Ethnicity And The Buhari Opportunity ~ By Ken Agala

Friend : What do you think about the new CBN deputy governor?

Me: She is qualified na

Friend : Just wondering if there’s anything you had to add

Me: Lol, like she is beautiful?

Friend : I mean, personally I’m not too keen on the deputy governor being a northerner

Me : The CBN governor himself that is from your state sef, what has he done for you and Nigeria?

Friend : Goodnight.

Me : ???

06/10/2017, 9:28:14 AM: 

Friend : Who is laughing with you?

Me: I’m laughing at the good night by 9:am. Look, I’m for anyone who is a professional no matter where they comes from .The governor of the Bank of England is not even from England my darling sister. He is a Canadian. 

Friend : Sorry, Na me wey find trouble na.

This is a chat between I and a friend a few days ago . Even though I later learnt that the new CBN DG’s appointment was accelerated as she was appointed DGM of Diamond bank a few days ago so as to qualify her for the post of CBN DG which in itself is a nepotistic breach of due process, but that’s a story for another day. 

But it’s really funny when we Africans often try to appeal to everyone’s sense of ethnic inclination and this is why I get uncomfortable when people ask me the inevitable question of which tribe do you come from especially when they fail to identify my ethnicity by my seemingly blank surname. 

Which tribe do you come  from how? That I’m a human and a Nigerian should be enough for you my brother. 

But this question is often asked, not because they just want to know, but so that they can identify your ethnicity and pigeon hole you accordingly.

Most times it is often the social stigma that their own society has attached upon your tribe that they’d use  used as their basis to class you. 

At a business dinner organized in Kigali last year, one of my Nigerian colleagues made this inevitable mistake. Sitting close to a young Rwandan  female business executive and apparently  looking for a way to continue the convo, he asked “so are you Hutu or Tutsi?’ . 

It was if he had committed a sacrilege as her eyes widened and her voice came down. 

“Look Kola, we are all Rwandans, we are not Hutus or Tutsis,” she said with almost anger in her voice. All of us that came from Nigeria turned and looked at each other. 

This is Rwanda, a country that survived the most brutal ethnic war just a few years ago, living so peacefully, transforming into the safest, cleanest and best governed country in Africa all due to effective leadership from a former rebel leader known as Paul Kagame.. 

Kagame has built a nation of one voice and one people from the ashes of the most bitter civil war in Africa. All these he achieved by good governance and treating everyone alike. 

Tanzania is another clear example of where a country of over 120 ethnic group become so united that ethnicity is not even remembered, all because of the ingenuity and exemplary leadership of the iconic leader, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere. 

The Mwalimu (teacher) was so selfless that he was able to build Tanganyika and Zanzibar into one nation, established Kiswahili as a national language creating a country where over 120 different tribes  value their nation much more than their tribes, a very rare occurrence in Africa, a continent of people whose first loyalty belongs more to their tribes.  

When President Buhari thanked and recognized those who didn’t vote for him in his inaugural speech by reassuring them in his famous ” I belong to everybody and I belong to no one” comment, the whole country stood still and even those of us who campaigned for Jonathan started having hope that this might be the real change especially after a very tough elections which was deeply divided along tribal lines. 

Few months later in the United States, President Buhari effortlessly obliterated that effect on national TV by arrogantly admitting that he won’t in all honesty treat those who gave him five percent as equal as those who gave him 97%. 

This was the statement that gave birth to the avengers and intensified the Biafra agitation. From that moment all his actions were treated with suspicion. 

Every list of appointees was scrutinized not by the quality of people on the list but by their ethnicity.

Then when he was sick in London and his supporters nationwide were praying for him, he chose to address only a section in Hausa language.

One of Africa’s most brilliant minds Prof Otieno Lumumba once said “In Africa, the blood of ethnicity is even stronger than the blood of Christ”. 

But today, the Presidential handlers or the cabal (Cabal is not necessarily a bad thing)  still have an opportunity to remedy all these and begin to mold President Buhari into a nationalistic leader. 

He can start by clarifying or apologizing for that 5%/97% comment.

He can start by wearing one of those his famous Igbo and Niger Delta dresses he wore before the elections when they used to call him Okechukwu.

He can start by visiting some of his friends in these regions and dining with them like he did before the elections. 

President Buhari still have a great opportunity to be placed alongside the very few African leaders who lived above ethnic and religious bias. 

Leaders like the Mwalimu, Kambarage Nyerere who was so fair in his dealing with all tribes that today he is even being considered to be made a saint of the Catholic Church . 

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