Igbo Leaders of Thought president Ben Nwabueze says Buhari has a northernisation agenda

IGBO Leaders of Thought president Professor Ben Nwabueze has described the stubborn refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to condemn the activities of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (Macban) as clear evidence of a northernisation agenda.

Nigeria is facing a severe threat to her unity from Fulani cattle herdsmen who have been going across the country killing local farmers willy nilly. Heavily-armed with AK47s, the herdsmen attack villages after farmers complain about their livestock destroying their crops and ravaging their farms.

President Buhari, himself an ethnic Fulani who owns cattle, has not only been mum about the crisis but has refused to deploy the security forces against the herdsmen as he normally does. This has attracted widespread criticism and Professor Nwabueze added that the president's refusal to ask Macban members to abide by anti-open grazing laws in some states betrays President Buhari's northernisation agenda.

In a paper titled Quit Notice: Hate Speeches and President Buhari’s Northernisation/Islamisation Agenda Professor Nwabueze called for the restructuring of the country before the 2019 elections. He claimed that President Buhari had compromised his position as the leader of the country and had been looking after the interest of his kinsmen from the north.

In addition, he called on the president to institute an all-inclusive government that would embrace all Nigerians based on equity, justice and equality. Professor Nwabueze said it was time President Buhari gave up his northernisation/Islamisation agenda.

“The manifold problems tearing the country apart under President Buhari including insecurity, disagreements over re-structuring, the quit notice given to Ndigbo by the Arewa Youths, the hate speeches accompanying it, the lop-sided strategic appointments, etc, all revolve around one thing , President Buhari’s Northernisation/Islamisation Agenda. His unwillingness to run an all-inclusive government to which all Nigerians can feel they belong and in which they have an equal stake.

"Even the problem of the economy, which the administration puts at the forefront, pales to secondary importance as the injurious ways in which the agenda has impacted on our problems are evident. First, the president’s undisguised, unabashed favouritism and solicitude for a united Northern Nigeria arouses in him and his fellow northerners a renewed sense of solidarity in defence of whatever they perceive, rightly or wrongly, to be its interest," Professor Nwabueze added.

He pointed out that this inclines them to adopt antagonistic, even confrontational stance towards southerners in discussions of national affairs, thereby disabling them from approaching national issues in the spirit of what the interest of the nation as a whole demands.  According to professor Nwabueze, President Buhari's bias for the Fulani herdsmen and their masters Macban shows his lack of impartiality that compromises his position as leader of the nation.