Presidency 2007: Is the 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 being now witnessed was not experienced; same goes for the period
beginning from October 1979 when Alhaji Shehu 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 is 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 are out to
"out cheat" them in a game that they also have handfuls of tricks to
cheat others! If you say 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 from Balewa (5.5 years) to Ironsi (6 months),
Gowon (9 years), Muhammed (7 months), Obasanjo (3.5 years), Shagari (4 years 3
months), Buhari (1.5 years), Babangida (8 years), Shonekan (3 months) Abacha (4
years 8 months), Abubakar (12 months) and again, Obasanjo (May 1999 - date).
Put zonally, the frequency translates to: North East (once) North Central
(thrice), North West (four times), South West (thrice), South East (once) and
South South (nil).
The above shows that only the South South has not had
the privilege of headship in the 44 years of Nigeria's independence. Of these
44 years, the military held power for about 30, and the civilians the remaining
14 years.
It is appropriate at this point to remark that among
the most active presidential gladiators since the inauguration of Abdulsalam
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
minister), 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
hand over 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 drafting
committee not being 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 was 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
military insurrection, 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 Marwas, 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 babanriga.
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 explicitly zone it 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. Rotational presidency, for the
time being, is an innovation of expediency to calm nerves that could otherwise
have been frayed in inter-ethnic struggle over who becomes the number-one
citizen.
There are 36 states and a Federal Capital Territory,
with 19 states in the north and 17 in the south. The last population census
(1993) distributes population as about 54 per cent in the North and about 46
per cent 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 evolved were North-East, North-West, and North-Central
for the geographical North. For the South, we have 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 such and serve two terms guaranteed in
the 1999 Constitution. Therefore, the nation started on a politically clean
slate on 29 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 afterthought.
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 General Muhammadu 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 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 Alex 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
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 Shagari in 1979.
With Obasanjo's two-term presidency, or alternatively
if Ekwueme 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 Rimis), the PDP 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: Colonel Ojukwu and
General Nwachukwu. Ndigbo could have rallied all Igbo sons and daughters behind
one of them, and also ensured that elections were not rigged 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 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 Igbo
could have been positioned for 2007 by massively voting for General Buhari.
Having lost the two opportunities for an Ndigbo
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 Dr Chuba Okadigbo spoke about to the Igbo nation, had it
been understood and supported enthusiastically by all Ndigbos, could have produced President
Buhari and Vice-President Okadigbo 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 oft 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. Obasanjo should be succeeded by someone from the geographical
north. The three zones of the north should, therefore, brace 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 29 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 put 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.
Chief Funso Ologunde, a former presidential flagbearer,
is the South-West zonal organising secretary, ANPP. He wrote from Ikeja, Lagos.
