Left,Goodluck Jonathan.Right Sambo NamadiThe Nigerian Parliament had on Tuesday, 18th May 2010 endorsed the nomination of Namadi Sambo, the Muslim governor of Kaduna State, chosen last week by Jonathan to be his deputy.
The choice has drawn strong attacks from Muslims in the north, particularly in his own state where it is seen as a "Christian plot" hatched by former president Olusegun Obasanjo to transfer political power to the Christian minority in Kaduna state.
The confirmation of Sambo as vice-president meant that the current deputy governor, Patrick Yakowa, a Christian, will become governor.
Obasanjo’s recent denial of an informal 1999 agreement to rotate power between north and south every eight years heightened a plot rumour circulating in the north.
The story goes that Obasanjo, a southern Christian, hand-picked the terminally ill Umaru Yar?Adua to succeed him as president in 2007 as a ploy to retain power in the south as he was sure the ailing leader would not last his four-year tenure. Obasanjo called the allegation "wicked".
Yar'Adua, who came into office in May 2007, died two weeks ago.
Since last week, Muslim groups in Kaduna city, the state capital, have sent out phone text messages, describing Sambo's choice as a "backdoor" way of making a Christian become Kaduna state governor.
They called for street protests in the city which is a known hotbed of religious violence.
Religious flare ups in 2000 and 2004 left more than 5,000 dead. Since then the city has been segregated with Muslims -- about 60 percent of the population -- living in northern part and Christians in the south.
"There is tension and apprehension over what might likely happen in the new political calculation", Shehu Sani, a Kaduna civil rights activist, complained.
Kaduna has been strategically important as a regional political capital since British colonial rule, when it was the seat of colonial government for northern Nigeria.
Kaduna’s political power is structured with a Muslim as governor and a Christian as deputy for stability.
An aide to Sambo dismissed the agitation as the work of politicians who lost out in lobbying to be picked as vice president -- a veiled reference to some northern governors and members of parliament who were considered possible choices.
"Some people are not comfortable with the governor’s elevation and that is why they are bringing the Christian-Muslim issue into it. It is sheer political expedience," Husseini Jallo, Sambo's political adviser, pointed out.
The simmering tension in Kaduna prompted the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Saad Abubakar, the highest Islamic spiritual figure in Nigeria, to wade in, faulting opposition to a Christian governor for the state.
"It is not only when Muslims are holding key positions in the government that the Muslim community in Nigeria can develop and advance its interests," Abubakar said in an address in Sokoto at the weekend, reported by Nigerian newspapers.
"Can’t we stand up strongly and demand what is our right from whoever is given the mantle of leadership by the Almighty God in this multi-religious country of ours? He asked.
"Any policy, projects and appointments Yakowa (as governor) does will be interpreted from religious perspectives," Sani said, predicting the controversy could change the nation's political landscape.
"There is the tendency that people will vote along religious lines in the 2011 general elections if Yakowa decides to contest as governor, which will further deepen the religious divide," he warned.
No comments:
Post a Comment