Marginalization of the North

With

Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

24/10/2013

Alfalancy@yahoo.com

We could not, inevitably avoid the politics of tribe and religion when it comes to the sharing opportunities from the federal government due to the heterogeneous structure of Nigerian societies. And that is why any president surrounds himself with henchmen from his tribe holding key and strategic positions in the cabinet. But at least we could retain our sense of belonging as one nation with the regard to the fact that there are many other people different from our own living in the country. Late professor Chinua Achebe argued in his book The trouble with Nigeria that we should eliminate the issue of doing things on ethnic and religious lines. But we still do it because even in the filling of forms for admission into any federal establishments one is required to state his religion and tribe or local government of origin. The thought of Achebe was that of genuine democracy where things are done based on competency and qualification.  Here in Nigeria we believe that one community will dominate another if we adopt the formula of admission or sharing resources based on the dictates of democracy, which is competency not the tribe of origin or religion. Come to the north we have the vast majority. But you are parasite, a southerner would say. Go to the south, they have the educational advantage. But you have quack and fake certifications, a northerner would say. Either way there is problem. As we in the north are clamouring for population as a formula of sharing revenues since democracy is the game of number but our brothers in the south-south are fighting to maintain the status quo  or rather demanding the increase of the revenue since it is from their region the country get the revenue.

Despite the effort made, including that creation of the Federal Character Commission, to sustain the peaceful co-existence of the country, yet some government officials are subverting the system. Look at the unbecoming behaviour of Mrs Stella Odua, the Aviation Minister who is brazenly   making effort to see the downfall of the northern region. She has been retarding the renovation project of the Aminu Kano International Airport the work which has narrowly completed, long ago after its contemporaries in Enugu benefited the project. In an interview granted by Hon. Aliyu Madaki from Dala Constituency , see article, “Aviation Minister Implementing Grand Plot To Enervate North”  published by People’s Daily on Nov., 2013,  we see how she tried to enervate the activities in the airport.  And now the commercials airlines requested approval to start operating in the north and the Minister refused to grant land permit to them which again the same Hon. without tire sponsored a motion on the House floor to investigate the refusal of the Aviation Minister to grant landing permit to the foreign flights to commence operation in the north. While the airlines are already in full force working in Enugu, Lagos and Phartcourt. After having mounting pressure lodged against her form the legislatures and the shameful scam of embezzling public fund of buying armoured two cars worth N255m found against her, the minister granted the permit. But it is the same as before for she imposed additional tax over any airline that would operate in the region which was not imposed for the operation in the south. Despite our backbenchers legislatures we need our Hon. Madaki and his kind to put stop to this again. Hon silent Chi ka Tsere and our unpatriotic ministers should also speak because their mouth is close to the government ears.      

Then came the discrepancy recorded during the last admission into the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) where the Muslims were marginalized. Even though I was unable to read the reports on my own because I was in vigil of leg injury but the report culled from the Daily Trust shows that the majority of the successful candidates were either Christians or southerners.  When contacted by the press to account the processes of the admission, the Director Defence Information, Brigadier General Chris Olukolade maintained that the procedures were duly observed according to the guidelines of the Federal Character Commission. The implication which offended our polity and the provision of section (219) (a & b) of the federal constitution. According to the provision of the FCC it is against the commission’s provisions to fill any position with people from other states even if the state the posts allocated is lacking the people to occupy the posts. Come to Kano or Jigawa and see how many southerners are in the services with certificate of those states. But you could not find a Kano-indigene working with certificate of Enugu Or Ondo. It was the same case last year in the recruitment of staff in the Immigration Service after which the investigation found incomprehensive disparity between the north and south before the officials righted the admission. When the Head of the ministry was fired by the journalists why the inequality she replied the implausible and stupid excuse that she was trying to avoid recruiting Boko Harams into the services. Since then, our helpless proponents have been crying for our representatives to take measures to stop this scenario from happening again because we don’t really know, if care is not taken it will turn out that in near future it would probably be an offence against anyone who grows whisker or bear or a basis not be recruited into the Nigerian Services. The case clearly shows that Muslims in Nigeria are systematically marginalized to get rid of our youth from the Armed Forces, Security Agencies and other admission into the governmental institutions. It’s in the same vein when you talk about fiscal allocation, loans, and other supportive financial programmes from the federal government, hardly could you find mallams enjoying the benefits. Even the federal scholarship award, I could not show a close or distant neighbour who benefited from it. All the benefits go to the south and our representatives are as dormant as they always be! Shame. 

