Salawudeen Adegbenro
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) zoning controversy of 2010, following the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, was the beginning of the current political acrimony and bitter rivalries between the north and south. In fact, the fallout of that acrimony got so bad that the PDP became like a house divided against itself. The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) took advantage of the PDP internal crisis to poach five governors from the ruling party. A once largest political party, the PDP, today found itself grappling with bitterness and division. In fact, the PDP will never be the same again. Zoning suffered a fatal blow with the death of Yar’Adua.
When President Yar’Adua died in May 2010, zoning faced its greatest challenge ever. Its opponents said it should not be rigidly enforced in the light of new realities brought on by Yar’Adua’s death. The argument against zoning was that it sacrifices merit, although this argument was opportunistic because its opponents were beneficiaries of the same power-sharing arrangement. It is too idealistic for anybody to say that religion, ethnicity and regionalism don’t count in the country’s power equation.
There is no section of Nigeria without men and women of merit. Therefore, the argument that zoning sacrifices merit does not hold water. Given the peculiarities of Nigeria and the posture of the majority ethnic groups to dominate power on the sheer strength of numbers, Nigeria needs zoning to enable the minorities have access to political power at the highest level – the presidency. Minorities are contributing to the development of Nigeria. And for that reason, I see no reason why any group should be denied access to power because they are small.
I am not persuaded that democracy is rigidly a game of numbers. If a fair power sharing system is in place, it may go a long way to reduce tension in the country. I detest the idea of dismissing any people as “insignificant” because they are small. This cannot be an attractive feature of any democratic system. Despite being a minority Tutsi politician, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has restored stability to his country – a country once torn by genocide in 1994. A leader’s capacity to do justice to all is more important than his minority status.
It may not be ideal, but it is necessary for our peculiar political realities.
In a brilliant opinion he published in Thisday newspaper in the wake of the zoning controversy, former Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme recalled that the abandoned Abacha constitution would have made the controversy absolutely unnecessary. Chief Ekwueme, who was a member of the 1994-95 Political Conference, said the Abacha constitution had entrenched power rotation. And that would have made power rotation more binding than zoning, which was unconstitutional. The lack of constitutional backing was the biggest challenge to zoning after President Yar’Adua’s death in 2010.
According to Dr. Ekwueme, if the Abacha constitution had not been discarded, the political crisis over President Jonathan’s ambition to contest in 2011 would have been avoidable. The former Nigerian Vice President said under the provisions of the Abacha constitution, if a President died in office, the Vice President would act for only three months pending the election of a new President from the same zone that produced the deceased President. That would have automatically ended the argument of any section complaining that it was not allowed to complete its tenure.
Power rotation should be entrenched in our constitution to guarantee all Nigerians the right and access to the country’s highest public office. If the Abacha constitution had not been abandoned, the country could have avoided the bitterness of succession controversy that accompanied the death of President Yar’Adua. Abandoning the Abacha constitution, despite its important provisions, was like throwing away the baby with bath water. In the light of Nigeria’s peculiarities, there is nothing wrong entrenching power rotation in the constitution to avoid the bitterness that go with the perceived fear of domination by one group over others.
Adegbenro wrote from No. 68, Koforidua Street, Zone 2, Wuse. Email: [email protected]
