Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, January 26, 2018

Unspoken ethnic politics

The media don't need to say everything about events in Nigerian politics. Everyone there knows that President Buhari belongs to the Fulani ethnic group and that most of the cattle herders involved in the violent conflicts in the Middle Belt are Fulani. The man Buhari replaced as president, Goodluck Jonathan, belongs to the Ijaw ethnic group. And former president Obasanjo is Yoruba, the major ethnic group in the southwest of Nigeria that makes up about 20% of the population. Many Middle Belt farmers are Yoruba and Ijaw.

BTW: Do you recognize how this warning is connected to the "Fake News in Nigeria." (See the words used in the first paragraph below.)

Don’t contest in 2019, Obasanjo warns Buhari

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday, warned President Muhammadu Buhari not to seek re-election in the 2019 polls.He urged the incumbent not to “over push his luck” or “over tax the patience and tolerance of Nigerians, no matter what his self-serving, so-called advisers” say…

Obasanjo on camera in Nigeria

In a letter titled, ‘The Way Out: A Clarion Call For Coalition For Nigeria Movement’, he maintained that Buhari needed a “dignified and honourable dismount from the horse… "

He stressed: “President Buhari does not necessarily need to heed my advice,” but insisted: “Whether or not he heeds it, Nigeria needs to move on and move forward.”…

The former president accused the Buhari-led government of “wittingly or unwittingly” allowing the herdsmen crisis to “turn sour and messy.” According to him, “It is no credit to the Federal Government that the herdsmen rampage continues with careless abandon and without an effective solution…

Obasanjo listed three cardinal sins of the current administration. He cited “nepotistic deployment, bordering on clannishness and inability to bring discipline to bear on errant members of his nepotistic court…

The second, according to Obasanjo, was a “poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics. This has led to wittingly or unwittingly making the nation more divided, with inequality widening and becoming more pronounced…

The third, Obasanjo noted, was “passing the buck.” He said blaming the Governor of the Central Bank for devaluation of the naira… and blaming past governments “is to say the least, not accepting one’s own responsibility…

The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bolaji Abdullahi, “asked to be given the opportunity to study the statement,” saying: “We shall respond appropriately afterwards.”The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), however, described Obasanjo’s advice as courageous, timeous and patriotic…