A former Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) and immediate-past National Vice Chancellor of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Salihu Moh Lukman, has said the Northerners in the current administration of President Bola Tinubu have been turned to praise singers.
Lukman specifically listed Vice President Kashim Shettima, Nuru Ribadu and Senator George Akume as top chair members in the current government.
In a statement released in Abuja, titled: “Explosive North:Open Letter to Northern Politicians” Lukman said opposition political leaders are hardly any better, adding that they seem to be only interested in their narrow ambition to contest for office in 2027.
“So far, one year has pass into President Asiwaju Tinubu administration. No doubt, Northern political leaders are becoming weaker and more disorganised. Even the Vice President, Sen. Kashim Shettima GCON, who is the highest office holder and by virtue of that should have served as the needed rallying point for Northern politicians, is anything but a political leader. With every respect, hardly any official of the current administration of President Asiwaju Tinubu from the North, including Sen. Shettima, is willing and able to take the needed risk to defend the interest of the North. Painfully, what is emerging is that most leaders from the North are more concern about self-preservation in the government.
“Because of self-preservation, already scheming for 2027 has commenced. Within the Presidency there are indicative cold war dynamics and positioning, which is alleged to be responsible for the praise-singing disposition of Vice President Shettima. The National Security Adviser (NSA), Mal. Nuhu Ribadu has devalued an exalted office almost to the status of a Protocol Office to President Asiwaju Tinubu. Virtually all other Northern politicians holding offices in this government, including the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Sen. George Akume are absentee public servants who have been reduced to members of a choir group poorly singing ‘on your mandate we stand’ irrespective of the shaky and staggering reality being demonstrated by the mandate holder with reference to poor service delivery and crashing living conditions in the last one year.
“The question of uniting political leaders and developing the needed political framework to respond to national challenges is hardly given any consideration. It is quite worrisome that we have crashed, both as politicians and as a region, beyond rational reasoning. More worrisome is the fact that we imagine that we can continue like this, and perhaps current leaders impose themselves on Nigerians in 2027.
“We need to caution political leaders in the country that things are about to get out of hand any moment from now especially in the North. If care is not taken, hungry people who are everywhere in the North will start breaking into homes and looting properties of innocent citizens.
“The other danger is that innocent citizens going about their normal businesses could be attacked on the streets by hungry people. Regrettably, all we do as politicians is to go about doing things the old way and most times promoting the primordial sentiment around ethnicity and religion as reasons for our failings. The truth is that Northern politicians are the problem of the North and by extension the country. Certainly, Northern politicians hold the remote control for the explosive in the region.”
Lukman said until the North wake up and get its politicians organised, united and committed to providing the needed leadership to resolve the challenges of the region, the explosive, which the region has become may go off anytime soon.
According to him, it may go off largely because of the default mindset of an average Northern politician of today’s generation who only think about himself/herself alone. Any other thing, including public service and responding to societal challenges is not his/her business. For the North to wake up and change this default mindset, conscious effort must be made to develop new frontiers of political organisation in the region and in the country.
“Such new frontier of political organisation must be strategically about building a formidable team of respected Nigerians who could deploy themselves within the structures of a political party based on the commitment of mobilising human and material resources to resolve challenges facing the North and by extension the country.
“The mistake of the past, especially with reference to former President Buhari and now President Asiwaju Tinubu whereby frontiers of political organisation was development based on individual ambition to contest election must be avoided. Developing frontiers of political organisations based on the ambitions of former President Buhari and President Asiwaju Tinubu has only produced the current monstrous reality of electing emperors and overloads who are succeeding in disintegrating the foundation of Nigerian democracy.
“As it is, there is now a prevailing atmosphere of fear among political leaders. Structures of virtually all the registered political parties have been demobilised. None of the parties is organising meetings and none is recruiting members. In fact, hardly any of the registered parties and its leaders are debating what is to be done to resolve our current national challenges, especially the explosive waiting to explode in the North.
“Most political leaders and parties are afraid of taking initiatives that could begin to mobilise Nigerians in a different direction. And as far as the APC and President Asiwaju Tinubu are concerned, they believed they could deploy the advantage of being the so-called ruling party to win the 2027 elections even as they have failed or are failing to respond to challenges facing the country.”
