The appointment of Major General Farouk Yahaya as Chief of Army Staff to succeed the late Lieutenant General Ibrahim Attahiru may be another attempt by certain cabal in the presidency to make sure certain region retains all structures of cohesion at all cost.
According to keen observers of the unfolding event, the cabal which control the presidency haven’t made any effort to unite the country. And with the appointment of Gen. Yahaya over other well qualified seniors because they are not from the North, the cabal has taken nepotism and sectarianism to a whole new level, they argued.
Reacting to the appointment, Farooq Adamu Kperogi, a media scholar and public speaker, said the appointment of Yahaya as the new Chief of Army Staff is yet another tone-deaf but entirely predictable mismanagement of Nigeria’s diversity at a time it desperately needs to be cared for with deliberate symbolic nourishment.
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“There is no question that General Yahaya is qualified for the job. His CV shows evidence of immense professional and academic preparedness for the position. But the alternatives to him are just as qualified, so this is never about competence for the job. It’s about symbolism and the politics of representation at a time of heightened national storm and stress.
He said many people had hoped that the regime would appoint Major General Benjamin Ahanotu from Anambra State as Attahiru’s successor to pacify the Southeast whose sense of alienation in the last five years is resurrecting the ghost of Biafra secessionist agitation.
Kperogi stated that since Ahanotu is just as professionally and academically prepared as Yahaya is, a lot more would have been gained in symbolic and substantive terms if the regime had chosen to not appoint another Northern Muslim to succeed a northern Muslim who succeeded a previous northern Muslim.
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According to him, many well-placed northern politicians are also not happy about the widening intensity of disunity in the country, and that this latest appointment may further polarized Nigerians.
“One man told me he was part of a group that reached out to Professor Ibrahim Gambari, Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff, to persuade him to advise his boss to appoint Ahanotu—or another qualified southerner—as Chief of Army Staff.
He however argued that the main power lies, not with Gambari, but rather with Sabiu “Tunde” Yusuf, the 30-something-year-old cousin of Buhari’s who is also his special assistant. “He determines who sees and who doesn’t see Buhari. Only Mamman Daura and Abba Kyari can overrule him.
He added further that Nigeria’s chance for continued existence going forward would be dependent on intentional symbolic gestures that nurture national cohesion, stressing that most progressives Muslim northerners are embarrassed to no end by the extreme and unprecedented Arewaization of appointments in the President Muhammadu Buhari regime.
“They are embarrassed and worried because the lopsidedness of the appointments invites unearned hate to innocent northerners who don’t materially benefit from them, line the pockets of a privileged few, and alienate our compatriots from the South. That’s not sustainable if we still want a country.”
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