By Yakubu Maitalata Kwassam
The quest for political power equation in
Nigeria has become an issue of national heated debates. It has of recent
been scratched by political parties, most especially the ruling Peoples
Democratic Party, which solemnly agreed to rotate power between the Southern
and Northern Parts of the country. This experiment started by conceding
power to the South and precisely to the West which felt quite alienated as a
result of the lingering June 12 political impasse. This was a political
arrangement aimed at pacifying the raging currents and under currents that
had pervaded the system emitting horrible candour of political sentiments
and bigotry.
The recent agitation for one-term presidency
which has received a protem presidential handshake through the endorsement
of six years for a one-term presidential tenure would virtually open up
another political interregnum of political power sharing with its own
attendant merits and demerits. This is quite obvious because there is
historically no substantive political ideal system that has not been
affected by the only permanent variable � change. Beside the fact that the
system cannot functionally operate on its own without the operatives, it
still remains a fact that the operators of the system are to a large extent
the determinants of the success of whichever type of system that is put in
place.
The Herculean journey towards a united, strong,
self-reliant, great, dynamic, just, free, egalitarian and democratic society
is not an easy one and even after attaining such a feat is still not easy to
sustain the status quo. It is however imperative that we take an assessment
of our present political platform and power equation, if there is any. This
simply put, entails knowing where we are, collectively fashioning out what
and where we want to be and how we could get there through laying down
superstructures that would be quite durable in the wake of any likely
ethno-religious or political upheavals.
Entrenching the single-term presidency in the
constitution and blending with zoning and rotation might seem one of the
political cum constitutional provisions. But one might wish to quickly ask
how such an arrangement could be designed and ensure its workability and
sustainability without the insurgence of centrifugal and centripetal forces
that blow within the system to dislodge such an arrangement with the passage
of time.
Going by the current geo-political zones with
the two amalgamated protectorates in mind, that is, the northern and
southern protectorates, one might then begin to ponder on how the rotation
could be done. Should the rotation be within the zones in the northern
protectorate for the period of tenure agreed upon before conceding to the
zones in the southern protectorates or simply code the zones and the
rotation allowed to interlock among them? How could this go seamlessly
without any political rancour?
The idea of executive powers being vested on a
collegiate of elected representatives from each geo-political zone beclouds
the possibility of a seamless rotational presidency. This suggests another
form of system which has yet to be named. It connotes regionalization and
simultaneous decentralization of the much coveted office of the President.
It might in a way be conceived as an usurpation of state powers and
replication thereto in wider perspective at the geo-political platform. What
type of relationship would then exist between the regional elected
representatives and the state governors? What would become of the present
National Executive Council where the President and State Governors meet?
Would the regional representatives be vice-presidents as it obtains in the
Peoples Democratic Party or co-equals of the President? Possibly a better
exposition of how the system works in Switzerland and how it could be
transplanted in Nigeria might cajole one into thinking along that line.
Yakubu Maitalata Kwassam ([email protected])
