By Farooq A. Kperogi
After the sustained, unwarranted personal attacks I endured for eight years from northerners for unswervingly calling out what I called the “embarrassingly undisguised Arewacentricity of Buhari’s appointments” in a February 2, 2019, column titled “Even Ahmadu Bello Would Be Ashamed of Buhari’s Arewacentricity,” I promised that I would look the other way if a southern president returned the favour after Buhari’s tenure.
But promises made in the heat of disillusionment often crumble under the weight of principle.
Ironically, this column was inspired by a well-regarded Yoruba supporter of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is worried, in fact embarrassed, by the optics of what he says is Tinubu’s relentless Yorubacentric take-over of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
His concern wasn’t just partisan discomfort; it was a profound unease about how this nepotistic approach undermines national cohesion.
I frankly hadn’t been paying attention to the internal dynamics at the NNPC, but the acquaintance pointed out that Yoruba people now occupy major positions at the NNPC and that a certain Bayo Ojulari is “being proposed as GMD after Mele Kyari’s term expires” early next year.
I haven’t independently confirmed the accuracy of this claim but given the closeness of the source of information to people in the circles of power, it’s probably best to not dismiss this with the wave of the hand.
His concern is that Tinubu, from the Southwest, is already the Minister of Petroleum. Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Petroleum and Chairman of the NNPC, is from the South-South. Chief Pius Akinyelure from the Southwest is NNPC’s Non-Executive Board Chairman.
The head of the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS), Mr. Bala Wunti, my acquaintance pointed out, has been replaced by one Seyi Omotowa. Gbenga Komolafe is the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), making him the highest-ranking upstream regulator.
“If a Yoruba man were to be the GMD, another Yoruba man is the Chairman, and yet another Yoruba man is the regulator, that’s extreme lopsidedness,” and other parts of Nigeria would be justified to feel uncomfortable, my acquaintance said.
As with issues of this nature, the reality may be more complex that the surface-level impressions that I have been presented with. Of the 12-member non-executive Board of Directors, I counted at least four names that I recognise as northern, and that includes Kyari, the outgoing GMD.
The 7-member Senior Management Team on NNPC’s website has three northerners (if Kyari is included). That seems fair. Plus, Buhari actually appointed many of the Yoruba people in high places at the NNPC. By these metrics, one might argue that there’s a semblance of balance.
However, Tinubu’s broader public image tells a different story. His administration is rapidly cementing a reputation for Yorubacentric provincialism. Like the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who governed Nigeria as if he were still a Katsina governor, Tinubu appears to be governing Nigeria as though he were still the governor of Lagos.
Just like Yar’adua was elected a Nigerian president but operated like a Katsina governor in Abuja, Tinubu is also, so far, a Nigerian president only in name. His mindset is still that of the governor of Lagos.
With a few notable (and in some cases unavoidable) exceptions, Tinubu’s government is largely the re-enactment of his time as the governor of Lagos. It is, for all practical purposes, an unabashed Lagos-centric Yorubacracy.
To be fair, though, with the possible exception of Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, all civilian regimes since 1999 have been insular ethnocracies.
My source reminded me of a viral social media post I wrote on January 14, 2019, titled “New IGP: Why Progressive Northerners Should be Embarrassed” where I gave four reasons for being insistently censorious of Buhari’s Arewacentric appointments in response to southerners who asked why I was bothered since I was a northern Muslim who was “favoured” by such appointments—“favoured,” that is, on the emotional and symbolic plane.
I pointed out that I criticised similar such parochial appointments by previous presidents from the South and that it would be hypocritical to look the other way because I was now “favoured” by such appointments.
I said people from my region and religion won’t always be in power, and I wanted to be able to stand on a firm moral pedestal when I criticise future presidents who replicate Buhari’s (and previous presidents’) provincialism.
Most importantly, I said, I was personally embarrassed by Buhari’s insularity and that every progressive northerner should be. I described it as the sort of embarrassment you feel when your best friend who thinks highly of your mother visits you in your home and your mother, during a family dinner, gives you a considerably bigger food portion size and choicer pieces of meat than your friend.
“You feel like screaming: ‘Mom, I know you love me, but you’re embarrassing me by showing overt preferential treatment to me in the presence of my friend’,” I wrote.
The Yoruba acquaintance of mine who alerted me to the creeping Yoruba-centric take-over of the NNPC said he was doing so out of a feeling of the same sense of embarrassment that inspired my rage against Buhari’s appointments that favoured the North unfairly, especially in the areas of security.
Tinubu is doing in the economy sector what Buhari did in the security sector. The minister of finance, the governor of the central bank, and every other consequential agency in finance is headed by a Yoruba man. I am not sure Nigeria has ever seen this level of extreme, state-sanctioned ethnocentric domination of a critical segment of national life.
Appointing another Yoruba individual as the head of the NNPC would complete what many already perceive as the ethnic capture of Nigeria’s economic nerve center. It would not only cement Tinubu’s image as an insensitive ethnocrat but also exacerbate public discontent and foster deeper divisions in an already polarized nation.
If Tinubu is unaware of this burgeoning perception, he needs to awaken to its reality. Leadership is not just about policies and actions; it’s also about managing optics and inspiring confidence in a nation’s collective identity.
In a September 5, 2015, column titled “Buhari is Losing the Symbolic War,” where I railed against the exclusion of Igbo people in Buhari’s first appointments, I wrote:
“Symbolism isn’t the same thing as substance. Appointing people to governmental positions does nothing to improve anybody’s lot—except, perhaps, the people so appointed and their immediate families.
“Jonathan’s disastrous 5-year presidency couldn’t even bring basic infrastructure like boreholes to his hometown of Otueke, yet his people derive vicarious satisfaction from the fact of his being Nigeria’s former president.
“Human beings are animated by a multiplicity of impulses, including rational and emotional impulses, both of which are legitimate. When we turn on our rational impulses, we may ask: What would appointing an Igbo man as SGF, for instance, do to Igbo people? The answer is ‘nothing.’
“But we are more than rational beings: we are also emotional beings. That’s why people are invested in symbolism. Appointing someone from the southeast or the deep south is merely a symbolic gesture, but it inspires a sense of inclusion in the minds of many people from that region; it serves as a symbolic conduit through which people vicariously connect with the government.”
This cycle of ethnic favouritism must end if Nigeria is to realise its full potential as a nation. To grow and thrive, we need leaders who can transcend the narrow confines of ethnocracy.
We need leadership that embraces diversity and inclusion, not as buzzwords but as guiding principles for governance. Only then can we begin to heal the fractures that divide us and build a nation that serves all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity or region.
