These days you see sporadic mentions of it in the newspapers and the social media but thirty to forty years ago, the term ‘Kaduna Mafia’ was very popular in Nigerian politics and journalism. It got almost daily mention in the Southern newspapers, which tried harder and harder to make it sound as ominous and as threatening as possible.
As far as can be determined, the term ‘Kaduna Mafia’ was coined by the Benue State-born journalist, academic and politician Mvendaga Jibo, who maintained a popular political column in the Daily Times in the 1970s. Jibo was a Marxist radical at the time, though the idea of a political Mafia did not sit very well with classical Marxist theory. As used in those days, the term was derisive; it conveyed the impression that there was a small circle of people based in Kaduna, the former capital of Northern Nigeria, that manipulated the levers of political power for their personal economic benefits and also in pursuit of Northern political and administrative hegemony within the Nigerian federation.
To understand the setting in which the term ‘Kaduna Mafia’ flourished, it is important to recall both the period and the city in question. The 1970s were very interesting times in Nigerian history. The traumatic Civil War had ended in 1970 and the Gowon regime was steering the country through a difficult period of reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction. OPEC had quadrupled oil prices in 1973 which led to a phenomenal increase in national revenue and the onset of the ‘Oil Boom.’ Under the Gowon regime’s Second National Development Plan [1970-75] and the Murtala/Obasanjo regime’s Third National Development Plan [1975-80], the old North, and the country generally, was making tremendous progress in building schools, hospitals, roads, airports, radio and television stations and factories.
Even though 12 states had been created out of the former four regions in 1967 and the Civil War had been fought, won and lost, the struggle for domination between the North, West and East was being fought silently, sometimes openly, as with regards to the national census. The military had dominated the political scene since the 1966 coup. While General Gowon’s promise to hand over power to civilians in 1974 was botched, the Murtala/Obasanjo regime embarked on a very credible transition program from 1975 and the politicians were getting ready to succeed them. However, they had to fight by media and intellectual proxy because the military regimes banned “politics”.
As the history books will explain, First Republic politics in the North was a three-legged contest first between the dominant, conservative Northern Peoples Congress [NPC] on the one hand and the radical Northern Elements Progressive Union [NEPU] on the other hand; secondly between NPC and the United Middle Belt Congress, UMBC led by the Tiv politician Joseph Tarka; with the Borno Youth Movement [BYM] also pitched against NPC. Tarka championed opposition to what he called Hausa/Fulani domination of the North and even though state creation in 1967 had somewhat blunted this theme, some Middle Belt politicians tried to resuscitate the ideology as the Second Republic loomed. They formed a political association called Club 19, led by Chief Solomon Lar and Mr. Paul Unongo. Interestingly, Tarka himself realigned with far Northern politicians and became an NPN chieftain. Jibo belonged at first to Club 19 but later became Commissioner for Education in Benue State under NPN’s Governor Aper Aku.
Even though the North had been broken into six states in 1967 and was further broken into 10 states in 1976, Kaduna retained a lot of its aura as the old region’s capital. Regional government continued in a masked form as Interim Common Services Agency, ICSA. General Murtala Mohammed saw through the ruse and dissolved ICSA in 1975. [He also dissolved the Eastern States Interim Assets and Liabilities Agency, ESIALA]. ICSA was informally replaced by the “Meeting of Northern Governors,” allegedly to run common assets. Even though many military governors of Northern states in the 1970s through the 1990s were of Southern origin, they maintained these meetings up until the civilians took over.
Most of these assets that the governors met over were centred in and around Kaduna. They included the once sprawling Northern Nigeria Development Corporation, NNDC and its two huge subsidiaries, Northern Nigeria Investment Limited, NNIL and Arewa Hotels. Kaduna Polytechnic, Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Radio Television Kaduna [the former Broadcasting Corporation of Northern Nigeria], New Nigerian Newspapers and Kaduna Textiles were part of those assets. Add to them Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Bank of the North, whose headquarters was in Kano. The Federal Military Government gradually took over most of those assets but they somehow retained most of their pan-Northern orientation. Kaduna was so prominent at the time that in 1987 the then Minister of Information Chief Tony Momoh described it as “the Deputy Capital of Nigeria.” Since 1991 its prominence has been reduced by the Federal Capital moving into the vicinity.
All these made for the continued subtle unity of Northern Nigeria vis-a-vis the South. As a direct result of the Civil War, Northern officers dominated the Army and all the military regimes from July 1966 to May 1999, even when on one occasion a Southern General [Obasanjo] was the Head of State. In the 1970s the North also subtly pushed some agenda in the Nigerian federation. The most successful one was to write “federal character principle” into the Constitution. Up until then Southerners occupied most federal public service positions centred in Lagos but this was reversed within two short decades. Another successful Northern agenda was to relocate the Federal Capital from Lagos, allegedly due to congestion. The far North’s attempt to enshrine a Federal Sharia Court of Appeal in the Constitution however failed due to lack of Middle Belt support. To cite another Northern gain, the Gowon regime actively promoted the annual Muslim hajj until it became a very sprawling affair.
As far as Mvendaga Jibo and Southern intellectuals were concerned, there must be a secret centre that was directing these efforts. Kaduna City was bristling with retired Army Generals, retired top civil servants, successful businessmen and a growing class of intellectuals all of Northern origin. They had much organic unity because most of them were mates at the North’s few secondary schools of the 1950s and 1960s, principally Barewa College, Zaria and Government College, Keffi. It was easy therefore to say this was the centre for generating, refining, propounding, coordinating and ramming through the Northern agenda.
While the term ‘Kaduna Mafia’ reigned, its proponents mostly refrained from mentioning names. Once in a while however, names such as Malam Liman Ciroma, Malam Adamu Ciroma, Malam Musa Bello, Malam Mamman Daura, Dr. Mahmud Tukur, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, Alhaji Tijjani Hashim, Galadiman Kano; Malam Hamza Zayyad, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, Alhaji Aliko Mohammed, Dr. Ibrahim Tahir, Malam Ahmed Joda, Alhaji Ibrahim Damcida, Alhaji Tatari Ali, General Shehu Yar’adua, Alhaji Audu Abubakar, Prof Ango Abdullahi, Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura, Alhaji Aminu Tijjani, Turakin Zazzau; Dr. Ahmadu Ali and Prof Jibril Aminu slipped into the equation.
Sometimes a distinction was made between ‘Kaduna Mafia’ and the North’s political elite. In 1983, it was alleged that General Shehu Yar’adua led the ‘Kaduna Mafia’ to oppose President Shehu Shagari’s second term bid. From the early 1990s we heard less and less of ‘Kaduna Mafia.’ A new, supposedly more ominous phrase to depict far Northern hegemony had been invented by Southern propagandists. It is “Caliphate.”
