By palladium
Two disturbing facts came out of the interview former All Progressives Congress (APC) chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, granted Daily Trust newspaper last week. Despite governing Nasarawa State for eight years, and was for about five years chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), and also senator for about 10 years, all qualities expected to have broadened his horizon and made him an urbane and cosmopolitan Nigerian politician, Mr Adamu not only became more narrow-minded, he also revelled in his insularity. The first thing he revealed, and of course the country remembers, is that he was nearly president of Nigeria had ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo backed his ambition for the 2007 election. It is evident that he was not averse to the former president’s support, even if it violated democratic principles. In fact he benefited from a similar support from ex-president Muhammadu Buhari to become APC chairman. Again, he saw nothing untoward in how democratic principles were abridged in his favour.
The second thing he revealed is his fanatical and unrepentant North-first approach to politics, particularly in the contest for power. He was asked to throw light on the mystifying manner his preferred nominee for the February 25, 2023 presidential election, Ahmad Lawan, former senate president, was defeated. He regretted the defeat, he whined, because as a northerner, and a proud and unrepentant northerner for that matter, he preferred and supported a northern aspirant for the top office. He saw nothing wrong in a northerner succeeding another northerner, and indeed gave indication that that kind of warped succession should be done in perpetuity. He blamed the defeat of his preferred nominee on some misguided northern governors who were neither proud of their identity nor understood Nigeria’s power dynamics. According to him, southern governors, unlike northern politicians, were always proud of their region. “From my consultations, and from the advice I was getting, I am a northerner and I would go for a northerner; and no apologies for that. I have never hidden this.”
Mr Adamu said much worse about his uncompromising insularity and lack of respect for democratic values. Said he: “I am an established person from my root, right from birth. I come from a royal family and I am proud of it. I was born at a time when there was a northern Nigeria. I was brought into its values even though I worked mainly in the private sector. I saw myself first and foremost as a northerner in Nigeria and I have no apologies to anybody on this. But times are changing, if you want to take a count of people with the same feeling, attitude, commitment and loyalty to the North, you would have a problem. But go down South, especially the Southwest, and you would see that people are not ashamed of beating their chests and telling you who they are and where they come from and what they stand for. Go to the East, till today, we are losing lives in the East for what they believe in, not here.” Mr Adamu has never hidden his political prejudices, leaving many Nigerians to wonder how farther and deeper his kind of prejudices permeated the body politic, and whether he would be willing to undermine the law to advance his preferences as he attempted to do in undermining both intraparty elections and the 2023 elections.
Some politicians indulge shifting alliances and convictions in politics, and can sometimes be persuaded to sacrifice personal gain for the cause of national unity and stability. It is disturbing that Mr Adamu does not subscribe to such niceties, let alone the principles that define national leadership. By his admission, his ethnic and regional biases remain inflexible, and he will not let them be attenuated by age or education. He has contempt for his regional compatriots who compromise in their effort to build a rallying point and forge consensuses around the country. But here was a man who nearly became president, who became NGF chairman, who sat as senator for a decade, and who incredibly led a national party into a national election, and claiming that he fought the 2023 polls with all he had. And he expected to be believed or liked or respected? However, the major problem is not that he occupied many lofty offices, for which his ideological rigidity and reactionary politics probably qualified him; the problem is that among his many ambitions, he sought to lead a multicultural nation and a national political party both to which his ideas have proved him eminently unqualified.
There are many like him playing their dangerous and demagogic politics in regional closets. In fact, there are ongoing debates suggesting that former president Muhammadu Buhari was one such politician. Former vice president Atiku Abubakar is probably another one, perhaps a little cleverer. Whenever such men take office or rise to any kind of prominence, politics, not to say the entire system, is worse for it. President Bola Tinubu showed by the coalition he built to prosecute the last presidential poll that politicians like Mr Adamu have become anachronistic. They may, like Alhaji Atiku, deploy clever and populist methods to achieve their ambitions, but in sum, they may never again rise to national prominence in tandem with their lofty ambitions.
