For quite some time now political observers and analysts have cause to be very worried about the utterances of aging second republic House of Representative member and Russia-trained medical practitioner, Dr. Junaid Mohammed. Dr. Mohammed is supposedly a highly cerebral individual but those that know little about him, especially the younger generation of Nigerians, have expressed reservations that the politician is either not as intelligent as Nigerians are made to believe or that is an unapologetic extremist or that he may be having early onset of dementia or senile dysfunction. According to Wikipedia, an on-line free encyclopedia, dementia is a serious loss of global cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging.
The summation about the person of Junaid Mohammed is aggregated from their evaluation of utterances of the politician in the recent past. Those that believe Junaid Mohammed is gradually veering off from acceptable standard of behavior have their position reinforced when the All Progressives Congress chieftain said in an interview that blood will flow freely on the streets if President Goodluck Jonathan goes into the contest for the 2015 presidential election.
Responding to a question on the possibility of President Jonathan running in 2015, Junaid Mohammed said “Quote me, if Jonathan insists on running, there will be bloodshed and those who feel short-changed may take the warpath and the country may not be the same again. His running will amount to taking about 85 million northerners for a ride and that is half of the country’s total population. So, there will be bloodshed. But we don’t pray to get to that level, before his ethnic and tribal advisers pull him back.”
Only last year Junaid Mohammed, like his political mentors, Isa Kaita and Prof Ango Abdullahi, was beating the war drum about how the country will disintegrate if a northerner, preferably of the Hausa/Fulani stock, does not take over power, with or without the consensus of the Nigerian voters. As far as Junaid Mohammed is concerned, it is unfair and injustice for a non-Hausa/Fulani to take over power in 2015.
Those who attributed Junaid Mohammed utterances to senile dysfunction are quick to remind him, if he has forgotten, that out or 53 years of Nigeria’s existence as an independent nation the north held on to power for over 38 years and if fairness and equity should be the criteria for deciding which zone should have the presidency then the south is being owed 23 years to balance the equation.
During the interview Junaid Mohammed laboured to justify his position by attempting to drag the people of the South West into his power-return-to-its-owners campaign. He claimed that there is more agitation for power to return to the North in the South West than in the core north.
His words: “I can tell you today that there are more agitators in the South-west, for power shift to the North, than there are in the North. And they are doing this because they believe in justice and fairness. If you have faith in a system, you must ensure the system runs fairly and justly too. Apart from the issue of fairness and justice, the South-west knows that it has a lot to lose, should it allow the country to plunge into any political upheaval. Lagos alone, accounts for 45 percent of our national economy, and my friend, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is aware of that notorious fact.”
As if to put a lie on the claims of Junaid Mohammed, some notable sons of the South West were among the patroitics Nigerians that have criticised the jaundiced threats of the APC chieftain.
A chieftain of the frontline pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere and governorship aspirant in Ekiti State, Prince Adedayo Adeyeye described as irresponsible, the statement made by Mohammed that blood would flow on the streets of Nigeria, should President Goodluck Jonathan insist on running for the presidency in 2015. Adeyeye, who said he was worried that elders like Junaid Mohammed could be threatening bloodshed over the exercise of the constitutional right of by a citizen of Nigeria, added that; “Nigerians, especially northern leaders should call Junaid Mohammed to order before he further throws Nigeria into chaos.”
Reacting through the Director General of Prince Adedayo Adeyeye Movement, PAAM, Hon. Bisi Kolawole, the governorship aspirant maintained that “President Jonathan is empowered by the 1999 Constitution to seek second term and anyone threatening bloodshed because of that is an enemy of Nigeria.”
He said; “It is the inalienable right of all qualified Nigerians to seek elective offices and like every other Nigerians, President Jonathan has the rights seek elective office provided he is not barred from doing so by the constitution.
“Section 137 (1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that; ‘A person shall not be qualified for election to the office of the President if; (b) he has been elected into such office at any two previous elections. In the case of President Jonathan, he has only been elected as President of Nigeria once.”
Speaking further, Adeyeye said; “Junaid Mohammed saying that President Jonathan contesting for second term will amount to taking about 85 million northerners for a ride, is like saying that anyone who is not a northerner is not qualified to rule Nigeria and that is an insult on other ethnic groups that made up Nigeria. Is he saying that because President Jonathan is an Ijaw person, he cannot seek second term as President of Nigeria? Would Junaid Mohammed have said that if President Umar Musa Yar’Adua had not died? Should we all now accept to play a second fiddle in a country where we call ours?