To avoid falling into this mayhem, the marginalization of one portion of the nations, the federal government in 1996 created Federal Character Commission by Act No. 34 of the Constitution and charged it with the responsibility of implementing and enforcing the federal character principle of fairness and equality in the distribution of public posts and socio-economic infrastructure among the various federating units of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The provision of the 1999 Constitution consolidated the establishment of the FCC in sections 14 and 153 for operating in democratic setting since the time the commission was introduced was military regime under Gen. Sani Abacha. The FCC was mandated by paragraph 8 (1) (a) and (b) of section C, part 1, Third schedule of the Constitution of Nigeria to work out equitable formula subject to the approval of the National Assembly for the distribution of all cadres of posts in the public service of the federation and the states, the Armed Forces, Nigerian Police Force and other Governmental Security Agencies, Public Companies and Parastatals: and to promote, monitor and to ensure compliance with the principle of proportional sharing of all bureaucratic, economic, media and political posts at all levels. But with this in place the south sets to marginalize our people on the basis of regional bias.  

Prior to the attainment of independence, the need of many Nigerians was to have a country of justice, where all citizens regardless of their ethnic origin or religious or cultural affiliation or gender, will enjoy the right and privileges, chances and opportunities that the country offered. However as the storm for independence rocked up the expectation of equal Nigeria was not actualized. In 1954 when Nigeria adopted federal system of government certain observations were made:

It was observed that within Nigerian nations there were differences in culture, religion, stages of socio-economic development and political awareness. Secondly it was observed that disparities existed in educational development of different sections of the state where this resulted into some sections having disadvantages in the employment of indigenes in the public service. That is why at first place I said we could not avoid politics of ethnicity because it became our inherent characteristics. Therefore in 1954 the concept of Quarter System as a policy was adopted in the recruitment of persons into the Armed Forces and the Police as well as in admission into Educational Institutions. With attainment of independence the need to define criteria for the equitable spread of development became very relevant. The purpose of adopting it then, was to promote understanding, and cooperation among different communities. It was hoped that the system would yield healthy competition among the various units of the nations in their socio-economic and political development while receiving equitable resources from the federal government. However the citizens of Nigeria recognized the need for specific guidelines for the realization of fairness, sharing and allocation of resources as well as distribution of infrastructure, unfortunately there was no such procedure to address that. As a result there were differences in many aspects of life in terms of development. Having the complex structure of Nigerian society, it became necessary to define the process that would ensure the existence of peace, unity and cooperation to allow the country to exist as single entity. The Quarter System was reviewed in 1967 and adopted for filling the posts and vacancies into federal institutions. By 1975 the issue of federal character was a vital as was a body in place to implement the policies. The Constitutional Drafting Committee by Murtal regime was an effort to solve the problem of marginalization as defined in 1979 Constitution the federal character:

The desire of the citizens of Nigeria to promote unity and national  loyalty and to give Nigerians a sense of belonging with out the difference in ethnic, religion, origin, culture or language which may exist in their desire to see the advancement of the country. With this aim behind the creation of FCC the commission has some key strategies:

·        Secure for all Nigerians equity and balanced development.

·        Raising public awareness in national unity and cohesion through the principle of Federal Character.

·        Each state of the federation and the FCT respectively attain not less than the statutory of 2.5% and 1.0% representatives in the manpower distribution of each of the federal government ministry, agency and parastatal.

·        Provide the information for seeking redress of grievances under the provision of the commission. (see FCC Acts and Handbook for more details.)

Again the commission has warned against anybody who would offend its provisions in the course of recruiting persons into the governmental institutions and some parts of the provisions are as follows so that our representatives could use it to seek redress for the injustice committed against our people.

·        Section (1) (e) of the FCC empowers the commission to intervene in any recruitment process where the provision of the circular is being or likely to be contravened by any MDA

·        Therefore  any person or MDA ( hence activates are covered under the FCC Act) that carried out any recruitment in whatever form or guise without appropriate advertisement, and observance of the guidelines and procedures shall be committing an offence under section 14, punishable under section 15 of the Acts.

·        It shall be the responsibility of all Perm Secs, Chief Executive of Ministries, Extra-Ministerial Departments, Parastatals, Agencies, and other Governmental Establishment, Chief Service and the Inspector-General of Police to ensure compliance with those guidelines to procedures.

It is on this note I am apprising Hon. Aliyu Sani Madaki for his diligency and commitment for the service he has been doing in fighting for our fair share from the federal government. Power to your elbow and I wish you and others will continue to mount pressure on anybody trying to undermine the course of northern progress which will inevitably affect the progress of the country at large.  I am happy with the Hon. for his movement usually flickers across our television screen during the House sitting. We also get your word coming through media unlike other Honourable Members from my state.