By Umar Ardo, Ph.D
Taiwo Olanegan’s recent piece, *”The Porous North: Why Arewa Does Not Hold the Ace,”* is an eloquently written but deeply flawed political hypothesis. Though dressed in data and dotted with selective history, it is built upon a reductive understanding of Nigeria’s political dynamics and a fundamental misreading of the nature of Northern Nigeria. His core argument - that the North is too divided, too porous and too fractured to act as the decisive force in national politics - is not only inaccurate, but also ignores historical realities, philosophical principles of political cohesion and the enduring demographic and cultural levers that give the North its strategic advantage. My rejoinder is not just an intellectual piece refuting Taiwo Olanegan’s thesis, but it even reinforces the political centrality and strategic supremacy of Northern Nigeria 🇳🇬.
2. Let’s set the record straight.
3. First, let us punctuate this myth of Northern porosity. Olanegan’s central premise is that the North has never been and can never be a political bloc because of its multicultural and multi-religious nature. This is both an overstatement and a misunderstanding of the facts of the North. No region in Nigeria is monolithic - not the East, not the West, and certainly not the Mid-west, as they were in the 1st Republic. Even today, ethnic heterogeneity is a national reality. But what distinguishes the North is its remarkable sociocultural cohesion forged through shared religious, linguistic and historical experiences. While the region is home to over 200 ethnic groups, Islam serves as a binding force, commanding the allegiance of nearly 80% of the population - a force more unifying and culturally encompassing than Christianity in the South.
4. Census figures from 1953, Nigeria’s last credible ethnic-religious enumeration, showed that the Muslim population in the North was 72%, Christians 2.7% and adherents of African traditional religions at 25.3%. Over the decades, both Christianity and Islam made inroads into the latter demographic, but Islamic penetration, supported by Native Authority governments and traditional institutions, proved more enduring and dominant. Islam in the North has not only supplanted traditional beliefs, but has also shaped social norms, political orientation and cultural life. Its influence is pervasive and unifying in a way Christianity, fragmented by denominations and cohabiting with traditional practices, is not in the South.
5. In linguistic terms, the South remains a Tower of Babel. The Yoruba and Igbo are dominant in their current respective zones, but the South-South is irreducibly plural, with no dominant tongue or ethnic group. Conversely, Hausa has emerged as the lingua franca of the North. Whether one is Ebira, Igala, Birom, Bachama, Kaje, Kataf, Jukun, Nupe, Kanuri, Tiv or Idoma, etc., Hausa language is spoken and understood across virtually the entire region. This cultural dominance, alongside the fusion of Hausa-Fulani identity, creates a platform for political solidarity unmatched by any other region in Nigeria. In this way, the Hausa language created for the North an ethnolinguistic unity that pidgin English could not give to the South.
6. No serious student of Nigerian politics would confuse electoral variety with a lack of political unity. Over the years, since independence, Northern political elite have consistently shown a capacity to forge internal consensus in the pursuit of power. From the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) in the First Republic, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the Second Republic, to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Fourth Republic, the North has always had an overriding influence in determining the national political and power direction.
7. Not surprisingly, Olanegan cherry-picks elections where the North did not deliver a bloc vote for its son, such as Buhari in 2003 and 2007. But he fails to mention that in 2003 Buhari garnered the highest votes from the North, showing the enduring regional loyalty to one of its own; and in 2007 he contested against a fellow Northerner, Umaru Yar’adua. It wasn’t until 2015, when the North strategically aligned with the Southwest (courtesy of my blueprint and not anyone else’s) that Buhari clinched power, validating the historical principle that no region wins alone. But among all regions, the North remains the only one that can consistently deliver over 10 million votes, regardless of party or candidate; proving the North’s electoral reality as Nigeria’s kingmaker.
8. Tinubu’s 2023 victory was not a triumph of Southern strategy at all. If APC had not been formed and Buhari had not been president, could Tinubu have been able to form a political party and break through the Nigerian political configuration and become president? The answer is a flat NO! He won the presidency in 2023 on account of securing Northern votes, leveraged on the unifying religious ideology the Muslim/Muslim ticket projected. Even in the Northern states where he didn’t win outright, he polled strong second-place figures to cumulatively defeat his opponents. The South couldn’t have delivered him the presidency as the majority of his votes actually came from the North.
9. From independence to date, the South, fractured by competing regional egos and historic rivalries, lacked the cohesion necessary to project unified political will. The 2023 election is a perfect case study: while the Southeast gave 95% to Peter Obi, the South-South split its votes, and the Southwest fractured between Tinubu, Obi and Atiku almost equally. The so-called southern unity is a myth, exposed in every election cycle.
10. Besides, if we look at the historical record, we cannot fail to see the North as strategic constant. In the First Republic, the NPC formed the federal government in alliance with the NCNC of the Eastern region. In the Second Republic, the NPN allied with Niger Delta and swept majority of the South-South into its fold. During the Third Republic, it was the Northern SDP politicians who backed the Abiola Muslim/Muslim ticket and later demanded its validation. In the Fourth Republic, the PDP was born and nurtured in the North, swept the polls and dominated the presidency for 16 years. Even under the APC, the alliance that brought Buhari to power in 2015 and sustained it in 2019 was a Northern concept (my concept), brokered on Northern numerical strength.
11. In all of these, the common denominator is that the North has never lost its centrality. When Southern Nigeria wins, it is through Northern strategic alliance. When the North wins, it is through consolidating its own base and picking its partners in the South.
12. The claim that Kogi, Kwara and Niger vote “with the South” due to linguistic ties is both historically and electorally inaccurate. In every major election since 1979, these states have leaned towards northern-led coalitions. Kwara was under the sway of the Saraki political machine, closely aligned with Northern interests. Kogi has consistently been politically attuned to Northern agenda-setting since its creation. These are empirical facts and not delusional claims.
13. Also, the philosophical foundations of Nigeria’s politics point to the fact that the North shall always matter. Politics is ultimately a game of demography, unity of purpose and institutional influence. The North holds the demographic majority, the religious cohesion, the linguistic unity and the cultural depth to act collectively when the stakes are high. That is why northern leaders, regardless of political persuasion, often return to the philosophy of the “One North” as envisioned by the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello. Hence, contrary to Taiwo’s assertion, the idea of the “One North” has not collapsed. It has evolved. No longer driven by feudal loyalty, it now emerges through democratic consensus and strategic alignment among Northern political actors. The region is not fractured, it is flexible, able to entertain diversity within a dominant cultural framework. And this is where Taiwo Olanegan’s thesis fails: he confuses surface-level electoral outcomes with the deeper, enduring architecture of Nigerian politics - a structure that continues to pivot around Northern Nigeria!
14. To sum up, one can assert, most convincingly, that the North does not need to be monolithic to be decisive. Its strength lies in its ability to accommodate diversity within a dominant religious, linguistic and cultural order - something no other region can boast of! This makes the North more politically cohesive, more electorally reliable and more strategically positioned than any other part of the country. As 2027 approaches, those who write off the North do so at their peril. Whether through alliance-building or internal consolidation, the region will again prove that it is not just a participant in Nigeria’s democracy - it is its fulcrum, with the Northern ace remaining firmly in hand!
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