The once-strong alliance between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and influential Northern leaders faces turmoil amidst economic challenges.
Northern figures, who observers say were pivotal in Tinubu’s rise to power, are grappling with public backlash due to the country’s economic downturn, especially in the impoverished North.
Most of the northern leaders, especially the former State governors, who were instrumental to Tinubus emergence are finding it difficult to face their people on the rationale for such support, as the current economic hardship in the country has had crushing effect on the north, where average poverty rate is twice that of the south.
A former senator, Senator Shehu Sani, last week gave indication of this in his usual sarcastic polemics, when he challenged those supporters to now walk the talk, insisting that he warned the people severally on the danger of voting for Tinubu.
Developments since Tinubu came to power may have been responsible for the strains in the chummy relationship sealed just before the 2023 presidential election. At the core of the snap is a panoply of factors, which have since coalesced together to threaten the regions support for Tinubu, should he indicate interest in a second-term of office.
The unprecedented economic crisis, and the attendant suffering and hardships Nigerians are currently experiencing as a result of the Tinubu administrations removal of subsidy on petrol and the harmonisation of foreign exchange rate, are the root cause. The impact of the twin actions has been felt more in the North, where before the removal itself poverty and hardships had reached dizzying heights.
Northern Nigeria is facing a series of problems. About three weeks ago, the Emir of Kano, Ado-Bayero told the Presidents wife, Oluremi Tinubu, during her visit to Kano to commission the Sani Abacha University, to extend his message to her husband that Northerners are facing unprecedented severe hardships.
In the same vein, a fortnight ago, the Chairman of the Northern Traditional Rulers Council and Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Muhammad Saad Abubakar lll, decried the deteriorating socio-economic conditions and the insecurity ravaging the North.
Addressing his colleagues at the sixth executive committee meeting of the Northern Traditional Rulers Council, with the theme: Enhanced Security as a panacea for stability and development of the North, in Kaduna, Abubakar declared that with the current downturn of the economy, which he said had inflicted untold hardships on Nigerians, all was not well with Nigeria, especially the North.
He lamented that the twin monsters confronting the nation at the moment were poverty and insecurity, which if not tackled urgently, could spell doom for Nigeria.
But he was quick to exonerate President Tinubu while noting that the sorry state of the nation was the continuation of the last administration of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), under former president Muhammadu Buhari.
To me, this Government is a continuation of the former one; it is the same party. So, what really is the problem? I think that is one of the reasons we are here to talk to ourselves, Abubakar said.
Another touchy issue that has pitted the Northern political establishment against the president was the way the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS), which Tinubu is the chairman, treated Niger Republic following the coup last year. The North has cultural and social ties with Niger, which date back to centuries, many Northerners felt that Tinubu did not consider the sensitivity of the issues and the geopolitical impacts of the ECOWAS action. Closing the borders along seven northern States was big blow to both their economy and social relations.
A social-political group, Arewa New Agenda, (ANA), recently voiced its opposition to Bola Tinubu’s administration, citing the alleged marginalisation of the North as one of its reasons.
Addressing newsmen on the new move, the group’s president, Senator Ahmad Abubakar MoAllahyidi, alleged that Northern Nigeria was short-changed by the Tinubu administration, despite its numerical strength to determine the political direction and the leadership of the country.
ANA, last Thursday in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, declared its opposing stance on the rotational presidency, alluding to President Bola Tinubus it is my turn comment before the 2023 election. According to the group, President Tinubu had abandoned the North, which gave him the bulk of the ballots that brought him to power.
As it is now, unless President Tinubu builds a counter-balancing new power base in the North by empowering loyalists, who can rally his cause in the 2027 battle to whittle-down the influence of elements opposed to him, pundits say his administration may face strong opposition from the North for the rest of his term and will have real challenge for re-election.
