North fails to honour Sunday Awoniyi, Abdulrahman Okene
Idowu Samuel
Friday, December 21, 2007
Ag. Group Political Editor, Idowu Samuel, who was at the burial of Chief Sunday Awoniyi last weekend, writes on the seeming ingratitude of the North to honour him and others who had championed its cause.
The North has always existed as a privileged political entity since Nigeria attained flag independence. It has a population which is adjudged as twice big as the entire South. It had the support of the colonialists in obtaining the political power of Nigeria at independence. And what is more, the North is endowed with a set of irredentist oligarchs all of whom are very passionate about lording the geographical entity over the entire federation of Nigeria. That reason accounted for the general belief in the North that the rulership of Nigeria must be anchored from the Northern territories.
The rest of Nigeria has never been at peace with the imposing stature of the North and its monopolistic attitude to the game of political power in Nigeria. For the political elite in the South, therefore, the struggle to divest the North of its enormous control on the power and politics at the center must be ongoing.
The reprieve which the South has been seeking on the stranglehold of the North on power came in 1993 when a Southerner, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, won the presidential election scheduled for the year. The feat by MKO looked very impossible and obviously discomforting for the North. The military government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida which conducted the June 12 presidential election ensured that the results must not see the light of the day. From then on, fear struck the North and that became obvious.
If the fierce agitation by the South for control of national political power was creating a rampaging effect on its Northern counterpart, then, the need by the North to defend its interest must be established, so thought a group of Northern elite. For a start, the North raised propaganda machinery piloted by some tabloids like the Democrat and Hotmail. The two had served as a megaphone for the North to deride the attempts by the South to attempt the leadership of Nigeria.
Besides, some members of the North believed that they had greater clout and ability to fight the cause of the larger geo-political zone. Curiously, Alhaji Abdulrahman Okene, born and bred in Okene, Kogi State, was one of them. The late politician resided in Kaduna and had influence cut across the North on political matters. He fought, fought and fought for only the North. He found relevance as a top defender of the North with the support he carved from the military government that was reigning during his time.
During the June 12 crisis, Abdulrahman was always leading one group of Northerners or the other in solidarity visits to the then maximum ruler of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha. He had drummed it hard on whoever cared to listen that the Southern part of Nigeria should forget that it could taste the political power of Nigeria in 50 years’ time. But suddenly, the defender of the North died after a brief illness.
The most intriguing thing about his death was that the North for which he had fought many political battles appeared very cold in giving him recognition. Even on the day of his burial, the North did not send representatives. Not a single governor from the North deemed it fit to name any monument in the geo-political zone after him.
The reality as it played out glaringly is that the North knows those who are its own. Ever before, Abdulrahman Okene became a political fighter for the North, there had been Chief Sunday Bolorunduro Awoniyi placing himself at the forefront of the struggle to make the North ensconce in power. Awoniyi had a reason for doing that. He had the privilege of learning politics in the palace of the father figure of the entire North at independence. He started with the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, being one of his secretaries and learnt the art of management of men and resources in politics.
The most revered political figure in the North in the early days of Nigeria, the Sardauna, not only groomed Awoniyi for politics but also raised him to be a seasoned administrator and a top bureaucrat. Besides God, the next person Awoniyi could worship was the Sardauna.
With Sardauna’s death in the first coup of 1966, the only option available to a man like Awoniyi was to play politics with the laid down styles of his mentor. Like the Sardauna, Awoniyi believed he must support the Northern cause and joined in the struggle to make it remain a strong power bloc for Nigeria.
The Barewa College in Zaria offered him a veritable opportunity to re-invent his own identity as a Yoruba born in Mopa, a sleepy town of Kogi State. With the emergence of the civilian regime of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, it was time for Awoniyi to express his political might and put to practice the political ideals he had internalised from the Sardauna.
He was a loud voice in the criticism of the Obasanjo’s regime for allegedly marginalising the North in his government. The civilian government had hardly settled down when Awoniyi, with the co-operation of top Northern politicians, founded the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) a supposed umbrella socio-cultural group for the North. With the ACF, Awoniyi enabled the North the opportunity to speak with one voice. He was a reason why the Northern politics assumed an intellectual bent, just as he laid down the basis for proper co-ordination.
Since he became the ACF chairman, Awoniyi had gone round the North with a campaign to re-brand the Northern politics with intent geared up development in the entire geo-political zone. He had met with state governors, emirs and prominent Northern leaders in ensuring just that. More importantly, Awoniyi was one of the factors responsible for the sustenance of peace and tranquility in the North all through the period that the Sharia controversy rocked Nigeria to its very foundation.
If there was anything that the North should not forget Awoniyi for, it was the battle he fought on its behalf to kill the third term plot at the instance of the Obasanjo’s government. Before his death, Awoniyi had even saddled himself with the task of reconciling President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua with the former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. There is no known Northerner who held Awoniyi in disdain for the struggles he had been fighting on behalf of the North.
Indeed, the death of Awoniyi emanated from an accident he had on his way to Kaduna. He was to go for a meeting of the ACF in the ancient city when the accident occurred. It was a statement that the ACF boss was committed to the cause of the North up to the point of death.
Expectedly, the North ought to rise in unison to give Awoniyi a honour that he deserved in death. Without being told, the North should take Awoniyi as their own and perhaps name one of the edifices in the North after him in recognition of his efforts at promoting their cause. That did not happen on the day Awoniyi died up till the day he was buried in his home town, Mopa. Worst still, no one from the North had prepared a special oration for the burial of the ACF chairman.
It was glaring that the North never equated Awoniyi to a good worth by its refusal to give him a befitting recognition which could come in any form. On the day of his burial, the number of Northern elite from the North-west popularly referred to as the core North who graced the occasion could be counted on finger tips. No emir from the North, no governor from the North and no major politician from the North had representation.
Those who really made the difference were indigenes from the Middle Belt, chief among whom were General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, General Abdulsalami Abuakar, Chief Solomon Lar, General Saliu Ibrahim, Chief Joshua Dariye, Senator Tunde Ogbeha, Senator Smart Adeyemi, General Ibrahim Wushisi and a host of others.
At the funeral service for Awoniyi, General David Jemibewon who read the oration had to plead for the Federal Government to institute a monument to be sited in Awoniyi’s home town and in his honour. There is no likelihood that the ACF boss would ever enjoy such a privildge, a motion to that effect moved by Senator Smart Adeyemi having earlier been thrown out in the Senate. It was simply a sad story for a man who all along dreamt North, lived North and died for the North even as a Yoruba from Kogi State.
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