamdi Kanu is tortured in DSS detention and Sunday Igboho is hunted while having his allies murdered by security agencies, El-Rufai sits gleefully in Kaduna \u2013 not just a free man, but a powerful one. What does this mean? It does not mean that Nigeria is \u201cunfair\u201d or that Muhammadu Buhari is an insular, ethnochauvinist, ultra-bigoted sectionalist. Those statements are true, but they are entirely beside the point. The point \u2013 the real point \u2013 is that the Northern Nigerian political establishment is intentional about its goals and is unapologetic and aggressive about achieving them. It has a clearly defined set of goals and an even clearer strategy to achieve those goals.
\nThe goals have not changed since the start of Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio\u2019s bloody jihad in the 19th century, and the methods are still very much the same. For 200 years, Northern Nigeria\u2019s political elite have been intentional about their existential purpose, while Southern Nigeria\u2019s leaders continue to fumble, blindly grope and wing their way through a vibes and inshallah existence. Northern Nigeria\u2019s political goals are simple, easy to understand and very much unhidden.
\nThese goals are propagation of Salafist political Islam so as to maintain a tightly controlled social order; an economic system that maintains a huge underclass in poverty instead of building a middle class that can threaten the established order; commandeering of other people\u2019s wealth, resources and productivity so as
\nto maintain the existing order without empowering its own people (to avoid building a middle class); and ultimately a demographic replacement of all ethnic minority and non-muslim groups using politics, statecraft and open genocide.
\nWhat is Southern Nigeria\u2019s plan?
\nWhile the recent communique issued after a meeting of the Southern Governors Forum has predictably generated headlines and animated Twitter Spaces conversations about the ostensible political conflict between North and South, the reality is that there is no conflict between North and South. A conflict occurs when two opponents have a fight. In this case, one of the parties has a clearly defined goal of exterminating the other and a well-publicised strategy for doing so while the other spends their time on Clubhouse debating whether the knife sticking out of their neck was stabbed in there on purpose.
\nTo call it a political conflict between North and South would be to exaggerate the South\u2019s position. It is total emasculation; an evisceration; a blowout; a massacre; a flawless and comprehensive victory. A cursory examination of Nigeria\u2019s history tells even the most uninformed observer that only between 1999 and 2015 has the South ever held any real power in Nigeria. That period unsurprisingly, coincides with the biggest accumulation of wealth and the strongest non-oil economic growth in Nigeria\u2019s history. And then in 2015, the South\u2019s political illiteracy \u2013 a consequence of its venal ignorance, hubris and
\nintellectual laziness \u2013 ushered in a regime which has openly attacked everything that built southern wealth for 16 years.
\nTelecoms. Banking and financial services. Trade. Manufacturing. Outsourcing. Internet businesses. Even remittances. All of these contributed to building and maintaining Southern Nigeria\u2019s shrinking-but- still-immense middle class for 16 years. The Buhari regime has shut down SIM registration, made remittances all but impossible, actively sabotaged Nigeria\u2019s busiest port, shut down Nigeria\u2019s southern borders to trade, banned Twitter and threatened to hobble all social media, gone after internet freedoms, and used legislation to steal customer money from the banking sector to fund itself. Again, the northern plan is open, unhidden and unapologetic \u2013 so where is the southern plan or counter plan?
\nIs the idea to have many more high level meetings and release nicely-worded communiques filled with Igilango Geesi, or is there an actual strategy to ensure the economic and material survival of the south in the face of Northern Nigeria\u2019s openly genocidal onslaught? What is the plan to deal with the unhidden and unbridled hostility and hatred from a strong political formation made up of thousands of Nasir El- Rufais from Borno to Sokoto? Where is southern Nigeria\u2019s plan?
\nWe are waiting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By David Hundeyin A few days ago, I was in a Clubhouse room where the speaker made reference to a 1993 conversation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[737],"tags":[67],"class_list":["post-1773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"\n