Gumi’s Hypocritical Posturing, By Tunde Abatan
Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, by all intent and purpose belongs to the old hegemonic, ethnic and religious superiority class.
His pronouncements both during and after Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure brings us to the stark reality that he and others like him, who unfortunately dominated and influenced Buhari’s thinking and actions while his regime lasted.
That he owes to himself and then military high command including former governors like Zamfara’s Yerima and others, the sole power to negotiate and secure cooperation of Boko Haram, bandits and other insurgents is unquestionable but suspect.
Suspect because nowhere in the world are terrorists held with kid gloves not even America with its human rights noise.
Gumi’s disposition then and audacity of his pronouncements and actions revealed in its naked form Nigeria’s co-habitation with religious zealots and power mongers who never feels safe unless they are in control of influence and power in Nigeria.
This is why his outbursts few days ago that the North he represents cannot leave military control of security and by extension power in the hands of Southerners they can’t control portends the prevalence of self-righteousness and domination of the rest power which just skipped out of their hand under five months ago.
No notable elite from. The North raised a voice while Buhari concentrated all military high command positions and institution on the North throughout his eight years tenure.
Gumi’s hypocrisy confirms Northern elite self-entitlement to power.
But then, analyst should ask if what benefit has the power been to the average Northerner in terms of life more abundant?
For referring to the action of January 15 1966 military junta as justification for not wanting to leave power for southern Christians in the military is an indication of the battle ahead between the forces of retrogression, slavish mentality and dominion over others in contemporary Nigeria.
We’re Gumi to have his way, the twelve Northern governors of All Progressives Congress, APC, who mobilised and rallied round for emergence of then Senator Bola’ Ahmed Tinubu as presidential candidate of the APC, should by now be ostracized from the North.
Gumi, by his declaration that lives of the privileged Northern and bigots cum aristocrats like him, is not safe in the hands of today’s Southerners in the military who got to their position by seniority, (some by yeoman job they did containing the Boko Haram heist) he and others encouraged and sustained.
He should also be reminded that today’s combat readiness of Nigeria’s army where it be left to the ethnically imbalanced military would have led to the over running of Nigeria by insurgents who had more internal intelligence reports.
It is not out of place to infer that personalities like Gumi and others were nurtured and empowered to arrange the established Nigeria Army for its ruling class altruistic gains.
Yet, today, the Chief of defence staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa is from Sokoto state. But his being a Christian makes him fall short of playing and pandering to the narrow interest of the Islamic cleric and those who share his thoughts.
Again, as for Air Marshall Hassan Abubakar who is from Kano state in the North West, he is definitely considered not well placed enough to defend such narrow ethno- religious interests being championed by Gumi.
Thus, he would’ve preferred that the domination of Nigeria security apparatus by Buhari’s appointees during his eight years rule is considered in the larger interest of the North which has always considered itself as being the custodian of the country’s larger interest.
For Gumi to declare that southern Christians soldiers should not be thrusted enough to protect Northern hegemonic interest is tragic at this age and time in a diverse country like Nigeria.
The election of Tinubu, a southerner by the North’s electorate, should be considered as signs that the North should see itself safer under a Southern presidency.
It is also pertinent that such development is necessary in order to address the diversity of Nigeria.
In the Navy, the appointment of Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla from Enugu in the South East, is considered a decision to have a Nigerian spread necessary for accommodation of the nation’s diversity just as the appointment of Lt Gen Taoreed Lagbaja, seen in military circles as a most appropriate choice in view of his professional background and track record, is a move to give all officers sense of belonging and curb ethnic profiling of officers.
For characters like Gumi, Abubakar, the chief of defence staff should not be regarded as a real Northerner for the simple reasons of his being a Christian.
This is clearly against Gumi’s narrow religious, ethnic and aristocratic interests.
What is more, these are interests which by far contradicts the letters and spirit of Nigeria’s constitution however unitary in nature it is.
You then ask, of what security gain was the Buhari’s military command dominated by Fulani sons backed by unseen hands in the Presidency.
This was the lot of the country during Buhari’s eight years when our security situation nearly crumbled.
This is under the watch of a General at the helm.
Perhaps, Gumi’s cry is also attributable to removing the feeding bottle of sole negotiator for the bandits he got from the former regime.
It is instructive that this is in spite of resistance to negotiation which was spearheaded by Governors Aminu Masari of Katsina and Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna.
Again, for accusing the present government of removing the economic feeding bottle which Buhari used to feed the Northern elite during his eight years tenure Gumi is clannish as clannish could be and obviously have a soul in Buhari’s attitude the previous eight years.
It should be clear to Gumi that nobody cares about who or where the control of the economy resides so far, such control is for the overall benefit of Nigeria.
In the past eight years of Northern elite control of our economy nay Ministry of Finance, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Customs, Immigration, Aviation, NLNG, Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA what improvement could anybody point to by Buhari’s ethnic dominated incompetent recruits the preoccupation then was using the central governments apparatus to buy for itself all stakes in the commanding heights of the economic just for its selfish gains.
It failed woefully to increase the fortune of above enterprises.
The ethnic sponsored helmsmen who presided over the operations of the above organisations not only ate the offerings but also swallowed the ‘pulpit’ such that our economic aches on all sides.
It is true that parcelling up the commanding heights of the nation’s economy into one ethnic group may be unwise as the experience of Buhari’s regime has shown, but for once nobody has come out except Gumi, not even Abubakar Atiku and Peter Obi, to question the competency of those appointed by Tinubu to head the economic fronts.
The fact that the National Assembly scrutinised such appointees makes Gumi’s assertion irrelevant.
Gumi description of politicians of Northern extraction of being lame duck in their ministries lack fairness and reason.
The fact that in today’s Nigeria core areas and ministries like Agriculture, Defence, Education and Health which has eight ministers and ministers of state, are core areas where the North need attention more than other parts of the country.
It is not enough for Gumi just five months into a government of four years tenure to start grumbling and threatening fire and brimstone as twenty-four hours is too long in politics.
Were Gumi speaking for the downtrodden in the North, he would have called out the eight ministers in the core ministries mentioned above to implement far reaching policies to lift up their region from insecurity, lack of education (millions out of school children abound in the North) prevalent Health challenges and above all, it’s classification as poverty capital of the World is enough to be of major concern to a genuine patriot.
Gumi should at least leave politics for politicians and concentrate in reigning- in bandits and kidnappers he has uncontrolled asses in order to allow development in the North.
At his age, he should feel for the Talakawas who are more likely to benefit from the good policies executed by the Ministers and nineteen governors.
2027 belongs to God as 2023 was with all the state sponsored manipulations.
