BY EMMANUEL YAWE
The history of zoning the presidency in Nigeria to a particular region of the country began as the country prepared to ditch the western parliamentary system and adopt the American presidential system of government.
The National Party of Nigeria as it prepared for its primaries in 1978 announced that only politicians from the defunct Northern Region were eligible to contest for the office of the President. The powers behind that party did not, and have never given reason for that decision even as it gave the other parties particularly those from the South room to raise a lot of dust against it. The party eventually won the presidential race in 1979.
Some of us suspected that what precipitated that decision was the unfair murder of those amiable conservative politicians from the North who had been winning national elections in the First Republic under the political party they founded, the Northern People’s Congress, NPC. Most of the victims of the coup of January 15 – both civilian and military – were from the North. This became apparent when northerners began to stake stock of their losses. The coup, led by southern officers, suspiciously targeted mostly northern politicians and military officers with a killing pattern that did not reflect the Federal character of Nigeria.
The rest is now history; the counter coup, the declaration of Biafra and the victory of the federal troops over the secessionist troops. The blame for the decimation of northern leadership was heaped on the military and as the country returned to democracy, the northern politicians may have argued and convinced the political class of the time that the North was the offended region that needed succor. All the same, it was a decision taken by the NPN and nobody else. With a Presidential candidate from the North and the Vice- Presidential candidate from the South, the party went ahead to win the presidential race.
The closest rival of the NPN, the UPN, produced its Presidential candidate from the South and its vice-presidential candidate also from the South. This was widely considered a strategic political blunder which lay the party open to all types of allegations. Certainly it cost the party a sizeable number of votes.
The democratic experience that bought in an NPN president was very brief, 1979 to 1983. The military took over power at the end of that year. They soon embarked on what looked like an endless transition program which ended in an aborted presidential election on June 12 1993, which Chief Moshood Abiola, a Yoruba of the South West, won, fair and square. The military voided that election and hastily beat a retreat by arranging for a civilian, Chief Earnest Shonekan, who was not a candidate in the election, to take over as president.
This decision was not popular with the people and the military soon sacked the unelected president and General Abacha took over power as Head of State. He ruled from 1993 to 1998 when he died in office. Tragically, Abiola, the winner of the June 12, 1983 election, also died while in detention.
General Abubakar Abdulasam who took over after Abacha’s death was able to organise a business like transition program, which in a matter of months ushered in a new Presidential system. The feeling, spearheaded by northern politicians, was that in the spirit of reconciliation and national rebirth, the South and particularly the South West, should produce the next president. The two leading political parties, the PDP and the ANPP all featured only southern candidates. That was how the zoning system, invented by the NPN as a novel in-house political arrangement, was given a national rebirth.
The PDP even wrote it in their constitution that the presidency be rotated between the North and the South. Some northern politicians in the PDP, like Abubakar Rimi of Kano protested openly, saying zoning was against the principles of democracy to no avail. At the Jos convention of the PDP of 1999, Obasanjo emerged as the party’s candidate and went ahead to win the general election.
Thus, with the PDP giving us a president by zoning, our current system was born on the wobbly clay feet of producing a president by allocation. Even though this is not inserted in the 1999 constitution, it has become a belief that the office of president should be rotated ala the PDP constitution between the North and the South.
“Should our country keep operating a system that has led us to the mess we are in today all because we believe in a historically defective tradition of presidency by allocation and not by competence?
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With the presidency now occupied by Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner who won the election on the ticket of the APC, the controversy has come back to life again. All southern governors held a meeting in Lagos and issued a statement that the presidency in 2023 MUST be moved to the south.
They have thus reignited the argument by Abubakar Rimi in 1999 about zoning and democracy. Already the PDP, which has zoning embedded in their constitution, has given hint that this is their way to go by preparing Iyorchia Ayu, a northerner to emerge as their National party chairman. They are ready to abide by their party constitution, which makes allocation of presidency between the North and South a guiding principle.
On the other hand, the APC, the ruling party, has no such provision in their constitution. The youthful Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, has offered himself and is making waves as a presidential hopeful in the 2023 elections. He has by his bold step ruffled powerful figures in the southern wing of the APC who are eyeing the presidency based on their belief in the ‘turn by turn presidency.’
Suddenly, the EFCC, as if acting on some prompting, has become very active in Kogi State, combing all departments of the state government and churning out allegations of impropriety against his government. The anti-graft agency raised the allegation that the state fixed a N20 billion bail-out fund. Now the onus is on them to prove that such a massive heist took place in Kogi. We are waiting on the EFCC.
At the All Nigeria Editors Conference, ANEC, in Abuja a few days ago, the governor proudly displayed his report card, which showed many awards from the World Bank, Auditor and Accountant Generals office, which have all named him as running the most transparent state government in Nigeria.
On the vexed issue of security, the man also had on display awards his government has won from reputable local and international organizations for pulling Kogi out of the bottomless pit of the most insecure state in Nigeria to the glorious height of one of the most secured states. For a state that shares borders with 10 other states, some of which are besotted by the current maladies of banditry and terrorism, this is no mean feat.
Should our country keep operating a system that has led us to the mess we are in today all because we believe in a historically defective tradition of presidency by allocation and not by competence?
Yawe is the National Publicity Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum
