23 January, 2027
by Mohammed Bello Doka
What exactly is the North being asked to apologize for in 2027?
For winning elections?
For insisting on negotiation instead of blackmail?
For refusing to accept that democracy must come with an escape clause—“if we lose, the country ends”?
Who decided that electoral competition now comes with threats of national extinction?
When did persuasion give way to ultimatums?
And why is it suddenly acceptable to accuse an entire region of parasitism while quietly benefiting from the very system that made everyone dependent?
These are not rhetorical flourishes. They are the hard, uncomfortable questions Nigeria must confront as 2027 approaches.
Because if history still matters—and it does—then threatening the North with separation is not just reckless. It is dishonest, hypocritical, and deeply selfish.
Nigeria Was Built by Bargain, Not Blackmail
Nigeria did not come into existence because one region bullied another into submission. It was stitched together through negotiation, argument, compromise, and mutual fear of the alternative. In the 1950s, when constitutional talks were at their most tense, the country stood repeatedly at the edge of collapse. Secession was threatened. Walkouts happened. Tempers flared.
What saved Nigeria was not threats. It was federalism.
At independence in 1960, Nigeria adopted a parliamentary system with powerful regions and a weak centre. The Northern Region, Western Region, Eastern Region—and later the Mid-West—controlled their own resources, police, courts, and civil services. Each region lived largely on what it produced. Cocoa sustained the West. Palm produce powered the East. Groundnuts and cotton underwrote the North. There was no monthly pilgrimage to Abuja. There was no feeding bottle. There was no parasite.
That system was the compromise that kept Nigeria together.
And it worked—until it was destroyed.
"The First Republic and the Lie of “Northern Parasitism”
The claim that the North has always fed off the South collapses instantly under historical scrutiny. Under the First Republic (1960–1966), no region fed off another. Fiscal federalism ensured that productivity was rewarded and laziness punished. Regions competed. They planned. They built.
If today’s critics were honest, they would admit that what they now call “Northern dependency” only became possible after regional autonomy was dismantled.
Which brings us to 1966.
1966: The Year Nigeria Was Centralised—By Force
The January 1966 coup did two things that still poison Nigerian politics today.
First, it shattered civilian rule and opened the floodgates to military intervention. Once the gun replaced the ballot, coups became a career path. Nigeria would spend nearly three decades trying—and failing—to escape that precedent.
Second, and more consequentially, the post-coup government dismantled federalism and concentrated power at the centre. Through decrees, regional civil services were unified, revenues centralised, and autonomy erased. Nigeria ceased to be a federation in practice and became a command state.
This centralisation did not come from negotiation. It came from force.
And here is the inconvenient truth many prefer to skip: the most prominent casualties of the January 1966 coup were Northern political and military leaders. The Prime Minister was killed. The Premier of the Northern Region was killed. Senior Northern officers were killed. Meanwhile, most top Southern political leaders survived.
Whether or not ethnic intent was explicit is beside the point. Perception mattered. And to many Northerners, what followed looked like a grim sequence: selective killings, followed by loss of regional power, followed by central domination.
That perception detonated in July 1966, when the counter-coup struck back—this time with Southern officers paying the heaviest price.
This cycle of violence was not a Northern creation. It was the direct result of the military’s intrusion into politics and the destruction of the federal bargain.
Military Rule Is Not Regional Rule
Yet today, a lazy and dishonest argument is routinely deployed: that because many military heads of state came from the North, the North has “ruled Nigeria longer” and therefore owes everyone else eternal political repentance.
This argument is not just wrong. It is absurd.
Military regimes are not elected. They do not represent regions. They emerge from barracks, not ballots. They rule by decree, not consent. Ordinary Northerners did not vote for coups. They did not author military constitutions. They did not benefit uniquely from repression. Many were jailed, impoverished, silenced, or killed.
Counting years of military dictatorship as “Northern rule” is like blaming civilians for the actions of armed robbers because they live in the same city.
It is historical malpractice.
If military rule counts as legitimate regional advantage, then democracy itself becomes meaningless. The gun becomes the ultimate arbiter of future entitlement. That is not an argument for justice. It is an argument against civilisation.
1999: The Return to Democracy and the Agreement Everyone Pretends Not to Remember
When military rule collapsed in 1998–1999, Nigeria did not simply stumble back into democracy. It negotiated its return.
There was an informal but widely acknowledged understanding among political elites: power would rotate between North and South to stabilise the fragile Fourth Republic. It was not written into the Constitution, but it guided behaviour, expectations, and trust.
That is why the first civilian president in 1999 came from the South. It was a political reassurance after years of military misrule and the trauma of the June 12 crisis. It was a gesture of balance, not conquest.
That understanding assumed one thing: that tenures would run their normal course.
History, however, intervened.
Tragedy, Not Conspiracy, Disrupted Rotation
In 2010, Nigeria lost a sitting president to illness and death. The Constitution functioned exactly as designed. Power transferred peacefully to the vice president. There was no coup. No imposition. No regional ambush.
The consequence, however, was unavoidable: the North’s expected tenure was cut short.
This was not the fault of the North.
It was not the fault of the South.
It was the cruelty of fate.
Yet today, this tragedy is weaponised as if it were a moral failing. The South’s longer cumulative years in civilian power are treated as proof of entitlement rather than accident. History is flattened into grievance.
That is not justice. That is opportunism.
The Myth of Northern Parasitism—and the Truth Beneath It
Few accusations are as corrosive—or as false—as the claim that the North contributes nothing and feeds off others.
This narrative ignores one crucial fact: the system that produces dependency is centralised federalism.
Once revenues were pooled at the centre, all regions—oil-producing or not—became dependent on federal allocation. Southern states collect monthly allocations just like Northern states. The difference is not morality. It is structure.
And here lies the greatest hypocrisy: the same voices that mock the North as parasitic often oppose genuine restructuring. They denounce dependence while defending the system that creates it. They reject regional autonomy while condemning its consequences.
You cannot dismantle regionalism, embrace central rent-sharing, and then insult one region for surviving within it.
That is not analysis. That is bad faith.
The 2017 True Federalism Committee: Evidence, Not Excuses
In 2017, an APC-led committee on true federalism was established after nationwide consultations. Its mandate was clear: devolution of powers, resource control, state police, and a return to a more balanced federation.
The committee was chaired by a Northern governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai under a Northern President Muhammadu Buhari. Its report was submitted in 2018. The recommendations were explicit. The problems were diagnosed. The solutions were written down.
Fast-forward to today.
The President is from the South.
The Senate President is from the South.
The Chief Justice is from the South.
The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice is from the South.
If political will were the issue, reform would be underway.
Instead, restructuring is postponed, ignored, or selectively remembered—while the North is accused of parasitism for a system it did not design alone and cannot dismantle unilaterally.
This is where accusation replaces accountability.
From Negotiation to Name-Calling
As 2027 approaches, something dangerous has happened. The language has shifted.
Instead of bargaining, there is branding.
Instead of dialogue, there is demonisation.
The North is labelled “born to rule.”
Military dictatorships are repackaged as regional privilege.
Historical complexity is reduced to insult.
This is not politics. It is provocation.
And when provocation fails, threats emerge.
The Red Line: Threatening Nigeria Itself
Let us be clear: threatening the existence of Nigeria because of an election is indefensible.
Elections are contests, not ultimatums. Losing is not oppression. Democracy does not come with a self-destruct button. You cannot claim to love a country only on the condition that you always win it.
History offers no example where threatening national collapse produced justice. It only produces fear, capital flight, hardened identities, and eventual regret.
If threatening separation is wrong when one region does it, it is wrong when any region does it.
Consistency is not optional.
Why the Northern Case for 2027 Is Not Selfish
Arguing that power should return to the North in 2027 is not a demand. It is not an entitlement. It is a political case grounded in balance, precedent, and disrupted expectation.
It acknowledges tragedy.
It respects the Constitution.
It invites negotiation.
What it rejects is blackmail.
Calling this position selfish while excusing threats of national disintegration reveals the real imbalance—not of power, but of principle.
What Real Selfishness Looks Like
Real selfishness is rewriting history to suit ambition.
Real selfishness is counting illegitimate military rule as moral credit.
Real selfishness is blocking reform while blaming others for stagnation.
Real selfishness is threatening to burn the house because you dislike the seating arrangement.
Nigeria was not built that way. And it will not survive that way.
Conclusion: Bargain or Break—The Choice Is Yours
Nigeria has survived every major crisis not because one side crushed the other, but because leaders stepped back from the edge and chose compromise.
The North is not asking for dominance.
It is asking for fairness.
It is asking for honesty.
It is asking for negotiation—not threats.
And that is why, in 2027, the North should not, cannot, and will not be threatened with separation.
Because nations are built by bargains, not by blackmail.
The North will not be blackmailed — not this generation, not by slogans, not by threats. Those who wish to leave Nigeria may argue their case openly; those who wish to stay must be ready to negotiate honestly. For the record, the doctrine that Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable was not coined by a Northerner; it was articulated by Nnamdi Azikiwe, and if his descendants or neighbours now believe he was wrong, who are we to forbid their debate? History is clear: our forbears Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa once contemplated separation, while Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo forcefully rejected it. The lesson is simple and enduring: Nigeria has always moved forward by argument and agreement, not intimidation — and on negotiation or otherwise, the North is ready.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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Opinion