“Like I have maintained, President Jonathan will seek second term and Nigerians will re-elect him, leaving the likes of Junaid Mohammed to flow in the bloodshed that they are inviting on Nigerians.”
Another legal practitioner and the Coordinator of the Egalitarian Mission Africa from the South West, Barrister Kayode Ajulo, took the matter a bit higher by calling on security agencies to probe whatever agenda or stage Junaid Mohammed might be setting ahead of the 2015 election. Ajulo called upon the Inspector General of Police and the Director of State Security Services to take a critical look into the import of inciting messages being made by some individuals.
“This should be viewed very seriously by our security agencies and we must not be seen to fold our arms to such untamed and unguarded utterances. We must not forget in a hurry the aftermath of the 2011 Presidential election when Alhaji Atiku Abubakar said the country will become ungovernable if Dr. Goodluck Jonathan wins that election. The dust of that post election mayhem is yet to settle.
Ajulo stated that a thorough and unbiased scrutiny of Chapter VI of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended particularly Sections 131, 135 and 137 are to the effect that President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is eminently qualified to run for the office of President of Nigeria.
The activist further stated that the issue of the re-election bid by a sitting president is something that is most common in a democratic set up, adding that going through history, hardly can one find a sitting president who did not seek re-election.
“I, as a law abiding citizen and one who has great hope for the future of this great nation, therefore, use this medium to call on the Inspector General of Police, the Director State Security Service and other security agencies of Government to look into the underlying messages being passed across to insurgents by these individuals particularly the recent one made by Dr. Junaid Mohammed, “ he said.
Ajulo declared that if after seven days, the security agencies failed to take any necessary action against Junaid Muhammed, he will be left with no other option but to take action through the law courts aimed at putting a stop to such incendiary utterances undermining our peaceful coexistence.
The threat to take the matter to court appeared to have been taken seriously by security agencies as they picked up an interrogated Junaid Mohammed last Friday on his utterances. The APC chieftain was reportedly summoned to the SSS headquarters in the Abuja, where he was quizzed for several hours. Obviously unable to justify his utterances, it was reported that Junaid heaped the blame on the media and told investigators he was misquoted out of context and that he would not do anything to undermine the peace and security of his own country.
Political observers believe Junaid Mohammed is only behaving true to type in what is gradually becoming the stock in trade of leaders of APC from the north. His APC leader and serial presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari had last year boasted that there would be tears and blood should the party lose the 2015 general elections. Buhari described Nigerians as dogs and baboons, who he predicted will be soaked in blood should he lose in 2015. The worry in some parts of the country, especially in the minority areas of the north, is that the elites among the core northerners are not worried about the security challenges in the region and bandwagon effect on the socio-economic life of the people. Buhari’s pre-2011election comments lead to death of several innocent people in the north and the north is still burning from fire ignited by some notable northern leaders who promised to make the country ungovernable if Jonathan wins 2011 election.
Northern elites have been linked to the activities of the Boko Haram which has completely grounded the economy of some state in the north, in addition to wanton destruction of lives and properties. But elites like Junaid Mohammed are just not bordered, probably because their children or blood relations have not fallen victims of the violence in the north. Most of them have relocated their families either to Abuja or down to states in the southern part of the country or even abroad.
One thing Junaid Mohammed appears not to realized, or forgotten, is that the group of elites he represents does not have the support of “85 million northerners”. He must be living in the past if he still believes that there is a united political block called the north that could deliver block votes to anyone during any election. Junaid needs to be reminded on why there was disagreement among northern delegates to the 2005 national political reform conference on power rotation. While the Hausa/Fulani delegated were in support of power rotating between north and south, the other ethnic groups from the north that constitute over 60 percent of the northern population demanded that power should rotate between the six geo-political zone so that a particular section does not appropriate the presidency anytime it is time for the north to produce a candidate.
Political observer believe Junaid, Buhari, Prof Ango Abdullahi and other northern elites that have been preaching and advocating violence are doing great disservice to their people and their zone. Incendiary comments and sponsored violence has as at today set some northern states at least 20 years back from states in the south and underdevelopment will continue, not all over the country but in the north as long as they continue to stoke sectarian violence out of their frustration of being out of the corridors of power. However, political analysts have warned northern elites of the dangers of taking their people for granted for too long and believing that anytime they send them out to cause mayhem they will sheepishly obey without raising a voice. The legion of oppressed and suppressed people in the north will certainly not continue the leader/slave relationship for ever. Minority northerners have already bid the core north goodbye politically and with the free almajeri education initiated by President Jonathan it is only a matter of time before Junaid Mohammed and his pro-violence co-travellers will be put in their rightful place in the political closet of the core north.