The recent endorsement of the All Progressives Congress(APC) presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, by the Chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie has been countered by the Kaduna State Chapter of the Forum. Like the disagreement over power shift in 2011, the controversial endorsement will end up polarising the forum and the north instead of lining them behind Buhari. IBRAHEEM MUSA reports.
In theory, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the pan northern organisation, is a non-partisan monolithic pressure group. However, beyond the facade, there are deep divisions within the forum. Politics, personal interests and opposing perspectives tug ACF at different directions. The group, in spite of all these, has remained resilient and relevant in the country’s socio-political milieu.
Specifically, within ACF, there are no permanent divides like the Muslim/ Christian dichotomy or the Core north/ Middle Belt cleavage. However, almost always, partisanship drives a wedge within the group, especially in an election year. In 2003, The Buhari Organisation (TBO), a band of General Muhammadu Buhari supporters, railroaded the late Chief Sunday Awoniyi to ACF’s chairmanship. Witty, articulate and passionate about Nigeria, Awoniyi detested President Olusegun Obasanjo with a passion. Buhari, at that time, had thrown his hat into the presidential race and as ACF chairman, Awoniyi will align with Buhari by TBO’s reckoning.
Consequently, the group pulled at all stops to foist Awoniyi on ACF and the Aro of Mopa, Sardauna Karamiand former permanent secretary did not disappoint his promoters. Under Awoniyi, ACF put Obasanjo on the hot seat and the chairman unilaterally issued bellicose press statements to condemn the president. Significantly, Awoniyi’s interventions were lucid, poignant and factual and they reflected the mood of the north. Particularly, ACF’s anti-third term stand was in tandem with the generality of Nigerians.
However, some PDP elements within ACF, according to reports, took exception to Awoniyi’s positions but they did this in murmurs. ACF, they had argued, was becoming partisan which was at variance with its objectives. In 2007, the forum was somewhat at a crossroads, when Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua emerged Peoples Democratic Party (PDP’s) presidential flag bearer. Buhari and Yar’Adua, both northerners, had contested the presidency and ordinarily, ACF should be happy. Heads or tails, a northerner will emerge president of Nigeria but somehow the forum was divided over the duo.
Like Buhari, the late Yar’Adua was from Katsina state and a scion of the caliphate. Similarly, his puritanical approach to governance, as Governor of Katsina State, approximated Buhari’s credentials as both Head of State and Chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). In addition, Buhari and Yar’Adua were virtual brothers as Alhaji Musa Yarádua, the family’s patriarch, was Buhari’s guardian when he attended Katsina Provincial Secondary School. So, both candidates were on the same page of clean record but ACF, according to reports, was in a quandary as to who to support, in spite of its non partisanship.
However, most ACF chieftains supported Buhari but the forum never endorsed him publicly. Ironically, in death Yar’Adua became the basis of ACF’s agitation for power shift. Severally, the forum had argued that a northerner and not President Goodluck Jonathan, should be PDP’s flag bearer in 2011. The ACF, at that time, pointed out that power shift was in PDP’s constitution and on that basis, President Obasanjo had spent eight years in office. Thereafter, power returned to the north but following Yar’Adua’s demise, Jonathan had ascended the presidency to complete the former’s first term.
In 2011, a northerner should fly PDP’s presidential flag, especially to complete the region’s second term. ACF, to buttress its argument, wanted all the political parties to zone the presidency to the north. Significantly, ACF had faced its greatest challenge, according to insiders, over whether or not a northerner should be president in 2011. At a meeting, presided over by General IBM Haruna, the forum’s National Chairman, ACF had kicked against Jonathan’s candidacy in February, arguing that power should shift to the north. However, a few days later, Haruna recanted on this collective stand, accusing the media as he did.
The matter, according to him, was never discussed at the meeting, let alone a resolution to support power shift. Expectedly, reactions came thick and fast as ACF refuted Haruna’s claim. Thereafter, Haruna stuck to his guns, arguing that a cabal had taken over ACF. A week later, Alhaji Aliko Mohammed Misau, the north’s first Chartered Accountant, became ACF National chairman on February 24, 2011 setting tongues wagging. However, Mr. Anthony Sani, the Publicity Secretary of the forum, later clarified Haruna’s exit. In a press statement, Sani said that Haruna was not given the boot over his position on power shift as widely speculated.
