Northern lessons from the fall of Nuhu Ribadu (I)
vin modebelu
Northern lessons from the fall of Nuhu Ribadu (I)
We must begin, first, by addressing the question of whether or not there is a “fall” of Nuhu Ribadu from office in a political sense, before we even talk about learning any lessons from it. My answer is yes. The National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu has fallen from power. We must acknowledge and say this as a political fact, without sugar-coating it, but also without sounding like we are trampling on a man because he is politically down.
In a presidential system, the entirety of the executive branch is effectively one person. For anyone other than the president, then, their power depends on their real and perceived proximity to the boss. If an appointee is close to the president, and is seen to be close to the president, then they have and can wield power. Conversely, the moment an appointee no longer enjoys that access to the president, and is perceived not to enjoy the access, their power ends right there. It doesn’t matter if they retain their fancied titles.
Therefore, when presidents make parallel appointments like President Bola Tinubu did in Nigeria’s security sector last week, the only thing to consider is politics. What we witnessed last week is the political fall of one official, and the rise of another. Nigeria still effectively has only one national security adviser to Tinubu, not two, but their name has changed from Malam Nuhu Ribadu to retired Major General Adeyinka A. Famadewa. Ribadu himself must know that this is just another form of a forced study leave to NIPPS, Kuru, Jos, regardless of the changed circumstances, and that he would need to decide whether to go or quit. That’s all.
It is also an outlandish claim that, from his own detention cell, Malam Nasir El-Rufai somehow masterminded Ribadu’s fall from power. No doubt, Ribadu and El-Rufai have turned from best friends to bitter political enemies, of late. And no doubt, El-Rufai would relish the opportunity to have his pound of flesh, and see Ribadu fall. But even El-Rufai himself cannot personally claim credit for what has happened to Ribadu since last week. Ribadu’s downfall could well have been precipitated more by his “they are our brothers” statement in reference to bandits in the North West than El-Rufai’s letter demanding information regarding the supply of some toxic gasses or his statement on television that he had wiretapped Nuhu Ribadu’s phone.
More directly, Ribadu fell from power because he misunderstood the true nature and character of federal politics under the Tinubu administration. And that misunderstanding, or rather political naivety, shared widely among the northern flank of the government and ruling APC, is the real problem about which I am writing today, for whatever we might learn from it.
For at least two of the past three years, Nuhu Ribadu has been quite possibly the second most powerful person in the Tinubu administration, after only Tinubu himself. But along with Ribadu’s power were also his many Achilles heels. The most nuanced of them is that Ribadu did not learn enough from the precipitous historical record of the office and his predecessors. As national security gradually became centre stage in Nigerian governance, the role of the national security adviser also grew more powerful and central to any administration.
Scarcely any more than an obscure post before military President Babangida elevated it, the office has since grown into one of the three biggest jobs in Nigerian government. On paper and in practice, it involves intelligence access, presidential proximity, political visibility, and enormous discretionary influence on both money and life and death decisions. And on a daily basis. That would be a coveted position in any presidential system, but especially so in Nigeria’s where a zero-sum game of all or nothing is the norm.
Accordingly, as the office grew in influence and prestige, competition for it also became more politically visceral, particularly among retired generals who see it as a birth right. In short, the NSA role has become one of the most powerful but also one of the most politically dangerous and precipitous positions in Nigeria whose occupants rarely end nicely. Tinubu’s recent appointment of Famadewa was not meant to change any of this. Rather, it is the political equivalent of giving you something with one hand, and taking it back with another hand in broad day light. But a critical look at the historical record of the office should have taught Ribadu to go-slow from the start, and perhaps, I can now only hope, he could have avoided quite a few other fatal errors that, combined, nailed his political coffin, however we look at it.
The most consequential of Ribadu’s Achilles heels is that he misread, misunderstood, and misapplied the fundamentals of federal politics in Nigeria under a southern president. Ribadu is not alone. You see, the ghosts of the past have not yet died down in Nigerian federal politics. Three times now since 1999, we have seen a southern president who assumes office still bearing some perceived historical grievances of “Northern Domination”. Grievances that are expressed or manifested in their politics and policies, in above all in their political rhetoric and appointments.
Southern Nigeria is still caught up in the tendentious pre-independence and immediate post-independence politics in which the North is regarded as the ultimate political enemy to be fought to a standstill. To date, southern political psyche has not shifted from this basic binary, be they a voter, politicians or president. The political culture of southern Nigeria is still almost entirely anti-North, and perhaps will continue to manifest in Tinubu-like governments for the foreseeable future, unless we all find a way to break the cycle. Tinubu is only the latest actor in this dynamic of southern federal politics. But he is not the first because Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan were there before him. Nor would he be the last because some people are grooming Peter Obi to take over from Tinubu merely out of disaffection with the latter.
The more important issue, however, is to ask: how has the northern political establishment responded politically to this basic and persisting southern political tendency post-1999?
The response has been a mix of reactionary impulses, internecine political in-fighting, and well, some collective fatalism and resignation. What was much needed in the North in 1999 was a clear understanding that sustained democracy in Nigeria would mean rotational presidency over the long term, and that the first few southern presidencies would necessarily take a southern political bent, even when they came to power with the help and votes of the North, as in the cases of Obasanjo in 1999, Jonathan (2011) and clearly, Tinubu (2023). That sort of understanding could have helped the northern establishment transition better into eight years of an Obasanjo presidency and helped build a new northern strategy for federal politics.
Instead, the political tendency in the North was to feel outraged that Obasanjo was not holding power on their behalf as they had expected for supporting him to office. This reactionary impulse resulted in daily rhetoric of outrage in the press against Obasanjo’s government, and eventually the establishment of the Arewa Consultative Forum, as a way of counter-balancing Obasanjo. It worked until Obasanjo decided to create his own Northern Elders Forum.
Northern politics has never been the same again, whether under a southern or northern presidency, but particularly so under a southern president. But to understand why Ribadu failed to grasp the dynamics of federal politics under Tinubu, we must first look at what happens to northern politicians and voters under a southern president beyond Obasanjo.
https://dailytrust.com/northern-lessons-from-the-fall-of-nuhu-ribadu-i/