Nepotism, tribalism, regionalism, cronyism and religious bigotry; collectively known as sectionalism, is the root of corruption. Sectionalism rewards mediocrity and relegates competent expertise because the yardstick is who knows you but not what you know. Sectionalism rewards complacency but punishes hard work because the yardstick is where you are coming from but not the first to arrive. Sectionalism has been the fundamental cause of Nigeria’s under development and inability to evolve into an egalitarian and prosperous modern nation.
If corruption has national security implications then Buhari’s sectionalism is a threat to national security.
The Muhammadu Buhari administration has elevated sectionalism at the highest level of government to the highest it has ever been, perhaps since the Gen Sani Abacha military junta; a government in which president Buhari was a prominent part of. The entire kitchen cabinet of the president, the most powerful lever of government, where programmes and policies are incubated and hatched, is staffed and dominated by Nigerians of northern origin. These include his chief of staff, SGF, NSA, CSO, Chief of protocol and for the first time since 1999 the president’s ADC, comes from his North West region. The few offices in the presidency that were given to southerners are equally shared with a northern counterpart.
For example, Femi Adesina, a firm supporter of the president throughout his wandering years in electioneering wilderness who was rewarded with the position of SA on media and publicity has a very powerful if not dominant partner in Garba Shehu, a northerner, whom the president also appointed as SSA media and publicity. The office of presidential liaison officer to the national assembly was also split into two between Sen Ita Enang, a southerner and Hon Samaila Kawu, a northerner. The president and his handlers have defended this manner of appointments on the fact that it was based on loyalty and trust; a position that is severally re-echoed by his devoted supporters. In trying hard to always rationalise the president’s every action, the hailing hailers this time have unknowingly, by putting up these excuses for his extreme sectionalism indicted the president and calling to question his nationalist credentials, which is a vital requirement for the occupant of the highest office in the land.
The numerous negative side effects of the Buhari’s sectionalism are being felt across board. From a largely incompetent federal executive council, to the absence of an economic management team, thereby leaving the nation’s economy in a limbo and drift into recession with a heavy consequence of mass poverty among a large section of the citizens. Institutions of state have been deployed to serve sectional interests but not national interests. The broad consequences arising from the impunity and gross abuse of powers and privileges of ‘’loyal and trusted’’ appointees, are the escalation of corrupt practices leading to economic and financial crimes in high places.
Nowhere are the negative consequences of Buhari’s sectionalism felt more than in the conduct of the exercise of internal security. The entire internal security apparatchik is headed and dominated by northern Muslims including a significant section of the defence services [army and air force]. It appears that the internal security architecture of the Muhammadu Buhari administration is designed to ensure sectional security rather than national security. For example, the fight against the terror group, Boko Haram, whose insurgence activities are adversely affecting the people and land of the Muslim north east, is being tackled with renewed vigour.
The president also, personally went to Zamfara state, to launch a military operation against cattle rustlers; a problem that affects his own Fulani ethnic group negatively. Similarly the governors of North West, with cooperation from security agencies, coordinated a military operation which flushed out bandits and cattle rustlers from the forests of Birnin Gwari, bringing respite to Fulani cattle breeders in the area. By contrast, other sections of the country have not had it this good. The case of Bridget Agbahime is classic. As a Christian of southern origin, residing in the northern city of Kano, in life she was not protected by security agencies from blood thirsty irate mob of northern Muslim youths who killed her and in death, she gets no justice, because the Fulani Muslim government of Kano state, declares her killers as having no case to answer.
How about Eunice Elisha, the Kubwa preacher that was hacked to death a few miles from the presidential villa? A case forgotten and her family left alone to mourn in pain but silence.
The president and commander in chief has shown more concern for the lives of cattle, than human lives in Agatu, Enugu, Anambra etc. Buhari’s disposition to the scourge of marauding killer Fulani herdsmen, who like parasitic locust, forcefully descending from the highlands of Futa Djallon, on the Senegal River and swooping across Nigeria’s green belt of the guinea savannah through the forest to the wetlands of the mangrove swamps of central and southern Nigeria, leaving destruction of cultivated lands, tears and blood thereafter, have been unfortunately very complacent. Not even a strong word of condemnation or a physical visit to affected communities.
The most his government has done in this case is to appeal to both host farming communities and cattle breeders to co-habit peacefully. The president, like a typical Fulani cattle breeder himself, will rather claim to be the victim than the aggressor. The Fulani often justifies their violent attacks as a reprisal on farming communities for earlier attacks on them and their cattle. Little wonder Nigeria’s Fulani dominated internal security apparatus, headed by a Fulani commander in chief appears to have approached the problem of killer Fulani herdsmen from a sectional prism rather than a national broad view thereby making the crisis intractable.
This position is further strengthened by the approach of Nasir El-Rufai to the recent massive attacks by the Fulani killer herdsmen on farming communities of southern parts of Kaduna state. The governor is widely reported to have appealed to the ethnic sentiments of the killers that as one of their own, they should
