Midway into his troubled administration, President Jonathan added a toxic agenda onto the menu of his government. Though not official, but a keen observer can easily single them out. Describing it as ‘Operation Fix The North’ won’t be an over statement. The Yorubas have a saying that “bi adie ba dami loogun nu, maa fo leyin”. Roughly translated that if a Hen split my medication on d ground, I will break its egg. Law of retaliation.
It started with lopsided and regionalized appointments. Woe betide you if as a Northerner you are finishing a first term in a government parastatal or agency. The sure bet is that such a Northerner might never get a second term even if he/she deserves it. Lowering the bar to pave way for the President’s stooges has become the order of the day. In this era of favouratism and regionalism, merit and excellence don’t exist in this government’s dictionary.
A case study is the Acting Director-General, PenCom, Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu.One of the controversies in the proposed amendment of the act was the reduction of qualification requirements for the post of director-general of the National Pension Commission. According to recent reports, the bill is seeking to alter the existing law such that a minimum of 15 years experience, and not 20 years, would be adequate for a person to be appointed as DG of PenCom. An industry operator said the provision is meant to favour the acting DG of PenCom, Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, who is expected to be confirmed as the substantive chief executive of the Commission
Take the military, especially the Nigerian Army, as another case study. Our President has made it point of duty to get rid of top military brass of Northern extraction through mass retirement and unbalanced deployment to head strategic divisions. For instance, the COAS, Gen. Kenneth Minimah was never meant to become the Chief of Army Staff but for the manouvering of his kinsman. The way things are going, it will be difficult for a northerner to head the Army. Infact, it boiled down to enlistment into the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), where slots alloted to Northern states are tilled to favour the President’s faith. The made the Jama’at Nasri L-Islam (JNI) to cry foul sometimes back. One can go on and on.
The deadlocked Confab, perhaps, is the climax of determination of Dr. Jonathan to gag the North. Percieved as a Greek gift from the beginning, the North was forced to attend. The joker was unknown to them. But towards the end, his agenda came out. With the proposed increasement in oil derivation from 13 to 18%, the dubious 5% National Intervention Fund, and many other anti-North proposals, the region will be as good as dead.
To think that this is the same North that has a hand in every administration since indepence; that gentlemanly started the zoning arrangement in 1999. Now that power has left the North for almost 12 out of the 15 years of this republic, with no sign of returning to it soon, it should face the reality: after Jonathan, the North will never be the same again. For it would have been fixed, politically, forever.
(Comrade Abdulateef Usman Abiodun, a Journalist, writes via comradecestcesse@gmail.com)
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