Nuhu Ribadu's removal as National Security Adviser signals a lesson the north keeps failing to learn: how to navigate politics under southern presidencies without destroying itself in the process.
In a two-part analysis, journalist Suleiman A. Suleiman argues that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's creation of a parallel Special Adviser on Homeland Security was not an administrative shuffle but a political execution. It marked Ribadu's fall and the rise of General Famadewa, a shift that Ribadu should have seen coming.
Ribadu made a fundamental error, Suleiman says. He did not fully grasp the nature of the National Security Adviser role, a position that has evolved into one of Nigeria's most powerful but also most treacherous offices. The post carries enormous influence but demands political sophistication and restraint. Ribadu lacked both.
But Ribadu's personal failure reflects a larger pattern. Since 1999, southern presidents have arrived in office carrying what Suleiman calls "the bubble of some perceived historical grievances of northern domination." They come determined to correct what they see as injustices from the military era when the north held power. Tinubu is the latest and "purest" example of this psychology.
Northern elites have consistently misread this dynamic. They approach southern presidencies with "reactionary tactics, mutually destructive political in-fighting, or collective silence and resignation," Suleiman writes. The result weakens the region and makes it easier for any southern president to defeat northern opponents one by one until none remain standing. This is exactly what happened to Ribadu.
Ribadu made three fatal mistakes that sealed his fate. First, he positioned himself as the "head of the northern delegation" within the Tinubu administration and claimed to be the sole link between the government and northern Nigeria. This was a direct challenge to Vice President Kashim Shettima, who naturally occupies that role by virtue of his office.
Since politics has clear hierarchies, and the Vice President ranks second only to the President in symbolic order, Ribadu could only advance his claim by undermining Shettima at every turn. This was destructive not just to Shettima but to the entire northern wing of the government and the APC. Ribadu's political maneuvers prevented the north from functioning as a unified bloc within the administration.
That unified northern presence matters, even symbolically. It signals to the president that the region has leverage and coherence. It forces the president to respect the north as a collective power rather than a collection of individuals who can be picked off separately. Ribadu destroyed this by creating division and faction.
Suleiman's argument cuts deeper than Ribadu's individual failure. He is warning northern politicians that the pattern will repeat unless they change their approach. Southern presidents will continue arriving in office with historical grievances driving their decisions. The north's response cannot be chaos and internal warfare. It must be unity, strategic restraint, and collective action.
Ribadu's removal serves as a cautionary tale. The lessons extend beyond him to every northern political figure serving under southern administrations. The region's weakness under southern rule is not inevitable. It is self-inflicted.
