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When the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) inserted a clause for the rotation of the presidency of Nigeria between North and South there was no controversy. Infact, there was high praise for the party’s ingenuity in ensuring fairness and unity for a huge country with demographic, cultural and ethnic diversities that have been a stumbling block to unity, rapid integration and development over the years. When President Olusegun Obasanjo completed his second term in 2007, the baton of governance was handed by him to Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua from the North.
If Yar’Adua’s death had not brought complication to the rotation arrangement Nigeria would have, by now, firmly and fully accepted rotation as the answer to our governance dilemma. However, many people thought that after President Goodluck Jonathan’s term in 2015 and Muhammadu Buhari’s acceptance of the baton things would go back to normalcy. Many people thought that having fought in the civil war to keep Nigeria united Buhari had accepted the principle of power rotation as a weapon for uniting the country. Yes, power rotation was not in the Constitution of the APC but Nigerians who wanted a stable country were convinced that that was the route to take. But Buhari surprised everyone by wanting a northerner to take over from him in 2023 after eight years. If not for the patriotic position of Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the APC Chairman and some wise northern Governors the country would have sunk into a crisis of immeasurable dimension. Adamu and those Governors managed to ensure that the presidency went to the South in 2023. That is how Bola Tinubu from the South became the APC candidate and later emerged as the President. Now, the APC is backing Tinubu for a second term which can be interpreted to mean that it believes in the eight-year rotation process between North and South. Now, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has zoned its 2027 presidential ticket to the South. By this arrangement Peter Obi, former Governor of Anambra State is going to be the party’s presidential candidate in 2027 while Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State will be the presidential candidate in 2031. Partisan politicians on both sides of the divide are now debating the issue. Some applaud the decision while others think that the decision is seasoned with skepticism and hypocrisy. If the decision makers in the NDC on this zoning game are truthful and honest it is a good idea. The only problem here is that many Nigerian politicians are double-faced like janus. They speak, most of the time with a forked tongue. The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo says that the NDC zoning is “a political 419.” He stoutly questioned its credibility in an interview published in last week’s Sunday Vanguard. He said: “The decision of the NDC is an insult to the sensibilities of Nigerians. It is nothing but political 419. What happens if Peter Obi changes party after winning? Or if as leader of the NDC he gets the NEC to reverse the decision. This is a joke taken too far.”
Keyamo’s observations are correct because most Nigerian politicians do not deserve to be trusted. What matters to most of them is power and its acquisition by hook or crook or by public deception. That is why they keep moving from one party to another looking for a platform on which to contest elections. Some of them have been members of four or five parties since 1999. Where else in the world does that happen? I don’t know.
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Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President who wants to contest for the presidency on the platform of ADC, has pooh-poohed the rotation idea. He says that competence rather than power rotation should determine who becomes Nigeria’s next President. But rotation does not exclude competence from the qualities that are needed for that office. In any case, there are competent people in Nigeria’s northern and southern zones who can occupy the Office of President. But competence alone never wins an election for somebody in Nigeria otherwise someone like Chief Obafemi Awolowo would have been President of Nigeria in 1979. Awolowo, a very competent man contested the presidency in 1979 with another very competent man Philip Umeadi, a lawyer of great merit. Both of them were from the South. Both of them were Christians. Both of them were super competent, but they did not win the election. Nigerians, instead, voted for Alhaji Shehu Shagari who was not at the same level of competence with the genius, Awolowo.
I believe that zoning is good for Nigeria because of its diversity and the need to bring the multifarious groups together as one united family of humanity. Several attempts have been made since 1960 to bifurcate Nigeria. I was in the Eastern Region when Emeka Ojukwu declared the region a Biafra Republic. He did not win me over because I did not believe that separation was the answer to our problem then. The present agitators for Biafra cannot win me over because I do not think that separation is the answer to our problems. If there is marginalisation of any section of Nigeria we must work together to eliminate it. You do not eliminate it by going away. No. In any case, in all countries of the world there are people who feel marginalised. Part of the reason why they are in the situation in which they are is that they do not strive to get out of the hole in which they are. Getting out of a marginalisation hole is a collective business of the decision makers and the marginalised.
Zoning is good for Nigeria because it brings equality to the table. Northerners, military and civilian leaders, have ruled Nigeria for about 2/3 of the period since independence. There is no dispute about that. There is an African proverb that states that the “God that gives a person big teeth always gives him big lips to cover them with.” God has blessed Nigeria with a huge and fertile land mass, solid and liquid minerals as well as a huge population all of which we can harness in making our country great. What is preventing us from getting there is the selfishness of some of our leaders. All that they want is power, power without purpose, power without perspective, power without patriotism. There are other countries in the world that practise power rotation. Such countries include Switzerland which operates a system of collective leadership. The Federal Council of the Swiss Confederation is made up of seven members and the position of Federal President rotates among them on an annual basis. This works flawlessly for the country. Bosnia and Herzegovina have a presidency that is composed of three members (one Bosniak, one Serb and one Croat) representing the country’s constituent peoples. The chairmanship of the presidency rotates among the three members every eight months.
Zoning is a formula for unity, stability, fairness. It also prevents the dominance of any single ethnic, religious or cultural group. In that way the goal of broad representation is achieved without sweat.
Nigeria should institutionalise zoning by giving it a place of prominence in the revised 1999 Constitution. So it is a decision that can make Nigeria stable and fair.
