Presidency: Is Coast Clear For Ndigbo?
By Funso Ologunde
Come May 2007, all things being equal, President Obasanjo must be succeeded by a new democratically elected President and Commander-in-Chief. Who this person would be, is a question that must agitate the mind of every concerned Nigerian.
When the nation approached the 1983 elections, the type of heat now being witnessed was not experienced, talkless of the period beginning from October 1979 that former President Shagari was sworn-in as President. No intending presidential aspirant for the succeeding 1983 elections rolled out his arsenals so early, or had them rolled out for him by his friends, as we are currently witnessing for the 2007 elections.
Why then, one may ask, has there been so much noise as early as June, 2003, concerning baton change that was clearly four years ahead? The answer to these premature campaigns could be that some aspirants (with their sympathisers) feel a sense of insecurity that other aspirants were out to "out cheat" them in a game that they also have handfuls of tricks to cheat others! If you said that this premature agitation is a baby of the massive rigging that characterised the 2003 elections, your reasoning would not be far-fetched.
Where indeed should the pendulum swing in 2007, after President Obasanjo?
The record of headship of successive Federal Governments since independence is this. Tafawa Balewa (5.5 yrs) Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi (6 months), Yakubu Gowon (9 years), Gen. Murtala Muhammed (7 months), Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo (3.5 years), Shehu Shagari (4 years 3 months), Gen Mohammodu Buhari (1.5 yrs), Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (8 yrs), Ernest Shonekan (3 months) Gen. Sanni Abacha (4 yrs 8 months), Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar (12 months) and again, Chief Obasanjo (May 1999 - Date). Put zonally, the frequency translates to: North-east (once) North-central (thrice), North-west (four times), South-west (thrice), South-eaast (once) and South-south (nil).
The above shows that only the South-south has not had the privilege of headship in the forty-four years of Nigeria's independence. Of these forty-four years, the military held power for about thirty years, and the civilians the rest fourteen years.
It is appropriate at this point to remark that, among the most active presidential gladiators since the inauguration of Abdulsalami Abubakar's transition to civil rule in 1998 have been the retired military officers (mostly Generals as former Heads of State, former Governors or former Ministers) from Obasanjo, to Buhari, Babangida, Nwachukwu, Ojukwu and Marwa. What do soldiers want again, especially as their two-third hold on our public life has not been outstanding compared to the civilian era?
It is believed that the emergence of Obasanjo as President in 1999 was the product of a contraption by the military top brass to handover to one of their number from the South-west (to calm the frayed nerves of the Yoruba), whom they could all (especially the former Heads of State) respect and willingly obey. Is this to be repeated in 2007 because the polity has not punished past successful disloyalty to the nation?
Had the members of the 1999 constitution not been myopic (unpardonably too) in their vision, they could have added to Chapter Six, Sections 137 and 182 additional provisions that anyone who had, through constitutional subversion, held the office of a Head of State, Governor, Minister or Commissioner, or had consequent upon that been a board member of any parastatal is barred from seeking a democratic mandate and/or be given an appointment to any public office in a democratic setting at any level for life. Reason being that they either actively effected, supported, collaborated or encouraged constitutional subversion by one military regime or the other. By this myopia, the constitution makers unwittingly legitimised past military insurrections, which is now tormenting our national life.
Had this oversight not been committed, Nigeria would not be listening to 2007 tales of the ambitions of the Babangidas, the Buharis (kept at bay by the on-going suit in court), the Marwa, the Ojukwus and the Nwachukwus, struggling to succeed a former military Head of State currently in office as a civilian President, whose style is one concealing his military outfit under his numerous agbada and babariga.
However, since the oversight has been committed and they are not disqualified in any manner,, the military ex-this and ex-that remain critical elements in the analysis of where the presidential pendulum would swing in 2007. We should not pretend about this fact, because we are already living with it.
In order to promote national unity, cohesion, and strengthen ethnic integration based on mutual trust and confidence, the 1999 Constitution enshrined Section 153 (1) that there shall be a Federal Character Commission to ensure that there is a federal character in all the federal organs. In like manner, Section 147 (3) makes it mandatory that the President appoints at least one Minister from each State.
For the position of the President itself, though the Constitution does not explicity zone, there is an unwritten consensus within each political party to zone and rotate it. There are six zones of which three are in each of the geographical north and south respectively. Rotational Presidency, for the time being, is an innovation of expediency to calm nerves that could otherwise have been frayed in inter-ethnic struggle of who becomes the number-one citizen.
There are thirty-six States and a Federal Capital Territory, with nineteen States in the North, and seventeen in the South. The last population census ( 1993) distributes population as about 54% in the North and about 46% in the South.
At independence, each national question had been on the basis of three Regions: the East, West and North. With the abolition of the Regions, and the institution of the States, the national question, especially in relation with power, became issues between the North and the South. Both the placement of the States and the distribution of population support this observation. Thus in carving the zonal structure, emphasis was on North and South dichotomy as what envolved were North-east, North-west, and North-central for the geographical North. For the South, we had the South-east, South-west and South-south.
Sections 137(1) and 182 (1), as judicially interpreted in the case of Osoba and others against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2003, both make it politically irrelevant, the holding of the office of President/Head of State, and State Governor before the enactment of the 1999 Constitution. The implication of this is that anyone who had held either of the offices could again occupy it and serve two terms guaranteed in the 1999 constitution. Therefore, the nation started on a politically clean slate on 29th May, 1999 when the present civilian administration took over from the military, as no one had been previously "elected" into the two offices.
