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By Ike Enekwe
In the wake of impending elections in the country, politicians have begun to position themselves for the struggle for political office. In Enugu State, as in other places, politicians are up to their game. All sorts of permutation and schemes are being employed to throw up people for available offices. At the national level, there seem to be a North- South struggle for the prime office, namely, office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The general sentiment seem to be that the office should be zoned to the south, and before any anyone could come to terms with the how to react, the former governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, raised his hand as a contestant, perhaps to shut the increasingly loud voices agitating that the position of the President ought to be ceded to the south east. The likes of Governor Dave Umahi, former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim, Sam Ohuabunwa and others from the south east zone, have said they have what it takes to lead Nigeria to the Promised Land.
In Enugu state, some elders in the business of politics, who ought to lend their voices to the south east agitation, have chosen to play local politics that has a tendency to unsettle the zoning process which the state has since put behind it, given that it has perfected the rotation of power. Governorship is the prime political position in every state, and Enugu has perfected the art of rotating the office amongst the zones. It has gone round, and now heading back to Enugu East Senatorial zone, where former governor Chimaroke Nnamani transited from Governor to Senator, and has been in for both offices for two terms apiece. We hear that rather than propagate a level playing field for all aspirants from Enugu east, the former governor, who is both king and kingmaker, is championing a cause that the position be micro zoned to one local government area. He, and those in his ilk, argue that the said Local government is lagging in dividends of democracy which is why the position should be ceded to the local government.
Nkanu East Local Government Area of the state is their fancied beneficiary of the micro zoning. That the King makers in Enugu have agreed that Enugu east senatorial zone should produce the next governor is enough evidence that they have come to terms with the benefit of zoning as an antidote to power sharing schism. But it would tantamount to sowing the wind to canvass that only one local government in Enugu East should vie for the position because they would reap the whirl wind given that the backlash could result in political down turnas a result of reaction from those shut out of the race. There are no less than six local governments in that zone. Many of these micro zooming advocates had been in positions where they could change the fortune of the said local government area.
In a state that has produced the Deputy Senate President for twelve years, and rather than have the person play at the national stage, he would return to turn back the moving pendulum of zoning in the state. For former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani, who has been at the Senate for eight years, equity may begin with stepping aside for other capable hands to go there. Lip service to equity is made of mouthing it but doing the exact opposite.
The race for governorship should be left open to all capable hands in the Enugu East zone. Such competition would open the political landscape to good hands in the zone rather than a micro zoning bound to produce a lackey, who may expend state resources to maintain godfathers have chosen not to have a second address than politics and the attendant patronage.
Former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, occupied even a higher office than Ekweremadu, and thus had greater opportunity to have helped the local government for which he now allegedly canvasses that the governorship position should be micro-zoned. The temptation is to ask these kingmakers, who were once kings, what they did for the people in the past. Their current position tends to amount to self-indictment.
Enugu people would get the short end of the stick in the event that time-tested people are shut out of the race through the parochial adoption of this micro-zoning advocated by some of the political elite in Enugu. It would stand the concept of zoning in contradiction to the purpose for which it was conceived. An erroneous impression is stirred that the beneficiary is in office for the purpose of bettering the lot of his people, in fact local government, not the state. He would come across as a myopic choice who would be tied to the apron strings of those who put him in office.
The state needs people who would think out of the box in the face of dwindling oil revenue, when helmsmen need to re-invent their states if such states would not buckle under financial pressure, and thus fail to meet the developmental needs of the state. Enugu deserves better than the myopic micro zoning being advocated by some of its political elites. Such advocacy detracts from the political solution expected from the concept of zoning, and could come with electoral misfortune. Those who advocate micro zoning are sowing the wind in Enugu such that the state would reap whirlwind in the aftermath.
Enekwe writes from Eha-Amufu, Enugu State
