Northern lessons from the fall of Nuhu Ribadu (II)

By Suleiman A. Suleiman

In the first instalment of this series last week, I made three points. First, I argued, against the grain, that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recent creation of a parallel Special Adviser on “Homeland Security” is not an administrative or operational adjustment. It is, I said, a purely political move that signals the fall of Nuhu Ribadu, and the elevation of General Famadewa.  

Secondly, I argued that Ribadu had not studied or understood enough the precipitous nature of the office he still nominally occupies, but practically and politically no longer does. Over time, the position of National Security Adviser has evolved to become one of the most powerful but also most unpredictable offices in Nigerian politics and governance. Had Ribadu fully taken the import of this chequered history of the office into consideration, I said, his approach to the job might have been different, and he probably would have avoided plenty of the unforced errors that eventually combined to strip him of his power. 

Finally, I argued that Ribadu’s fall from power reflects a broader and recurring pattern of northern elite political behaviour under southern presidencies since 1999. Southern political psychology, I said, has remained trapped in the bubble of some perceived historical grievances of “northern domination”. And since 1999, Southern presidents have tended to arrive office with at least some sense of the need to correct some of these perceived historical injustices. Tinubu is only the latest—and purest—example of this dynamic of southern federal politics, but he is neither the first nor would he be the last, until the underlying political psyche shifts. 

Unfortunately, I concluded, northern political elites have tended to misunderstand this deeply entrenched sense of grievance in southern federal politics. And as a result, northern politicians have tended to approach southern presidencies, from Obasanjo, Jonathan, and now Tinubu, through a mix of reactionary tactics, mutually destructive political in-fighting, orcollective silence and resignation. This tendency, I said, only weakens the region politically, and makes it easier for any southern president to pick off his northern political adversaries one after the other, until there is no one left standing. 

This is exactly what has happened under Tinubu with the fall of Ribadu. It is also precisely why the lessons must be learned, not just by Ribadu, but by all northern politicians and political elites. And that, in short, is the heart of this two-part series, to which I now return.

Within the foregoing context, Ribadu made three further fatal mistakes. First, Ribadu actively sought to position himself as the “head of the northern delegation” within the Tinubu administration, and as the sole interface between the Tinubu government and northern Nigeria. This brought Ribadu into direct but unnecessary conflict with Vice President Kashim Shettima, the natural head of the “northern delegation”. Now, because politics has its own inherent hierarchies, and the Vice President is second only to the President, if not in power, at least in symbolic order, Ribadu’s ambition could only be realized by functionally, politically, and symbolically undermining Shettima at every turn.

That, for me, is the single most destructive and disruptive thing in northern politics of the past three years or so. 

By seeking a position already occupied as a matter of course by Shettima, Ribadu did not weaken Shettima alone, but the entire northern flank of the party and government. His political antics destabilized everyone else and prevented the northern wing of the government from creating and nurturing any sense of a collective within the administration. Yet, this sense of a collective, of the northern bloc as a full partner in the APC coalition, even if only symbolically, is important for Tinubu to respect and give northern Nigeria its due for their support in his election. Unity, even of a merely symbolic kind, is one of the most important things in politics.  

Worse than that, Ribadu’s crude in-fighting to be the head of the northern bloc of the government and the only link between Tinubu and the north only made it easier for Tinubu to pick off any northern politician or leader he no longer likes or trusts, whether within the government or outside of it.  From the removal of Senator Abdullahi Adamu as national chairman of the APC, the political intimidation of the Sultan of Sokoto, the side-lining of Vice President Shettima, the emirate crises in Kano, the all-out political war against El-Rufai, etc, to Ribadu’s own fall last week, it was downhill and easy sail for Tinubu to take down all northern hurdles in his path to complete Yoruba/Lagos control of the party and country. 

Northern Nigeria, which contributed 65% of the votes for Tinubu’s victory, does not enjoy the status even of a junior partner, let alone an equal one, in this government. it is also often treated worse than a subordinate under any circumstances. But it is all because the northern bloc of the party has lacked political coherence and sense of a collective under Tinubu. And that itself resulted mainly from Ribadu’s contest of northern leadership with Shettima, and his insistence that he alone is the bridge between Tinubu and the region on every issue. By doing so, he weakened not just Shettima but the entire northern wing of the government and party, and ultimately, himself. That is an important lesson for all to remember.

Secondly, Ribadu misread the political instinct with which Tinubu and his circle arrived Abuja in May 2023. As I wrote in a piece in these pages titled “Emilokan: Act One, Scene One”, Tinubu and his people have not arrived in Abuja to play second-fiddle or share power with their northern partners in the party. The Tinubu bloc sees itself, first and foremost, as the true heirs of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Yoruba politics, and Tinubu himself as effectively the first Yoruba president of Nigeria. 

The implication is that people around Tinubu always viewed Ribadu’s job as a role not meant for an “outsider”, that is, to a non-Yoruba appointee, however close they may be to Tinubu. That Ribadu is not a retired soldier only intensified the competition by insiders around Tinubu to retake his position from Day One. This was the real fight for survival Ribadu had on his hands right from the day Tinubu appointed him. But rather than focus attention where the real threats to his job lay, he went fishing in the wrong waters. Until he was undone. 

It is interesting how Ribadu failed to see that both operationally and politically, he was always a lone Fulani in a forest of Yoruba heads around the president’s kitchen table. Any northern Yoruba Nigeria who has lived or worked in a Yoruba dominated environment, a northern youth corps member serving in the southwest for example, would quickly recognisesuch a political demographic as dangerous and untenable in the long term. Ribadu did not.

Perhaps he had so much trust in Tinubu. But then again, there is a huge difference between a Nigerian Yoruba man and a Yoruba Nigerian. Obasanjo is an example of the former, Tinubu is much of the latter. The way a President Obasanjo would trust a Nuhu Ribadu is not the same thing as the way a President Tinubu would trust a Nuhu Ribadu. A President Obasanjo will give you cover and protection till the end, so long as you don’t go against him personally. And to his credit, he gave Ribadu all the protection and over he needed. For a paranoid Tinubu, however, certain kinds of whispers, by certain kinds of persons, and at certain moments are enough, and you are toast. It doesn’t matter whether the whispers are true or not.

•Suleiman writes from Abuja

(suleimansuleiman@dailytrust.com; 07066451983 SMS)

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