ABUJA—A FOUNDING leader of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the socio-cultural umbrella organisation for the North, Chief Sunday Awoniyi said yesterday that the question of the 2007 presidency going to the North had been discussed and settled, maintaining that the ACF would not allow the North to be short-changed on the issue.
Gov. Orji Kalu of Abia State has disputed claims that President Olusegun Obasanjo would determine who succeeds him in 2007 but confirmed a statement by Gov. Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State, the PDP caucus had zoned the presidency to the North come 2007.
Speaking with Vanguard in Abuja, Chief Awoniyi, a former member of the PDP Board of Trustees, declared that there was no negotiating the fact that the presidency should return to the North in 2007, and described as unnecessary, the raging controversy on which zone of the country should have it.
He said that on the basis of his knowledge of the tough discussions that nearly split the North on the issue of power shift to the South in 1999, he could categorically state that the intention was that the presidency would rotate to the North in 2007 on North/South, South/North basis and not on a zonal basis.
The controversy on the zoning of the presidency has acquired a life of its own following President Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement penultimate Sunday that the PDP had not yet zoned the plum post and that the only zone that is disqualified from the presidential race is the South-West zone from where he comes.
But Awoniyi described as red herring the primacy, which people now try to give to the geo-political zones and in the process, allow unnecessary agitation in the polity.
He said: “ACF is non-partisan politically. Each political party will field a presidential candidate and the ACF will not have a say in who those party candidates would be. But on the issue of whether the presidency should come to the North or not, from my close knowledge of the discussions that led to the decision to allow the presidency to go to the South, there can be no question, no doubt whatsoever that the intention was that the president should come to the North in 2007.
“Many of those who talk against the slot coming to the North knew little or nothing about the tough discussions that nearly split the North on the issue, but for the typical northern wise counsel that prevailed in the end.
“If the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo had been alive today, I am sure he would have spoken up and not allow the political goal post to be shifted in the middle of the match. The shift was to be North-South-North-South. There was no thought of a shift to any so-called zone in the South or in the North. This is the simple truth, when we were packaging it,” he said.
Pressed further to speak more on the 1999 discussions that sealed the arrangement to shift the presidency to the South, he said: “I will have more to say on this subject at a more appropriate time and venue in the future. The only thing that needs to be said now is that come 2007, the presidency shifts to the North. Not any specific part of the North but to the North as a whole: a northern ticket.
“The North would then be left to decide who and where this jointly-owned northern slot should go and who should be supported to fill it. The primacy which people are now trying to give to the so-called geo-political zones appears to me like a red herring which should not be allowed to agitate the polity unnecessarily.
“The ACF will not allow the North to be short-changed on this issue. Northern reasonableness and accommodation of yesteryear must not be treated and made to look like folly. It was done in those difficult days for the good of the nation.”
Gov Kalu speaks on zoning
Meanwhile, speaking to reporters yesterday in Lagos, Gov. Kalu said the president was only entitled to one vote and could not, therefore, determine who his successor would be.
He said: “The president is not the only party man. The decision lies in the party delegates; the party delegates will decide who will be president, the president has only one vote.
“It’s only one vote like I do. But, if they say the president can influence the party delegates, that I agree. He might call them by the side and lobby them than saying that the president will stay in his bedroom to decide. I’m sure the president himself will disagree with that statement.”
Governor Kalu reiterated the claims of his Akwa Ibom State counterpart, Chief Victor Attah, that the party caucus in 2002 in Abuja zoned the presidency to the North come 2007, even though it was an unwritten agreement.
He said that gentleman’s agreement that the North should provide the next president would not preclude the South-East zone from going for the plum job. According to him, every zone in the country has the right to vie for the presidency, adding that the South-East zone will negotiate itself to power in the same manner as the South-West did in 1998.
“Governor Attah was correct. In our caucus meeting in 2002 in the Presidential Villa, it was agreed that the South should hold the presidency for eight years and that it will move to the North. It was an agreement, it wasn’t written, that’s the truth. Governor Attah was at the meeting, I was at the meeting and many other governors were all there. The president, his vice and chairman of the party were all there, but since Ohanaeze says we are going for the presidency, I stand by the decision of Ohanaeze.
“But what Governor Attah said is the correct thing. If we are changing baton now, I stand by Ohanaeze,” said Kalu, who reiterated the South-East plans to negotiate power with all geo-political regions of the country. He noted that the 2007 elections would be different from the elections in 2003, stressing: “It’s going to be free; it’s going to efficient; it’s not going to be everybody doing what they like.”
