Kenny Ashaka, Kaduna

Dr. Umar Ardo, former governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Adamawa State and a former Special Assistant to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar,   says it is not impossible to have a repetition of what happened during the June 12, 1993 presidential poll.

Ardo, Secretary of the Northern Leaders and Stakeholders Assembly, a political but non-partisan group of northern elite noted that If for example, APC fields a South West candidate and goes to pick a north westerner or north easterner or anywhere from the north and PDP fields a northern candidate and picks a vice-presidential candidate from the South East, June 12 could repeat itself.

There has been this controversy on the issue of zoning of the presidency in 2023. While some people want Nigeria to stick to the present arrangement others in the North say it is the turn of the South West. Which one are you comfortable with?

You know the zoning arrangement is a party issue. But let me ask you: is PDP saying it is going to zone the presidency to the North? You see PDP would want to take over power in 2023 and if APC zones the presidency to the South PDP can come up with the argument that the last zoning it did to the North didn’t bear fruit. Get it clearly, what I am saying is that if APC zones the presidency to the South because PDP would want to win leadership at all cost, so to speak, PDP may want to come up with the argument that since the last nomination of a northerner didn’t yield fruit they can nominate a northerner again. They may say it is not about nominating but about forming government. They can come up with the argument that they did not form government before and therefore their zoning formula to the North will still suffice. That is what I think. I am not speaking for PDP and I don’t know what PDP is thinking. But that is my thinking in the light of the question you asked me.

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But in terms of fairness and equity taking into consideration the country as a whole, what do you think? Some Nigerians think it is now the turn of the South East.

Well, you know the whole thing is politics and when you talk of politics sometimes political expediency takes precedence over the rule of law and justice. So if PDP would want to take over power and they know that zoning the presidency to the North would give them power PDP would do that. That is what you call political expediency. It takes precedence over fairness, almost every time and in every clime. That is why people commit injustice; disobey the law just to score political goals. It is only good work that will stop political expediency from taking precedence over fairness.

Are you sure that PDP would not lose the 2023 presidential election if they field someone from the North?

I want you to realise that in terms of size, the three zones in the North constitute almost 60 percent of the population in Nigeria and politics is a game of numbers. If for example, APC fields a South West candidate and goes to pick a north westerner or north easterner or anywhere from the North and PDP fields a northern candidate and picks a vice-presidential candidate from the South East, except June 12, 1993 repeats itself, then PDP will win.

You can take a south westerner, say for example, if APC picks Bola Tinubu and Bola Tinubu takes a Muslim from the North as his running mate it is likely that they will win. Even if PDP fields a northerner as its candidate and a south easterner as his running mate, APC can still win. It is even too early to say with precision who will win given that there are so many political variables that have not come to play yet. It will also depend heavily on what this government of APC does in the next four years. If the APC government performs well and carries people along they can bring a southerner and win the election. It can also happen that if APC does not perform and carry people along, PDP can bring a northern candidate and they will win the election. So you can’t say for sure now which of the parties would win but as time goes on, give me say one year from now I should be able to tell you with some degree of certainty the party and candidate that would win the 2023 presidential election. If Tinubu is picked for instance there is the likelihood that northerners would say ‘okay here is a man who has helped a fellow northerner in the person of President Muhammadu Buhari to power and most of the Muslims will say oh! this is a fellow Muslim so why should we not reciprocate good gesture for good gesture.’ He can even win election given the role he has played over these years since 1999. So there are a lot of things that can play out in 2023.that can change the political arithmetic of this country in the next four years.