The rejection of President Tinubu’s tax reform package of four main bills: the Nigeria Tax Bill, the Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Tax Reform Bill” by predominantly northern political leaders, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the Northern Governors Forum and some 73 members of the National Assembly, has once again brought the past to pain by reminding us of our intractable crisis of nation-building.

Predictably, while the bill received the blessing of Ohanaeze, the Igbo socio-cultural group, Afenifere, its Yoruba counterpart and N/Central geopolitical zones who believe the bills represent a transformative opportunity for the rejuvenation of SMES, it was roundly rejected by its northern opponents in spite of the capacity of the bills to “simplify the tax landscape, reduce the burden on small businesses, and streamline tax collection processes”.

But as we say in this business, the medium is the news. Precisely because attack on the opponents of the four bills are coming from southern politicians and social media assailants who hardly understand the issues at stake, I cannot but sympathise with those opponents of the bills who have come under intense stress and strain these past two weeks. They are, in my opinion, the only set of politicians who know what they want out of Nigeria and how to fight for it. They have an unwavering commitment to their demand no matter how sectional or parochial since “Nigerian nationalism became fractured by the dynamics of power politics, or the struggle for the so-called national cake”. (Mogwugo Okoye, African Guardian, Dec 27, 1993).

Many have long concluded that the problem of Nigeria politics is the problem of the dominant ethnic groups, who insist that no one gets what they cannot get, their hypocritical educated elites and their political parties. Of the three competing dominant groups, the confused Yoruba who seem not to know what they want out of Nigeria, is most guilty. It is on record that while the more conservative elements among their celebrated leaders such as Bode Thomas, SLA Akintola and Rotimi Williams, wanted regionalism to protect their Yoruba nation from the reign of one-eyed king, their leader, Obafemi Awolowo, was an unrepentant federalist. This many have argued was because the Yoruba are by nature federalist. Others have also argued that it was because federalism guarantees unity in diversity in deeply divided societies following “the purgatory of two world wars in the 20th century” when federal revolution was regarded “as the only safeguard for peace and stability in a rapidly changing world.” (Daniel Elazer). The less charitable have argued that Awolowo was a victim of his ambition to rule Nigeria having blamed Awolowo for developing  a messianic complex believing he could replicate the giant strides he made in the West. The question northern hegemonic powers who detested Yoruba arrogance, according to Professor Banji Akintoye who recently narrated his encounter with a northern colleague, has always been “who told Awolowo, northern youths wanted free education?”

Of course Awo paid for his audacity. Shortly after Sardauna, Tafawa Balewa and Michael Okpara had mooted the idea of a preventive detention system in the country, Balewa declared state of emergency in the West on May 29, 1962 while Isaac Boro’s Ijaw uprising and Benue/Jos uprising that were suppressed by the military by force of arms did not attract declaration of state of emergency.

Balewa went on to illegally inaugurate Coker Commission of Inquiry to look into the operations of Western Region’s corporations. In case that failed, Balewa also inaugurated treasonable felony probe which later jailed Awo and his supporters. Ahamdu Bello, according to Trevor Clark, “saw an opportunity to do in Awolowo, while the NCNC saw an opportunity to destroy AG and Western Region”. (Trevor Clark: Balewa the Right Honorable Man,  pages (550-554).

The Igbo of the east are perhaps the best at the game of ostrich playing – hiding their heads in the sand believing no one sees them. Their goal, like that of the hegemonic power in the north, is the control of Nigeria. Zik as an Ibo jingoist gave this away in his presidential address to the Ibo Federal Union in 1949 when he declared: “It would appear that God of Africa has specially created the Ibo nation to lead the children of Africa from the bondage of the ages…” In 1948, another Ibo leader and member of the legislature had said the domination of Nigeria by the Ibo is a question of time.

The game plan was promotion of a unitary system in a multi-ethnic society, or in the alternative, splitting the country into unwieldy 17 states that could not sustain themselves and where federating states have no power to eject criminals who import fake drugs into their states or armed immigrant herdsmen who illegally occupy federating states’ reserved forests.

Zik like Awo was also humbled. He allowed northern elite to root for the status quo because it has given them so much in addition to entrenching their hegemony in the nation in spite of creation of smaller state out of the huge former northern region. The north and its political elite have demonstrated that they are by far more astute politicians and more shrewd bargainers. Unlike the Yoruba and Ibo adept at playing the ostrich, they have never pretended about their goal which is Nigeria that would serve as home to stateless Fulani across West Africa.

The north could not have asked for a better supporter than the British colonial masters who in an effort to protect her neo-colonial interest in Nigeria, encouraged and actively aided our northern ruling elite to betray Nigeria. Britain easily acceded to the 1951 northern three points demand: i.e. 50% of membership of the Legislative Council as against 25 for each of the regions,  revenue allocation based on per capita and retaining the boundaries especially between the north and west. (The 1951 census exercise was based largely on assumptions. With the rejection of the 1962 figures by northern leaders, a new census held in 1963 discovered additional 8.5 million people in the north bringing the northern population to 31m).

And just as the 1951 allocation of 50 percent of the total seats in the House of Representatives to the Northern Region meant that only laws acceptable to the region would be passed by the house, today’s opponent of Tinubu’s tax bill are counting on their numerical strength to decide the fate of the bill.

Another demonstration of British support for the north was James Robertson’s decision to call on Balewa to form government on December 15, 1959 with voting returns showing  that NPC was trailing the two other parties by 116  to 150, a decision that rendered the final result of NPC 150 seats  to  the other two parties 162 seats and independent 8, that came later on the December 19 just ‘a force majeure’.

Ahmadu Bello rather than deny that Britain aided the north to hold the nation hostage, explained on page 33 of his book, My Life: The Sardauna of Sokoto that “The British were the instrument of destiny and were fulfilling the will of God in the way they did it all”.

While Zik and Awo kept on playing the ostrich long after the death of nationalism, Prime Minster Balewa who had earlier described Nigeria as a British intention” insisted revenue must be based on need rather than derivation of resources”.

In an answer to those who challenged him to act as a patriot, he had said ‘we are trying to build a mighty house on a foundation of straw … the question I have always asked: do we want Nigeria to be a happy place for everybody or a hell to the masses and a paradise for the few? North would very much like to march with the rest of Nigeria just at a reasonable speed, not at an impossible speed for the north”.

Like their forbears, this is the same message northern critics of Tinubu’s tax bills are passing. The joke is on southern politicians including  Zik, the foremost Nigerian nationalist and celebrated intellectual who told reporters in London in 1957 that he and Ahmadu Bello’s position on the minority issue was taken in the interest of Nigerian unity. Sixty four years after, Nigerians are haunted by the echoes of Zik’s October 1, 1960’s “we are today no more a geographical expression” to deride Awo, his more discerning opponent.

For all his pains, the celebrated Zik of Africa became a titular president, an onlooker while Balewa exercised all powers by virtue of the September 19, 1963 Republican Constitution which abolished the Judicial Service Commission, replaced the Privy Council in London with the Supreme Court as the highest court of appeal, and  the  enactment of  a Preventive Detention Act to restrain personal liberty.

Today, the consolation for Nigerians who love our country is that President Tinubu by his ongoing efforts at walking the tight rope understands the imperative of addressing the national question.