By Ochereome Nnanna
ON Sunday, April 22, 1990, martial music floated into the Nigerian airwaves. A group of middle-level military officers had commenced a military rebellion against the regime of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.

Prominent among them were Major Saliba Mukoro, Major Tony Nyiam and a civilian financier, Chief Great Ogboru. Yes, the same Ogboru, who on three consecutive occasions, flew the flag of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) in attempts to upstage Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but lost narrowly.

The most notable figure among the lot was Major Gideon Gwaza Orkar, who led the operations at the Dodan Barracks in Ikoyi, the then seat of power, and made a broadcast that, some said, helped the rebellion to fail. He announced the excision of the people of Nigeria’s Muslim North from the country until they purged themselves of what he termed “their dominative tendencies”.

The coup failed for a number of reasons. Number one was that the people he referred to were still very much in power. This they proved by overcoming the rebellion and successfully annulling a presidential election three years later.

Secondly, it would have precipitated another civil war. Thirdly, among the section of the country he wanted excised were decent Nigerians who were committed to a true nationhood and did not share the narrow-minded ethnic conquest mentality of some of their people. Rather than trying to solve the problem of domination through bloody means, the political mechanisms of democracy were seen as a better way of addressing it. This informed the unbending resolve of activists for the end of military rule.

The North tried to assuage the feelings of Nigerians, especially the South West by ceding the presidency to them in 1999, when it became clear that the country could be lost altogether if they insisted on producing the president. The zoning formula was adopted by the ruling PDP as a means of addressing regional domination. After the South West had it for eight years it was returned to the North.

However, the beneficiary, Alhaji Umaru Yar’ Adua, died two and half years into office. It became imperative that the constitution of the country be followed in transferring power to then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, who later cashed in on his constitutional right to contest for president.

His ambition was tackled every inch of the way by some hawkish elements of the Northern political class, who insisted that the President should step down for one of them to “complete” the turn left halfway by Yar’Adua.

However, the generality of Nigerian people, including a large portion of Northern Nigerians, believed that this was the right time for undue regional extremism to give way to a truly Nigerian president. Igbo political leaders made the boldest sacrifice in this direction.

They opted out of the presidential and vice presidential race and later on gave President Jonathan the level of electoral support unprecedented in the history of their voting behaviour.

Also, the entire people of the South-South sank their ethnic differences and threw their total weight behind Jonathan. To a much lesser extent, the South West followed suit, though they provided two presidential running mates for the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC and the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. The North Central (with the exception of pro-Caliphate Niger State) also threw in their weight.

The whole North West voted for Muhammadu Buhari but the vote was split in the North East where Adamawa and Taraba States joined the nationalist train. In Kaduna State, the Christian South voted for the Jonathan/Sambo ticket, while the North opted for Buhari.

Many newspapers drew maps depicting these voting patterns in the presidential race, and what they came up with was the Gideon Orkar map of Nigeria!

This, in itself would not have troubled many people if not for the fact that having failed to assert what some of them have claimed is their “majority” clout and their “right” to the presidency, murderous gangs, which had apparently been put on the standby, were unleashed on those who were believed to have voted against Buhari in the Muslim North, especially Kaduna, Kano, Bauchi, Borno and other areas.

Churches and businesses belonging to Christians and Southerners were torched. In particular, Youth Corps members posted to serve their nation in the North were targeted and many were murdered. There were reprisals in Southern Kaduna against Muslims and their interests.

In the South, Northern Muslims fled to military facilities to avoid being attacked in reprisal. The nation was placed on the brink once again after a presidential election praised by both local and international observers for its free, fair and credible outcome.

Ethnic vanguards, such as the Odua People’s Congress, the ex-militants of the Niger Delta, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and groups from the Middle Belt issued “enough-is-enough” warnings in the newspapers through advertorials.

Northern leaders need to come to terms with the fact that the country has changed. The evil contraption the British colonialists left behind has expired.

Political realignments have taken place. Regional domination is a thing of the past. In today’s Nigeria you have to work hard across the divides for your votes. Gone are the days when the North decided and the rest of the country followed. This was the mentality that helped to see to the defeat of Atiku and Buhari by Jonathan.

The resort to violence and killing of non-Muslim Nigerians and destruction of the property of Northerners who align with the nationalist aspirations of the rest of the country will only gradually isolate the North and solidify “Orkar’s Map” in the minds of Nigerians.

If this happens, the cry of “marginalisation” will shift base. We don’t want that. We want to eliminate marginalisation from the body politic and march as one body to achieve the Nigeria of our collective dreams.