According to him, the entire National Working Committee had been dissolved because their tenure had ended on February 6. Haruna was entitled to a second term and his name, according to Sani, was re-presented along with Misau’s. However, the retired General declined to contest and for this reason, Misau had sailed through unopposed. Somehow, the forum weathered that storm in 2011 and it is still soldiering on. Last September, the forum picked a fight with Jonathan but the Northern Elders’Council (NEC) picked ACF’s gauntlet on behalf of the president.
Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie, ACF’s chairman, took the president to the cleaners, describing him as “anti-north.” In addition, Coomassie criticised the war on insurgency, Jonathan’s policies and asked northerners to defend themselves. Similarly, the ACF chairman categorically stated that a northerner should be president in 2015. This position resonated with most northerners but NEC, led by Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, took exception to Coomassie’s position.
In a press conference, Yakassai took on the ACF, defended Jonathan and cautioned Coomassie against being a loose cannon. According to him, “ACF is becoming more and more isolationist even within the region. This has greatly degraded the respectability and non-partisanship of the ACF.” The NEC, Yakassai pointed out, has so much reservation over Coomassie’s verdict on the president.
According to him, “to say that President Jonathan doesn’t like the North is outrageous and uncharitable. And to say that he has failed, is untrue. The comments by the ACF leadership is a confirmation of the allegation of partisanship and the claim that ACF is hob-knobbing with opposition elements and unrepentant critics of the Jonathan administration.” Yakassai further said that Coomassie’s statement does not “represent the general opinion in the north, nor does it represent the attitude of majority of Northern leadership to the Jonathan administration.”
NEC admonished the current ACF leadership to guard against the organisation being hijacked by people who do not mean well for the country, warning that “the ACF must not allow itself to be thrown into the cesspit of partisanship.” Significantly, the forum neither replied Yakassai nor traded words with the presidency. In the main, ACF allowed sleeping dogs to lie but not for a long time. Last week, Coomassie stirred the hornets’ nest yet again and this time, the impact reverberated within ACF, threatening its unity as it did in 2011.
Coomassie, in a congratulatory message, had praised the APC presidential primaries. The election, according to him, was held smoothly without rancour and all the aspirants have accepted the results. “So, we are congratulating Buhari who has been winning primaries all through. Only when it comes to general elections he is rigged out,” Coomassie stated. In addition, the former Inspector General of Police said ACF is “going to support the northern candidate. APC has voted a northern candidate, so we are going to support him 100 per cent.
So, Buhari is our candidate for the 2015 election.’’ Coomassie’s unqualified support for Buhari ruffled some feathers at ACF and the next day, December 14, he was countered by the forum’s Kaduna state chapter. Addressing a press conference, Alhaji Salisu Garba, the publicity secretary of Kaduna branch of ACF contradicted Coomassie’s submission. At no time, he pointed out, did the issue of supporting Buhari was ever tabled before ACF’s National Executive Committee (NEC). Garba, who is also member of NEC, said until the committee meets and resolves to support Buhari, Coomassie’s statement remains his personal opinion.
Furthermore, Garba cautioned ACF to thread softly on the issue because “as a responsible body, ACF should summon courage to examine the merits or otherwise of each of the northern candidates contesting for the presidency on the platforms of other political parties before pronouncing its stand.” Yet, the forum has neither confirmed nor denied whether or not the matter was discussed at either NEC or the National Working Committee (NWC).
However, opinions are divided on ACF’s endorsement, given the fact that it is supposed to be a non-partisan forum. Conversely, some argued that being non-partisan does not mean ACF shouldn’t comment on political issues as they affect the north. More so, seeing that one of its own is in the race. Like the power shift controversy in 2011, the last has not been heard of this controversial endorsement, especially being an election year. However, ACF’s endorsement may divide not just the forum because it is populated with people of different political parties, but also the north with all its socio-political diversities.
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