Zoning 2011 and 2015
M. O. ENÉ
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Nigeria’s politics never lacks
drama. Every commonsensical issue is often magnified and beaten to bits and
bytes. Even when naked natural facts force everyone to a common conclusion,
Nigerians will debate how it could have all gone wrong! Always arguments keep
Nigerians sane in the face of frustrating features they confront constantly; it
is a coping or self-preservation device.
On
the raging national debate about the geopolitical region of the next president
of Nigeria, I have written that “’zoning of the presidency’ is unconstitutional,
undemocratic, and unsustainable” and that “the key solution to the illogicality
(of zoning the presidency) is credible elections.” I concluded that “everything
else is embellishment.” So it should be—as far as I am concerned. [
The
just concluded Labor Day weekend meetings of Ndiigbo in America reopened the
matter for me. The primitive posturing of “zoning the presidency” dominated
almost all side-bar discussions, especially with some political persons from
Nigeria raiding the meeting venues to reap where they had sown divisions.
Interestingly, it appears that the position of president has been ceded to
either Muslim North or Christian South-south. No one mentioned any Igbo, Yoruba,
or northern Christian candidate. No one talked about agenda. It was all about
the “zones” of so-far-declared, frontrunner candidates.
Curiously, these Igbo operatives talked more about 2015 than 2011; that is, how
to ensure the emergence of an Igbo, any Igbo, as president in 2015! This is
sheer insanity; no person or group of persons has the right to negotiate the
right of any qualified Nigerian to seek any elected office: Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba,
Ijaw, Edo, Efik, Ibibio, Nupe, Tiv, etc. No one has the right to enter into a
handshake agreement for power-sharing. Even when written, it is unconstitutional
and illegal to plot the disfranchisement of fellow citizens.
I
didn’t waste my time on such talks. They make no sense. First, the Nigerian
Constitution does not recognize any “zones.” Two, the zones are ill-defined.
Former Vice President Alex Ekwueme proposed six zones: three in the north, and
three in the south. Thirdly, the North sees itself as one Arewa nation, even
with the contradicting and conflicting ethno-religious dynamics. The South
surely sees itself as three major components: Igbo, Yoruba, and others—the Niger
Delta area, which has its own conflicting and contradicting intra- and
inter-ethnic dynamics. Fourthly and finally, there are no guarantees that any
ethnic group, without the legal instrument of a constituted nation, will abide
by an agreement between cabals of self-seeking ethnic bigots masquerading as
national leaders of thought. There is no honor among bigots of any shade.
I am
all for reflecting the federal character in the affairs of Nigeria’s federating
units, and I am in support of respecting state rights. These are enshrined in
the Constitution. However, outside the confines of partisan politics, no one
should attempt to “zone-in” or “zone-out” the presidency or any electable
office. Those Igbo people making silly statements about 2015 should show some
shame, please! Prancing around and waving cooked-up documents that feather
selfish nests will only lead the Igbo to national disappointments, if not
disaster.
While
we must respect the right of any politician to position self with whatever
programs, policies, or procedures, it is about time self-appointed Igbo leaders
stopped entering into “chere-were”
(wait-and-take) contracts on behalf of the Igbo nation. Haven’t we learnt from
history that such political posturing always leaves the Igbo nation carrying the
basket? From Zik and Awo, through Zik and Sarduana, from Gowon and
Odumegwu-Ojukwu in Aburi through Shagari and Ekwueme in the Second Republic,
nothing has shown the willingness of the other side to respect the spirit of old
north-east alliances. Let’s leave alone the Igbophobic wartime and postwar
north-southwest alliances.
Bring
it up to the eve of Y2K, in 1999: These same characters wooing Ndiigbo today
scuttled Ekwueme’s quest for the presidency and handed over the presidency to an
unwilling and just-out-of-jail Obasanjo. The same characters set up Ekwueme in
2003 and quickly dropped him like a sack of stones. Atiku allegedly had Obasanjo
prostrating profusely before yielding, in the hope that the old tortoise will
pay back in 2007. Come 2007, Obasanjo pulled out a joker… literally!
Here
we are on the eve of 2011, dealing with the same characters. Only the mad does
the same thing repeatedly and expects different results. It is not surprising
that Ekwueme is conspicuously but conveniently MIA. He has learnt his lessons.
Here is hoping that APGA, still battling impeding internal interferences, will
not buy into the insanity. I note this because of the postwar
willingness of its principal to make small deals with old northern friends.
