2007: IBB Chides Supporters of Zoning
Commends Obasanjo's economic policies
From Ahamefula Ogbu in Abuja and Agaju Madugba in Kaduna
Former Military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, yesterday flayed those calling for the zoning of political offices, especially the Presidency. He said every Nigerian has a right to aspire to any political office in the country.
Babangida who spoke in Abuja after paying a condolence visit to the former Deputy Senate President, Senator Haruna Abubakar, described the entire country as the platform needed by every Nigerian to attain his/her political ambition.
"That office belongs to all Nigerians. Any Nigerian who aspires to get into that office has the right to do so. Every Nigerian has a right to aspire to be the President of this country. Nigeria is a platform for the Presidency", he said.
Asked what he would do as a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) member if the party decides that the position has to be zoned, he replied, "I don't answer speculative questions. That is based on assumption. I answer questions that are factual".
He expressed the belief that anybody who wants to contest for the Presidency should do so. He blamed the media for the hype in the debate over where the President would come from in 2007.
Babangida said the issue of zoning was an internal affair of the various political parties. He added that "it is not something that anybody should lose sleep about".
He said zoning could be likened to the choice of the entrance to adopt in accessing one's house.
"You have a house, if you decide to go through the back door, nobody is going to stop you but then, you have to decide whether to go through the front or back door", he said.
President Olusegun Obasanjo last week said the PDP had not zoned the presidency to any part of the country yet. The president disclosed this during the June monthly Presidential chat.
Asked if the reform programmes of the Obasanjo regime was capable of lifting the economy from its doldrums, he replied, "I think the economy is doing fine at the moment."
When prodded for further comments on the economy, Babangida replied, "Every country has its own economic problems".
He said what was important was that the right policies are put in place to achieve economic liberation. He stated that it was now the duty of the people to make the economy work as "the policies on the ground are good enough".
He dismissed the claim that leadership is the problem of the country. "No, Nigeria's problems are Nigeria's problems. Everybody has a stake in this country. It starts from our inability to work hard," the former president said.
Meanwhile, a PDP leader, Alhaji Iro Danmusa told journalists that the review of the zoning formula by the PDP would be done preparatory to the 2007 presidential election. He said the move "had become necessary to remove certain ambiguous clauses."
Danmusa told reporters in Kaduna at the weekend that the party did not fix any time frame within which any particular zone should hold the office of the president.
"I am not aware of any time frame attached to zoning of political or party offices, in 1998. This gave opportunity for political office aspirants from every part of the country to seek nomination as presidential candidates during the 2002 national convention, for the 2003 presidential election," he said.
"The party did not stop Chief (Barnabas) Gemade and Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar Rimi from contesting the primary elections.
"If any one of them had won the primary and had become the PDP presidential candidate, the whole zoning of political and party offices at the national level would have been changed.
"Although Chief Obasanjo had won the primary and secondary election, the participation of Gemade and Rimi in the primary had created doubts and undermined the geo-political balancing role of zoning of political and party posts between the North and the South.
"It is therefore not wrong to say that the PDP had not zoned the office. The PDP had not zoned the office of the president for the 2007 election," he said.
He explained that the PDP constitution and its manifesto provide for geo-political balancing as a fundamental principle of power-sharing, hence the zoning and rotation principles.
Danmusa said the impending review of the power sharing principle would confirm or abrogate the zoning idea and also deal with other relevant issues.
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