Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi
THIS may well be the first time someone is writing an open letter to you since you were released, together with 16 others, including your boon-companion, Alhaji Sule Lamido, from prison on July 25. One should therefore begin by congratulating you on your newfound freedom; many of us knew that you would not stay long in what some newspaper activitists called the ‘Abacha gulag.’ That epithet might be correct, considering that even yourself recommended, in an interview with the New Nigerian on July 7, a prison stint for every politician, judge and policeman to expose them to the realities of the deplorable condition of Nigerian prions so that they would think twice before sentencing or influencing people’s imprisonment. We knew that even the feared Decree 2 of 1984, under which you were held, was not keen enough to bump off someone best known for standing for truth and democracy.
It is really on the issue of truth and democracy this letter is written. Specifically, it is on the irksome matter of power shift in this country on which you have become prominent these days. Readers of this column would note that this is the third week running that I have written on the need for Northern politicians and soldiers to recognise and support the need for a Southerner to become president on the magical date of 29 May 1999. Since my reasons for arguing this have been well stated in the column, you may forgive me for not rehashing them all over again.
‘Yallabai, many of us followers of your political career have been wondering just why you decided to become a leading antagonist of the call for power shift in today’s politics. You have spoken and been reported a lot arguing against power shift in the last three weeks, on the easy, familiar alibi that it is undemocratic for the North to alIow a Southerner to become president. You do not even tout the common excuse of fellow, more cautious anti-shift proponents who rightly say if power should shift, then it shouldn’t be made a constitutional issue. You are only kicking about without giving your other reasons. And that’s very much unRimiesque.
Yes, you have the right to take a position on national matters such as this, but one thought you would be more strategic, forthcoming in logic, and consistent. Yes, the Rimi we knew was the radical, brusque and unpretentious one. People called him tsagera (rebel) because of his mass-oriented populism. You were nicknamed the Limamin Canji (Imam for change) for your unwavering campaign for change against the norm. You and fellow progressive, Alhaji Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, won election as governors during the Second Republic in states considered key Northern conservative areas, at a time almost all the North was routed by the conservatives. Your debonairness, charisma, forthrightness and, yes, tsageranci were veritable vote-pullers.
Indeed, when you and eight other governors formed the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) in 1983 with the purpose of pulling the rug under the ruling NPN, you attracted a great deal of sympathy. Although you did not succeed in that year’s election against the awful NPN machinery, your soar-away profile was left intact. Even more so especially after you were imprisoned by the Buhari regime (for an awful 75 years?) on charges of corruption. Your second incarceration, this time around by the Abacha regime following your unwavering support for MKO Abiola and struggle against the secretive regime, had only stood you in good stead. You received more sympathies.
In fact, your struggle for democracy, especially your support of Abiola in the 1993 election rather than your Kano kinsman, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, was widely seen as being consistent with your stance on justice sans discrimination. It reminded us of how you defied the NPC-controlled Native Authority in 1964 when, as a 24-year old hothead, you flew the NEPU flag in public. Your grouse then was against domination, discrimination and oppression. One is not, however, infering, as the short-sighted extremists among Yoruba politicians have been saying, that Northern domination of the top political office has bred deliberate discrimination and oppression against Southerners. But the Rimi we knew would have supported power shift in any debate on the matter, especially in the present dispensation when the North does not really have to lose anything (but could gain more) if a Southerner becomes president.
Perhaps one should draw your attention to your campaign for a Southern president in 1993. Specifically, you unequivocally enumerated your reasons and maintained a near-extremist posture on the matter in an interview you granted the Tell on 30 May 1993 which was published in the magazine’s post-dated edition of June 8, four days to the controversial presidential election.
Let me quote you in the Tell, in case your memory faltered. You said: “… It is time for change. It is time for a Southern president. If people in the South fail to elect a Southern president this time around, I have no doubt in my mind that it is going to take them a very, very long time before they can have a Southern president. And remember, there have been a lot of agitations in the media of recent, and particularly in the last few years, that the northern part of the country has dominated the presidency, and that whether it is military or during democracy, people from the northern part of the country are the people who are becoming president, therefore it is time for the South to produce a southern president … it is time for change; it is time for the South to get a chance at the presidency.”
Now, the questions are: is the Rimi opposing southern presidency today the same Rimi campaigning for southern presidency only eight years ago? Have the interests governing the 1993 inclination changed so soon? If so, why? Or has Rimi found no qualified Southerner to lead the country since Abiola irretrievably lost the chance?
Sir, yours is really an impolitic, anti-Rimisque posture which throws you in with the conservative lot that sees power not only as the ultimate aphrodisiac but as the ultimate birth right. You may be accused of publicity-hounding, but certainly you were not known for destructive conservatism. Therefore, if all this is another publicity stunt, please come of it; it’s dangerous! Honestly, you should gather and scoop up your lost pieces and play national politics the way you did before, rather than identify with a rueful sectional one with which many politicians are now identified. Who knows? If a Southerner rules for a time, it could be your turn to rule, too. At 58, and with the mass support at your disposal, you should go beyond dichotomous thinking and aim for greater heights. Good luck.
* Published in my column, Melting Pot, in the New Nigerian Weekly today
