By Ochereome Nnanna
Mamman Daura is a man much heard of but never heard from. He is a study in self-stigmatization. As President Muhammadu Buhari’s nephew, he is closest in the blood to the president among the regime’s cabal members. Last week, for the first time since the past five years when his uncle became president, Mamman opened up on a sensitive national issue.
He did not address the Boko Haram Islamist terror which they had promised to eradicate by December 2015. After the convoy of Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State recently came under fire, he declared there were fifth columnists in our Army making sure the war never ends. After his Sallah rites, President Buhari declared that people he put in office have betrayed his confidence in the fight against insecurity and graft.
The North West (especially Mamman’s Katsina State and Daura town) remains under siege by “bandits”. Herdsmen are killing, kidnapping, raping, and forcefully settling on people’s lands in the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria. The government of which he is perhaps the most influential person is unable to solve most of the problems it met five years ago.
Mamman Dura did not consider any of these issues topical enough to address when it pleased him to speak. He chose instead to address bread and butter – power – and where the next president should come from. Mamman Daura became a power broker when his uncle emerged as president, though he was nowhere to be seen during the conspiracies and grunt work.
I warned Southerners when they were huffing and hyping to install Buhari president between 2013 and 2015, hoping to “share” power and inherit the presidency when he finished. I told them that the highest they could get were jobs, contracts, and waivers, including temporary anti-corruption waivers. I warned that if Buhari became president, the people who were going to be in power with him won’t be those toiling for him. When the food is ready, a different set of people will sit around the dinner table with Buhari. They will be wearing babanriga and turbans and discussing in a vernacular only they understand. Monkey go work baboon go chop.
I told them that the Caliphate extremists represented by Buhari do not believe in power-sharing. They will be “generous” to you as they were with the late Moshood Abiola and Arthur Eze of Ukpo. They believe that the power is their birthright bestowed on them by their ancestors, Usman Dan Fodio and Ahmadu Bello.
Before now, they were carrying the whole North with them, making everybody feel they belonged even if they did not. But in five years of Buharism when Mamman Daura and co have quietly concatenated power from the background, the gloves have been off. Public offices that belong to you and I are given to people of Buhari’s ethnicity and religion. Nigeria is now for the ethnic Fulani from all over Africa. They are free to come, massacre indigenous peoples, take over their lands and receive the protection of our now sectionalised military, security, and police. Buhari has surpassed my expectations. Even some Northern Muslims are beginning to wonder if they are still “among”.
When Buhari consolidated his power, there was this initial effort at exploiting his popularity to get him a tenure elongation. It was dropped mainly because the hostile National Assembly leadership of former Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker, Yakubu Dogara would block it, anyway. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and even Bola Tinubu’s faction of the All Progressives Congress, APC, would come out against it.
Having realised that this plan A stands no chance, Mamman Daura has now come out with the cabal’s plan B: throw the presidential contest open in 2023 in the belief that it will produce another Northerner from Buhari’s fold. It is only another cabal product that can continue what has been described as the regime’s “Islamisation and Fulanisation” agenda. No Southerner (even Tinubu, a Muslim) will agree to drive this agenda.
Mamman Daura called for the cessation of the rotation and zoning culture which has been in place since 1999. It has outlived its usefulness, he said. Has the South East produced a president? Now that it is the turn of that geopolitical zone, it suddenly outlives its usefulness! Mind you, I am no longer nuts about “Igbo presidency”. I want freedom. Inside or outside Nigeria, give me freedom. Let me run my life and determine my future. I am tired of being hampered by parasites.
The rotational presidency is meant to prolong the lifespan of Nigeria under the current lopsided dispensation. It is a palliative, not panacea. Mamman Daura does not even want to allow the palliative. He wants to strengthen his hold on his newly-acquired colony – Nigeria. I don’t blame him and his cohorts.
You can only ride a horse when it bends down for you to climb onto its back. In 2014/2015, the APC Southern leaders had a choice between a Caliphate extremist: Buhari, and a Caliphate liberal: Atiku Abubakar. Atiku who would have been more disposed towards a give-and-take deal.
Tinubu gave power to Buhari because of the latter’s fabled 12 million Northern votes. I hope that he and his followers are still happy with their choice, especially now that Mamman Daura, the most prominent surviving Buhari cabal member, has spoken. A newspaper has reported of plans to bring back Atiku, Aminu Tambuwal, and Rabiu Kwankwaso to the APC to power through another Northern president in 2023.
In Nigeria, some people do the work, others take the rewards. Mamman Daura, the journalist, has never pretended to be a nationalist. His media work has centred on promoting the Fulani/Islamic Caliphate ideology for the control of power in the North and Nigeria and supporting Northern military dictators.
Those who struggled to bring back our democracy have settled for crumbs from Mamman Daura’s table. He who has his mouth full of food does not talk.
Take this home, however: If the APC reneges on the gentleman’s agreement to cede power to the South in 2023, the party will no longer be a ruling party. The now quiet Western front will come out smoking. There won’t be national tranquility.
When it starts, Mamman Daura will only return to his tortoise’s shell where he really belongs.
(Vanguard)
