One of the severe tests that the President elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, will face or is already facing even before he fully assumes office on May 29, is how to figure out and form a government of bright and able men and women and at the same time ensure that the principal political, administrative and bureaucratic offices are distributed in a fair and equitable manner among the various geo-political zones.
A political leader in Nigeria must demonstrate his administrative and political astuteness by how well he is able to fashion out an alchemy or marriage between merit and fair representation. Buhari’s success or the lack of it in this regard will determine how long his honeymoon with a resurgent electorate full of high expectation would last.
At a time like this when a new government is about to begin, Nigerians scrutinize its every move with a magnifying glass to see if its agenda would be the promotion of sectional, religious or regional interest or whether it has a pan-Nigerian vision that would create peace and stability. Buhari therefore needs enormous prayers and a high dose of God ordained wisdom not to disappoint when he releases especially his first set of appointments.
Ordinarily, as the president elect comes from the North-west zone and his Vice from the South-west, the next most powerful position in our own arrangement, the Senate President, should have rightly belonged to the South East. No one would have dared to contest that with the Ibos, they being one leg of the tripod upon which Nigeria stands. But the cold reality is that there is hardly any Ibo senator from the now majority party, APC. And even if there was one, it is doubtful if there is any ranking member from that zone who also has other qualities that would command the respect and followership of his colleagues to clinch it for the Ibos.
An argument would also have arisen that since the South-south has just recently lost the coveted office of the presidency and given the spirit of sportsmanship so ably demonstrated by President Goodluck Jonathan, that zone should be compensated or have their feeling of terrible loss assuaged with the number three position in the land.
But just like the Ibos of the SE, there is hardly any senator of the APC from the SS to be considered for the position.
Given the foregoing, it then means that the position will, inevitably, have to go to the North. The question is: which part of the North? For obvious reason, the North-west where Buhari comes from is ruled out. It can’t have the lion share and be seeking to add that of the hippopotamus to its own. We are therefore left with the NE and the NC.
Even without much thought, the NC can easily be disqualified for eyeing the senate presidency this time around.
Since the Second Republic until now, the NC has had a great romance with the offices of senate president or deputy senate president so much so that it looks as if those two positions have become ‘indigenous’ to them. The list of men from the NE who have either been senate president or the vice is so long that any fair-minded person would agree that other zones should also be given a chance to taste those two offices of the upper chamber of the legislature. Ameh Ebute, John Wash Pam, Iorchia Ayu and of course David Mark who has very ably led the senate for eight years and brought stability and respect to that house of law-making.
This of course leaves the space wide open for the NE to lay a very good claim to that powerful office. The zone is solidly APC and has several ranking members with the experience and ability to provide leadership to the senate. My aim here is not to canvas for any candidate from that zone so I won’t mention names of suitable candidates from the place. The rebuilding of that region can begin with the apportioning of a high profile position such as that of the senate presidency to a man from the place.
It is a part of our system to reward marginalized places with high offices of state as a way of giving them a sense of belonging. That was one of the powerful logic behind the emergence of Jonathan . It will therefore not be out of place that the NE deserves the office of the senate presidency.
It looks obvious to me that with the risks and the troubles that Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi took in the cause of Buhari and the APC, he will be the unchallenged candidate for the position of Secretary to the Government of the Federation. What then goes to the SE? Based on performance in the elections for the presidency and the National Assembly, the SE seems to have ‘zoned’ themselves out of the first six or seven principal positions in the land, but there are many other powerful MDAs position that the zone can get so that everyone sleeps well thinking that he has a share in Nigeria.
Forming a government in a polity where so much premium is placed on who gets what political appointment is not an easy task for the man at the very top. Nigerians are all eagerly waiting to see how Buhari will pass this very first test before he even unfolds his key developmental agenda for Nigeria.
Markus Danjuma,
Karu, Nasarawa state
