The Sokoto Diocese’s bishop, Bishop Matthew Kukah, identified an unwritten political pattern in Nigeria where the Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba ethnic groupings appear to alternately hold power. Despite being a sizable ethnic community, he claimed that the Igbo have not held a sizable portion of governmental power.
Bishop Kukah hinted that this cycle might continue in the Channels Television interview, with President Tinubu possibly standing in for the Yorubas’ turn in this unofficial power-sharing arrangement. He emphasized how important it is to take into account the concerns of several different ethnic communities that might not be represented in politics.
According to him, “What we have now is almost an unwritten agreement. When the Hausa/Fulani finish, they’ll give to the Yorubas, so literally, Nigeria has been between the Yorubas and… because the Igbos have only been a minor majority in the sense that they’re the big tree, but they’ve never had a taste. So maybe when President Tinubu finishes, the argument will now be that the North will say no, give us back, and then somebody from the South will say give us back. Meanwhile, nobody is paying attention to hundreds of thousands of other ethnic communities that have probably no access.”
