Why Tinubu, Not Obi, Is the South’s Best Bet Against Fulani Hegemony

MaTaZ ArIsInG
Dallas, Texas

Why Tinubu, Not Obi, Is the South’s Best Bet Against Fulani Hegemony

By Wordshot Amaechi Ugwele

After reading Idowu Ephraim Faleye’s essay titled The Battle for Nigeria’s Soul: If We Leave Tinubu to Fight Alone, We All Lose concerning the ongoing battle to rescue Nigeria from the grips of Fulani hegemonic dominance, I have come to state very strongly that it is crucial that we pause, reflect, and reassess our political strategy. The South, and indeed the rest of Nigeria, must not walk blindfolded into yet another trap disguised as idealism. It is time to be clear-eyed. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with all his flaws, represents the South’s strongest political bulwark against the Fulani establishment’s attempt to reclaim power through Atiku Abubakar, Nasir El-Rufai, and the freshly assembled northern coalition being deceptively peddled as broad based.

Mark this! There is no denying Peter Obi’s integrity or the promise of a better governed Nigeria under his moral leadership. But moral leadership alone cannot dismantle a decades-old political machinery that thrives on entitlement, exclusion, and conquest. Obi’s political strength is limited by the very nature of his emergence. He is a candidate produced by frustration, not by strategic structure. His support base is passionate but not rooted in the hard wired networks of Nigeria’s power matrix. And even before tasting power, he is already being cornered, tightly bound and boxed into a single term and whispered promises of systemic sabotage if he dares step out of line.

Compare that to Tinubu, who not only fought his way into office by his own devices but is now actively wielding power with the strategic ruthlessness that the moment demands. He has initiated bold policy shifts that would be instantly reversed if a Fulani presidency returns. As noted by Faleye in his essay, the Ministry of Livestock Development, the revenue reforms favouring resource origin communities, and steps toward decentralizing the NNPC’s Fulani-tilted control, are bold moves that have alarmed the Fulani to marshall out everything they got against Tinubu and the South. Indeed, these are not mere administrative choices. They are political maneuvers aimed at undoing the entrenched privilege that has long served the Fulani political class. They’ve long been there that we have grown used to not knowing what they take from us to give to the Fulani.

So, we must not forget history. The Fulani elite, emboldened by a belief in divine ownership of Nigeria, have never hidden their intentions. From Ahmadu Bello’s infamous declaration to “dip the Quran in the Atlantic,” to Buhari’s calculated economic warfare against the South, the Igbo in particular, on high tariffs on Igbo dominated stockfish trade, Important Licence issuances that deprived access to importation, etc, as a military leader; revocation of federal scholarships that favoured merit over quota, and subtle economic displacement strategies as a civilian leader; the pattern and the continued desire are clear. It is all for dominance and not development as they fool those they are recruiting into their coalition to think.

That was why when he took power from Jonathan, the first casualty was the federal merit-based scholarship scheme, one of the few national programs that offered bright Southerners a fair chance, the North having long put an official obstacle through quota and discriminatory admission practices in the national unity school programme. Young men from communities like mine, Ohodo in Enugu State, with no political godfathers, earned their way abroad on the strength of their intellect. Nnamdi and Chinedu are still living in the UK today from that opportunity. Buhari killed that opportunity overnight because through the process of merit it benefitted the South more.

Worse still, Fulani economic expansion has always gone hand-in-hand with bloodshed and displacement. Their insistence on open grazing, enabled by decades of complicit leadership, has devastated countless farming communities. It is under Tinubu that a serious conversation around regulating this has begun. Would Atiku, El-Rufai, or any of their cohorts sustain that? Absolutely not. They would return the country to the status quo, where the lives and livelihoods of Nigerians are subordinate to Fulani interests. Compare Buhari’s response to the Benue massacre of his day to Tinubu’s reaction and actions against the perpetrators of the one the Fulani militia carried out under him.

The tragic irony is that some Southerners, in the name of idealism, are joining hands with those who seek to enslave them politically and economically. The argument that the Fulani establishment wants Tinubu to fail for “good governance” to emerge is laughable. The Fulani political elite have never governed with merit, equity, or national interest in mind. Good governance has never been their agenda, desire, habit, nor special expertise. Power is. And that is all they now want, desperately trying to truncate the remaining four years the South has through Tinubu to remain in the saddle.

We must understand the moment. This is not a time to fantasize about textbook democracy. This is political warfare, one between the South and the Fulani dominated North, and Tinubu, whatever anyone thinks of him, has the weight, will, and wit to fight. If you must fight a monkey, you don’t send a dove, which to me Peter Obi in all of his goodness is. You send another monkey, one that can climb higher and bite harder, as Tinubu effectively represents.

Peter Obi may be the saint Nigeria deserves in a time of peace, but Tinubu is the strongman Nigeria needs in a time of existential power struggle. Now! To underestimate the Fulani grip on power is naïve. To oppose it without the strategic heft Tinubu commands is suicidal. And it is even more foolish to be willingly led to this slaughter slab by the Fulani without realising the tragedy befalling us.

Now is not the time to be politically correct by supporting my kinsman Peter Obi. Now is the time to be politically smart and strategic by propping up someone not necessarily closer but with the antidote to our poison. Tinubu may be imperfect, but in this war for Nigeria’s soul, he is the South’s best chance at victory. We need a calculating and cold blooded beast that can aim perfectly and bring down the beast charging down at us.

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