William Shakespeare was one of the best writers of his time. He was an ancient political kingdom story teller. In one of his classics, Julius Caesar, he revealed that no matter how secured a system may be, it succumbs to and may be brought down by conspiracy. Caesar was the most powerful warrior of his time. He was a Roman Army General who subdued the ancient world under Rome and was fearfully reverred around the ancient world. As usual, his success and greatness attracted jealousy from his immediate friends and associates who feared that Romans may decide to make him King as a way to compensate him for all his military and administrative accomplishments for Rome which have brought great honour and wealth to all Romans. This was even as Rome had chased out their last autocratic King and vowed never to be ruled by a King again. Not knowing how else to stop his advancement to the throne, his associates decided to kill him.
He became so powerful that he lost the adrenaline for fear. He was warned by the gods and soothsayers that his close associates were plotting to kill him on the ides of March and that he should not relax on his security because “security gives way to conspiracy”. But Ceasar assured his associates that he rather told them what is to be feared than what he feared, for always he was Ceasar. He boasted that the things that threatened him could only see his back because when they shall see his face they are vanished, for danger knew very well that Caesar was more dangerous than he. He refused to heed all the warnings and ended being killed on the ides of March by his associates and people he loved in the capitol. His death led to great instability in Rome which led to a bitter civil war that wiped out all the conspirators and saw successive Caesars took control of Rome until Jesus came and made the famous quote, “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s”. Rendering everyone his due, without discrimination, is the technical definition of justice and equity.
2023 presidential election is intriguing. The South-East is by all calculation and permutation the entitled Geo-Political Zone that should produce the next President of Nigeria. The doctrine of power shift and rotation of the post of President in Nigeria between North and South was ordained in Nigeria in 1998 as a buffer against domination by North or South, while the doctrine of zoning emanated from the 1996 Abacha Constitutional Conference in which Nigeria was divided into six Geo-Political Zones for the sharing of all appointive, elective posts and social amenities among the Geo-Political Zones. Sharing formula, therefore, on the basis of Geo-Political Zones is even older than the rotation between North and South. The rotation came as a result of the injury caused by the cancellation of June 12 election which created the impression that the North didn’t want the South to ever become President in Nigeria. The South felt that the North was in conspiracy to perpetually cling to power at all cost to the detriment of the political interest of the South. North, in order to make amends and dissuade the South from this divisive impression, voluntarily agreed to rotate power with the South of Nigeria. This concession saw Nigeria achieve some sort of stability since 1999, despite a lot of doomsday predictions both from home and abroad.
The North is about to complete its two-term of eight years, making it ripe for the doctrine of rotation to be activated. However, in the South, South-West and South-South have had their turns at the Presidency. They have produced both the President and the Vice. South-East has produced none. What is very disturbing is the amount of conspiracy channelled towards killing the rotation and the zoning arrangement just because it is the turn of the South-East to produce the President. It’s important to note that it is not the North that is part of this conspiracy, it’s the South-West and South-South, that are conspiring to deny the South-East, and most probably the entire South, from producing the next President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The North is simply being opportunistic, seeing that the South-West and the South-South are not willing to step down for the South-East. They know that it is only the South-East that has the right to talk about zoning on the basis of equity and justice. They also know that the South-West and South-South are conspiring to unjustly take it away from the South-East. In this regard, they will have no qualms scheming to take it from the South.
Those Northern opportunists are right. Atiku Abubakar made it clear that he will step down if PDP zones its presidential ticket to theSouth-East, but will not step down if it’s zoned to the South-West or the South-South. Initially, it was looking as if it was a forgone conclusion that the seat of the President has been zoned to the South in APC. Recently, the APC’s new NWC has indicated its preference for throwing the seat open to all aspirants. About 4 Northerners have been positioned to compete with about 21 aspirants from the South. The result of the primary is almost too obvious to see. Senator Prof Olusola Adeyeye, who represented Osun central in the Senate, publicly declared that if zoning should be the yardstick for determining the next President, it is the turn of the South-East to produce the next President. The Olugbon of Ogbomosho, Oba Francis Olusola Alao, Deputy Chairman Oyo Council of Obas, unequivocally declared that morally speaking, power should go to the South-East. President Obasanjo and Olu Falae are gradually sharing such sentiments. Recall that the Afenifere leader, Ayo Adebanjo, has already declared support for the emergence of a South-East President come 2023. Same goes with South-South leaders championed by Chief Edwin Clark. This indicates a unanimity of the Southern part of Nigeria in its determination to produce the next President of Nigeria.