The facts here are simple, and the game is simpler. First,
facts: “divine intervention” has positioned President Goodluck Jonathan to run
and win the presidency. If he declines to run, all the madness about zoning will
fizzle away because there is no other southerner able and capable of beating the
organized geopolitical north. So, disorganized by the sudden turn of events and
with Jonathan well-positioned by the instruments of incumbency, the desperados
north of the Niger and Benue confluence see their only chance of getting back to
Aso Rock permanently sealed until 2019. Why? If Jonathan runs and wins, he will
run again in 2015 and win. It’s just the way of political impulses in developing
nations or, as the Igbo say: “Onye
kpu igu ka ewu na-eso.”
So,
to stop Jonathan before he declares his candidacy, these men–notably
northcentral-zone Ibrahim Babangida (IBB), northwest-zone Muhammadu Buhari, and
northeast-zone Atiku Abubakar – have been using every strategy to divide the
Souhtsouth zone (Jonathan’s base), hoodwink southeast-zone (Igbo) political
perambulators into buying “the 2015 Agreement” argument as southeast-zone
position, before they figure out how to contain their wartime allies in the
southwest zone (Yoruba).
I read somewhere
that the former military president, IBB, will formally end the civil war! I
thought it was interesting because General Gowon formally ended the war with
Ukpabi Asika’s “no victor, no vanquished” mantra on January 15, 1970… though
Generals Effiong and Obasanjo had signed an unconditional
surrender-and-acceptance agreement three days earlier on January 12. We know,
how the elaborate “agreements” panned out, complete with the “3R”:
Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation.
Forty
years later, you would think all that was behind us. Then I read
Atiku
Abubakar making the same argument in a message sent to a Nashville,
Tennessee-based “World Igbo Congress Foundation, Inc.”:
This occasion, which brings together Ndiigbo from everywhere, is an
opportune moment for me to remind us all of the need for the total reintegration
of Ndiigbo in the mainstream of Nigerian politics, a goal that we have so far
failed to accomplish 40 years since the end our unfortunate civil war. As we
approach the year 2011 we have an opportunity to make the choices that would
ensure the Igbo are no longer left behind in the political affairs of Nigeria.
This
is the sort of sophomoric statements that some Igbo hacks funnel to
“born-to-rule” Nigerians. Igbo people, Ndiigbo, are not “left behind,” and they
need no “reintegration [into] mainstream… Nigerian politics.” On the contrary,
Nigeria as a county is left behind: no water, no steady electric power, no
dependable communication network, millions of illiterate and destitute beggars
roaming the streets of Atiku’s northern towns, preventable diseases claiming
millions of lives in Atiku’s northeast and elsewhere, jobless youths resorting
to kidnapping and armed robbery all over Nigeria, and ethno-religious extremists
from Atiku’s Hausa-Fulani extraction beheading women and children of Birom
villages in northcentral Plateau State. And this man was the Vice President of
Nigeria for eight years!
My
position is simple, and I will encourage Ndiigbo to consider it: Let us stop
these politicians and their disastrous “2015 Agreement”; we are still living
that of “1914.” We, as a nation, must maintain the basic principle of
“egbe bere, ugo bere.” Let each one
go out there and try to convince other Nigerians and gain their trust. They
should feel free to use any and every argument, but no one should enter into any
political agreement on behalf of Ndiigbo. We must make this position loud and
clear now and for generations to come. Those insensitively antagonizing the Ijaw
are free to express their frustration over “abandoned property” and wartime
alliances and antagonisms, but the position of the Igbo nation must be based on
the constitution, law and order, and equity.
Atiku
revealed in his desperate memo that “recently, the Northern Political Elders
Forum, of which I am one of the conveners, jointly agreed with Igbo leaders that
the North would support the Igbo to produce Nigeria’s President in 2015. It is
in writing, it was widely publicized, and I want to be held to it.” The
agreement is not worth the paper on which it was written; we have seen much more
solid “agreements” in history, and they never held. Atiku’s Enugu declaration of
“I am committed to Igbo Presidency In 2015” is therefore insulting. We do not
need “Igbo presidency,” an expression Ojo Maduekwe had called “idiotic.” Yes, it
will be good to have a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction; in fact, if I were
another Nigerian, I would clamor for that! Fact is, I am against “Igbo
presidency” for the heck of having an Igbo… any Igbo…
as president.
Until
the Igbo and other Nigerians elect their leaders, until every politician is
traced to a legitimate body of voters who exercised their rights freely in a
credible election, these selected and self-appointed “leaders” have no business
entering into agreements on behalf of Ndiigbo or other Nigerians. In a society
where law and order prevail, these so-called “leaders” would be arrested and
prosecuted for trying to fix the outcome of a national election. People have
gone to jail for less… say, fixing game outcomes. This is not a game; it is
about the stealing of the future of Nigeria by a bunch of bad boys who will not
take their filthy mouths off the nipples of Nigeria’s common wealth.