Aisha Buhari, the president’s appointments and the new reality for the north

President Obasanjo’s remarks about an on-going ‘islamization and fulanization’ process at a Church of Nigeria event in Delta state and a deed in that direction on the part of the Buhari administration by announcing a new radio station for the Fulani formed the major item of public discourse over the last week. You may also count a few goofy statements on this and that but everyone already knows what to expect when it comes to Lai Mohammed.

Just when it appeared the Supreme Court verdict on the Zamfara elections was going to transit us over the weekend to a potential wait for the next major news cycle, the first lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Hajiya Aisha Buhari shocked us on Saturday with her revelations at an interactive forum held at the Presidential Villa. The first lady quite sensationally disclosed how northern states were being sidelined in the Social Investment schemes of government particularly mentioning her home state Adamawa and Kano where the President’s Senior Special adviser on Social Investment Programmes, Maryam Uwais hails from with an addendum that she ‘was sure’ Uwais was appointed by Buhari in that capacity because of the huge votes he got from the state in 2015.

Aisha Buhari’s outburst tells us 2 things and I will start from the less critical.

The first lady may just be preparing herself for life outside the Presidency. Not a few think her worthy of high commendation for the manner in which has spoken out against her husband’s government and just maybe, Aisha Buhari is starting to feel a need to exploit that to sell herself as best as possible.

Her special ‘concern’ for Adamawa state and her ‘village people’ in particular regarding ‘her share’ of the mosquito nets the Buhari administration planned to distribute more than anything  suggests she may be positioning herself to run for political office. If so, under the APC or PDP, time will tell.

More importantly however, the chickens have come home to roost for the core Buhari support base in the north who never see any wrong in anything he does. When a lot of us were criticizing the President early on for his lopsided appointments in favour of the north, our brothers said we had collected money from the PDP. Why would anyone from the north complain about northerners been overly favoured in appointments? What we saw then, only few did.

If Buhari’s successor bends over backwards to favour the Southern states not only for voting massively for him but also because they were sidelined by the previous administration, these very same people will be heard complaining and maybe even kick-start an agitation for an Arewa state. In the interest of nation building, whenever we called for appointments to be based on competence and not along voting lines, we were shouted down and expected to understand the beneficiaries were ‘our brothers’.

Instead of a skilled and accomplished hand in people-oriented schemes, Maryam Uwais, a lawyer was handed the portfolio of Adviser on Social Investment Programmes. Buhari’s never-see-wrong supporters are now feeling the brunt of the incompetence of our northern kin. A person of more honour and courage would have spoken out loud for her people when Vice-President, Prof. Yomi Osinbajo was moving from market to market across the country handing N10,000 to prospective voters in the name of the tradermoni scheme.

They never bothered about the north and Uwais, the APC vote appointee wasn’t heard complaining.N500bn worth of schemes is what we are talking about. Buhari already had most of the north in the bag and they knew perfectly well that no much campaign was needed for a people who had been configured to see him as a messiah no matter what. If things weren’t going well, it was because of Goodluck Jonathan or even Bola Tinubu. Only those in other places whose eyes were open to the truth were to be swayed with N10,000.

I may not be privy to the type of information the first lady receives from the Secretary of the government of the Federation (whom she reminded us was from Adamawa as well) and others around her but i can confidently say that i agree with her. Tradermoni and other social investment programmes are not as operative in the north as they are in other places. At least judging from what our eyes see. For a President that had promised to make government impact felt based on how a people voted and had even gone ahead to bless them with as many appointments as possible, all one needed to do was to think out why that formula didn’t apply to social investment programmes and you’ll arrive at one conclusion-the 2019 election.

The South West has always been the most open-minded electorate and had the largest population of ‘on the fence’ voters likely to be swayed by either side. Osinbajo was pictured doling out money and even eating with school kids in the South West than in any other place. No one needs to convince an already convinced people.

The President’s supporters that try very hard to justify every of his misdeeds need to learn from the revelations of Aisha Buhari. The very obvious question here is what really has government done with N500bn? How many unemployed persons have gotten the promised N5000 monthly stipend? How many meals have children in the public schools we see around us had? If that sum were entirely devoted to tradermoni, wouldn’t every market woman in this country have received a share? The figures we are given are very different from what our eyes see.

One way or the other in the end, we all as a people will suffer for the sentimental assessment of our leaders, the ineptitude of undeserving appointees and the enthronement of mediocrity. Some way some how, it will haunt us all.

Hassan is a lawyer based in Kano 

Twitter:@Alaye_100 

Email:[email protected]