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US Based Analyst, FAROOK KPEROGI
Few weeks ago, City People had the privilege of interviewing Professor Farooq Kperogi, a US-based columnist who is well known for his advocacy for credible governance in Nigeria. During the session, he reflected on the conduct of the 2023 presidential election which saw President Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerge. He took time to draw out lessons from the poll. Looking forward, he admonished the Igbos on what they must do to produce the next President of Nigeria come 2027 presidential poll.
“I will just say the Igbos have not made the right alliances and it’s politics of alliance and about coalition, about realignment of forces and interests. It is not about morality. So if we want to bring a moral angle to it, we say, yes, the South-East should produce the president, a strong constituent part of Nigeria.
“They have supported several candidates and have transcended their own ethnicity to vote for candidates that are not from them, from their ethnicity. For instance, in 2003, when Ojuku, who is like an iconic Igbo man, ran against Obasanjo, he didn’t win any votes, and Obasanjo defeated him in Igboland. So, people who have that kind of history of supporting people even outside, deserve to be given a shot. But that’s from a moral angle. And politics is not about morality.
“But they should learn from what the South-West did. The South-West had always been in the opposition pre-independence. But the moment certain elements in the southwest decided that I think we need to be in the centre, we’ve been in the opposition for too long. Now let’s move to the centre. They went into alliance politics which captures an unlikely person, Buhari because Buhari is very provincial. He’s extremely uninterested in anyone other than himself and his ethnic group. And in that he has a concentric circle of preferences; Fulani and Kanuri. That’s the first of him because his father was Fulani, his mom was Kanuri. And then Hausa speaking people and then maybe other Muslims. He had his circles, and he never made any pretence about that. He’s always been that way right from the time he was in the military.
“There is a permanent secretary, a Yoruba man whose name I can’t remember, but he was a permanent secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum when he was Petroleum Minister during Obasanjo’s first regime. And he said they travelled from Lagos to Germany, and they sat side by side with each other, and Buhari never said a single word to him. And they went to the ambassador, who turned out to be a Hausa man, and they transacted official Nigerian business in Hauser. And he was excluded. He had no clue of what was discussed. And then they returned to Lagos and they sat beside each other. He never said a word. He captured it in his autobiography. I’m trying to remember his name, and I referenced it in the previous column. But that’s the kind of person that Buhari is. But that man who wrote that book endorsed Buhari in the 2015 elections. In spite of his knowledge of that. He had written a book before 2015 talking about his provincialism, his intolerance of people. He fished like fish out of water, where he finds himself amongst people who are not Hausa.
“But, the South-West still went ahead to have an alliance with him. It was strategic. You might call it opportunistic, but that’s what politics is about. They say, okay, let’s deliver you to the presidency and in return it comes to us. And he wanted to betray him, but it was too difficult for him to do, and he failed because the forces around him were beyond him.
“The Northern governors came out and said, this was the agreement we reached, and we have to respect this agreement. Should we fail this, we will perpetually be people who would never be trusted in politics. So why would they do that? It was because they felt morally obligated to pay back, and that’s the alliance policies I’m talking about.
“But if you have a moralistic posture to governance or a sense of entitlement, I deserve to be there. So give it to me, even if I insult you. Well, you have to understand where my anger is coming from. Just understand and give it to me. It doesn’t happen that way. So I think that’s where, if the southeast must get power, they have to understand the intrigues of politics, the necessity for alliances, for compromises and for coalition building.
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