16th September, 2013
By Tayo Ogunbiyi
Most observers of the happenings within the nation’s political horizon believe that the balkanization of the Nigeria’s Governor Forum (NGF), has the handwriting of some ‘ogas at the top’ visibly written over it. It has been argued severally by those who hold this view that but for the sour relationship between President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Rotimi Amaechi, the (authentic?) Chairman of the NGF, the Forum would have remained intact. Many even hold the view that the crisis in the NGF is an extension of the battle for 2015 which is currently polarizing political actors across the country. For whatever reason, that the NGF has become seriously factionised is no longer news. With 19 governors supporting the Governor Rotimi Amaechi led faction and 16 others queuing behind the Governor Jonah Jang’s faction, things are simply no longer at ease with the NGF.
However, as the political horizon in the country continues to remain cloudy and gloomy, more factions are beginning to emerge across the country. For instance, the political crisis threatening the very existence of the ruling party in the country, which prides itself as the largest political party in Africa, has snowballed into the division of the party into two factions. One of the factions is being led by Alhaji Bamangar Tukur while Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, a former interim national chairman of the party led the other. The two factions are presently engrossed in a bitter struggle for the soul of the party, which many observers believe if not well managed, might affect the fortune of the party in 2015. Recently, as elders and other wise men in the party are busy making efforts to stem the tide of the crisis in the party, the national secretariat of the Baraje’s faction was reportedly sealed off by security operatives. While the Tukur faction insisted that the sealing off of the national secretariat of the Baraje’s faction is a legal issue, the Baraje’s men would not have any of that. As far as they are concerned, the sealing off of their secretariat is part of a grand plot to intimidate and muscle them out of existence.
Now, what is puzzling to most observers of the ranging battle in the ruling party is why the powers that be in the party seem to be comfortable with the emergence of the Jonah Jang’s faction within the NGF but apparently on edge about the appearance of the Baraje’s faction within the party. It has been alleged that the powers that be at the solid rock in Abuja subtly align with the Jang’s faction of the NGF and cheer it on in an effort to destabilize the forum and make its voice no longer credible. Those who hold this view readily authenticate their claim on the premise that most of the big wigs of the Jang’s faction are avowed supporters of the lucky man that dwells inside the Abuja solid rock. If this is correct, as it is being insinuated, then would it not amount to double standard for the party to begin to treat men of the Baraje’s faction as dissidents who must be crushed at all cost while the Jang faction of the NGF is being courted and treated as a beautiful?
Since this is a season of factions, it is important to turn the attention of Nigerians to the emergence of many other factions within the national socio-political landscape. To begin with, two noticeable factions now exist in the nation’s education sector. As the current impasse in the country’s tertiary institutions continues, with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, sticking to its gun on the on-going nationwide strike, it is now obvious that students in the nation’s public universities would have to contend with the reality of their current situation. They represent a faction in the nation’s present imbalance educational system. On the other side of the coin, the students of the many private universities across the country have continued to enjoy un-hindered access to education. While students in the other faction .where ASUU holds sway, continue to brood over their luck, those that belong to the private universities’ faction care no hoot about ASUU and his quest to improve the standard of the country’s tertiary education.
The reality of the two factions in the nation’s tertiary education is a reflection of the emergence of two broad factions that cut across ethnic and religious divides in the country. The first of these two factions consists of the stupendously rich Nigerians who could afford just anything that money could buy for themselves and their family. They could afford to go to the best hospitals in any part of the world for regular medical check- ups. They could send their family members to choice places across the world for holiday. They could afford to send their children to Ivy League schools in any place in the world. They are rich, powerful and well connected. Most of them merit their wealthy status while some of them are simply beneficiaries of the nation’s overtly corrupt system.
In the other faction are Nigerians who daily struggle to make ends meet. As much as they struggle, their misery simply continues. They are daily harassed by situations and circumstances beyond their control. Most of them who are employed work like slaves in their father’s land as they are treated with disdain by both local and foreign entrepreneurs who use them as cheap and casual labour. Most often than not, they die of common sicknesses and diseases that reflect the sorry state of medical facilities in the country. Those that are not killed by common sicknesses and diseases meet their untimely death across the various roads in the country which have become death traps. Just a few days back, 24 unfortunate members of this faction were killed in separate auto accidents in Katsina and Jigawa states when their vehicles plunged into a collapsed bridge at Yar’adua village in Charanchi Local Government of Katsina state. That has been the lots of the members of this faction. They live a miserable life and often die unsung. Each year, they hear that the various governments in the country budget several billions of naira to improve the lots of the various sectors in the country but most often this does not translate into fortune for them.
While members of this downtrodden faction in the country continue to hope against hope, the men and women, whom providence have placed in positions of power and authorities across the country, who are supposed to assiduously work for their emancipation, simply continue to engage in petty and irrelevant politicking anchored mainly on selfish and mundane considerations. When will the fortune of the average Nigerian change? When will their misery abate? Is it really true about Nigeria that the beautiful ones are not yet born? When will this unnecessary factionalization of the country stop? In whose interest is the current political crisis that has relegated governance to the background? Questions and more questions but the answers, as usual, seem to lie somewhere in the wind!
•Ogunbiyi is of the Features Unit, Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.