As wonderful as these efforts are, the majority of those campaigning for this obvious truth are not the politicians. The politicians are mostly power grabbers who are only interested in their selfish ends, without any regard to national interest or the interest of the next generation. They are only interested in the next election and how they will be coronated the next President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Since equity and justice is not in their dictionary, they are busy conspiring among themselves to deny the South-East its due. In their quest to deny the South-East of its due, they exhibit poor sense of judgement and naivety that have not been known in the political history of Nigeria.
Take a look at the array of aspirants in APC. They are about 25 aspirants, but only four are Northerners. The South has contributed about N2.1 billion naira to the coffers of APC presidential campaign, while the North has contributed only N400 million naira. When the money will be shared for campaign to the states, local governments and wards, the North will get the lion share, while the South will get the smaller share. If the primary is conducted under a free and fair atmosphere, with Northern delegate list being more, with fewer presidential aspirants, your guess is as good as mine who will win. Same scenario is emerging in the PDP. The Southern presidential aspirants from the South-West and South-South may succeed in killing the presidential aspiration of the South-East in 2023, through conspiracy, as the Roman conspirators killed Caesar, because we have always maintained that the opposite of North is South, meaning that the South-East may not win the primary without the support of South-West and South-South, but they may also destroy their own chances of democratically emerging Presidents in the nearest future, with very few exceptions, because whoever is pinning another on the ground cannot also get up.
It’s obvious that the only reason PDP is jettisoning zoning is because it’s the turn of the South-East to produce the next President. They are bold enough to do this because South-East is the only Geo-Political Zone that the PDP understands is daft enough to do nothing against the interest of the party if it denies their South-East members their due. When some power grabbers abandoned President Goodluck Jonathan in Eagle Square to join APC to defeat PDP, they remained with the PDP. The incumbent APC government assured them of 5% of patronage in accordance with 5% of their votes for him, yet they remained in PDP. Exactly the same power grabbers who left PDP for APC in 2015, left APC in 2019 for PDP again in 2019 and the same “wise men” from the South-East supported the zoning of the presidential ticket to the North and indeed supported unequivocally the emergence of one of the power grabbers as the presidential candidate of the party, on the understanding that there will be a reciprocal attitude from the power grabbers towards the South-East when power rotates back to South. A power grabber publicly acknowledged that it is the turn of the South-East to produce the next President, but of course cannot, in the interest of the South-East, or Nigeria, step down. He must live up to the true meaning of a power grabber who wants the power for himself and no one else, no matter the justice of the situation. Today, the PDP has thrown its presidential ticket open to everybody and told the South-East to go to hell.
South-East must switch to option B. The South-East aspirants in each major political party must meet among themselves and heed the advice of Ayo Adebanjo, the Afenifere leader, to bring out one person from among them and support him to emerge as the only contestant from the South-East. It would have been fashionable to allow every aspirant from the South-East to contest if the ticket had been zoned to the South-East, but in the absence of the zoning arrangement, the South-East must remember the secret of success in assuming power in a democracy which we have always preached: cohesion among your people and collaboration with other peoples of Nigeria. The South-East must be prepared to repay PDP for its mortal disdain and hatred for South-East. If South-East is not qualified to be President in a party they led in its formation and has supported since 1999 without wavering, then that party is not worthy to get a single vote again in the South-East. It is disheartening that PDP accepted the zoning formula by Governor Ugwuanyi that returned the National Chairman of PDP to the North and accepted Gov Ortom’s zoning formula that denied the post of President of Nigeria to the South. Barring any divine intervention, both the National Chairman and the President will come from the North in PDP and maybe APC. What a conspiracy! However, there is God.