Consequently, the relevant political history concerning where the President comes from began in May 1999, with the South (through the South-west) clinching it with President Obasanjo in the saddle. The two contenders (AD/APP alliance, and the PDP) both zoned the Presidency to the South (through South-west) in 1999. The understanding, albeit gentleman's agreement which we all canvassed, was that from the South, it would go to the North, after the incumbent elected through the 1999 election. Fresh propositions and/ or arguments are an after - thought.
Before the 1999 elections, no one talked about a second term because each person believed (or thought) that whoever won election would remember that there were six zones in the two geographical areas, each one eager to occupy the position of President in the quickest succession possible (one term) to rapidly consolidate mutual trust and confidence among the six zones. An axiomatic corollary of this is the loud acclaim that rotation would, at the earliest opportunity, be abandoned for merit in electing the nation's President, because we all acknowledged that rotational presidency was an endorsement of mediocrity which would not be in the nation's long-term interest.
Keeping faith with its leadership's gentleman's agreement to shift the Presidency from the South to the North in 2003, the ANPP produced Buhari as its candidate for 2003. For the ruling party, the PDP, this was not going to be, as it soon devised and contrived schemes to make it a fait accompli for President Obasanjo to get a return ticket at all cost, not minding that honour was being trampled with selfish, mischievous and disdainful might.
So it went that Obasanjo not only got a return ticket, but also ultimately got a second term, albeit in most controversial circumstances. If the PDP ticket had gone to Dr. Ekwueme, Nigeria could have had an Igbo President today. An Ekwueme candidature, if it had worked out as sincerely planned, could have helped Nigeria to establish the principle of only one-term-Presidency per individual, not minding the constitutional provisions for a second term. That would have been an additional feather to President Obasanjo's cap as one military man that fathered genuine democracy in Nigeria. That is when viewed with his voluntary hand-over of power to President Shagari in 1979.
With Obasanjo's two-term Presidency, or alternatively if Dr. Ekwneme had succeeded him in 2003, the pendulum naturally would swing up North. Now, with gladiators already lined up in the North, and with the South-east employing tactics of loud and persistent agitation, where would the pendulum ultimately swing in 2007?
It was unfortunate that, except for a few exceptions (the Abubakar Rimi's), the PDP's leadership capitulated to the intrigue against the Presidency moving to the South-east, or shifting to the North in 2003, a position which negated their intentions in packaging the PDP political agenda in 1999.
Perhaps the "renegade" PDP leadership in the South-east could have succeeded in their computations since many PDP leaders in the north had capitulated ahead of the PDP Presidential Convention in 2003 that the South-east wrested power from Obasanjo and give the ticket to Ekwueme. This was a high possibility, going by the mood of the delegates to the Presidential Convention. All was set until the eve of the convention when Ekwueme was ditched. The PDP delegates from his home base (the South-east) allegedly took money and marooned Ekwueme in his pursuit of the presidency. The Igbo thereby threw away their best chance to produce a President in 2003!
A second chance came their way, still in 2003. There were two Igbo candidates in the presidential elections: Ojukwu and Gen. Ike Nwachukwu. Ndigbo could have rallied all Igbo sons and daughters behind one of them, and also ensured that elections were not rigged by the PDP in the South-east states. These were developments that could have made it difficult for Obasanjo to win at the first ballot. If Ojukwu (or Nwachukwu) had gone for a run-off with President Obasanjo, the chances were that the latter would lose out because of sympathy voting. If the run-off was between the PDP and the ANPP, the Igbos could have been positioned for 2007 by massively voting for Buhari.
Having lost the two opportunities for an Igbo President in 2003, they had another opportunity in 2003, to put an Igbo man in very strong contention for the Presidency in 2007. The Buhari/Okadigbo ANPP ticket which the late Okadigbo spoke about to the Igbo nation, had it been understood and supported enthusiastically by all Ndigbos, could have produced Buhari as President and Okadigbo as Vice President in 2003. If that had materialised, Okadigbo could not have been tear-gassed to an untimely death. He would have lived. And taking General Buhari for what he stands for, a highly principled man, sincere, upright, resolute and honest, he would not go for a second term in 2007 as he had often repeatedly reassured Nigerians during the campaigns. And Vice President Okadigbo could have become the Ndigbo President - in - waiting for 2007!
If today's leaders would not subvert the constitutional provision on National Ethics (Chapter II, Section 23) on, among others, discipline, integrity, social justice and patriotism, objectivity should be sacrosanct in working out the 2007 political equation with respect to social justice. President Obasanjo should be succeeded by some one from the geographical North. The three zones of the North should race-up to give Nigeria a President that would move this nation forward without inflicting more pains on the common man. Since the 1999 constitution has taken away from our view the political history of succession to the number one position up to 29th May 1999, no one should canvass arguments about the zone of origin of past leaders from the North. In other words, Nigerians would like the North, this fresh dispensation, to give us their best candidate, not minding his zone of origin.
For the Igbo nation, they should forget about playing with any geometric shape where the opposite sides are not parallel. Ndigbo should devise and vigorously pursue a policy to clinch the Vice President in 2007, in order to remain in contention for 2011 or 2015. Should the South-south clinch the Presidential - running mate ahead of the South-east in 2007, the Igbo nation would have unwittingly given away their chance to give Nigeria a President until 2039! Should that happen, the Igbo nation would have no one but themselves to blame, for, like Shakespeare wrote, the fault would lie in Ndigbo, not in their stars, that they never read the political barometer well.
Ologunde, a former Presidential Aspirant, is the South-west Zonal Organising Secretary of the, ANPP
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