An Igbo adage says a child who dances melodious ‘surugede’ does not know that ‘surugede’ is a song of the spirits. The road to the 2023 general election is filled with many ‘surugede’ dancers. But, in a bid to out-dance one another, they fail to realise that those beating the drums for them in the bush are possessed by the spirit of greed and catastrophe.
Take the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for instance. Here is a party, which ruled Nigeria for 16 years. For those 16 years, the South-East was solidly behind it. In fact, the region played a major role in the formation of the party. Somebody like the former Vice-President, the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme, had to even relinquish his ambition to be President so that the South-West could be assuaged for the injustice done to the region with the annulment of June 12, 1993, presidential election presumably won by the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola. 
Even in the last general election, the people of the South-East stood behind the PDP despite all odds. For this reason, they have faced different kinds of marginalization and exclusion.
Today, when the PDP is supposed to pay back, it started playing Russian roulette with the zone. Last Wednesday, May 11, the party jettisoned zoning and threw its presidential race open. According to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party, it took this action in conformity with the recommendation of its National Zoning Committee. The committee, led by Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, had recommended that the presidential race be left open.
The PDP’s stand has riled many individuals and groups. The Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) said the PDP had dug its own grave. Apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, noted that the opposition party’s action was the height of deception and treachery.
The party had maintained the principle of zoning to give every section of the country a sense of belonging. It is even enshrined in its constitution. That was why the late President Umaru Yar’Adua from the North-West took over from former President Olusegun Obasanjo from the South-West when the latter completed his tenure in 2007. When Yar’Adua died in 2010, his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, from the South-South, succeeded him. After Jonathan, the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, who is also from the North-West, ascended the mantle of leadership. All these were in line with the zoning principle in practice in both the PDP and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The year 2023 is supposed to be that of the South-East, having not produced the President since the advent of this democratic dispensation in 1999. Even before 1999, the South-East has suffered marginalization in leadership circles. The North has always dominated in leadership at the centre.
Based on this fact, some patriotic and honest elder statesmen advised that the South-East be allowed to produce the president in 2023 for the sake of equity, fairness and justice. They include the leader of the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, Pa Ayo Adebanjo; the leader of PANDEF, Chief Edwin Clark; and elder statesman, Tanko Yakassai, among others.
Pa Adebanjo put it this way: “When it is now the turn of the South and the South-East, they are now propounding a new theory – the question of merit. If it was based on merit, till today, till thy kingdom come, the East alone will produce President.”
Warning that there might be no Nigeria without zoning in 2023, Chief Clark said on Arise Television recently: “Nigeria stood on three legs, and it has never been steady since one of the legs was destroyed during the civil war. If zoning, which will heal the wounds, is not done, there will be no Nigeria. Nobody will remain in this country as a second-class citizen. The North believes their population can be used to oppress other Nigerians. This is not acceptable. The era of that has gone. There are many good northerners but the Fulani-oriented ones want to dominate everywhere.”
The president of the Middle Belt Forum, Dr. Pogu Bitrus, spoke in the same vein. According to him, “Nigeria cannot be a stable and prosperous country, if some of its constituent parts behave as if they were the natural masters of everyone and that everyone else exists at their pleasure and to serve them.”
Unfortunately, these voices of reason and selflessness have been drowned in the ocean of selfishness. Some northerners who had profited from the zoning arrangement and who had threatened fire and brimstone when there were attempts to compromise that principle have turned 360 degrees against zoning. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar had warned in 2010 that the PDP should jettison zoning at its own peril. Now, people like him have pressurized the opposition party to throw its presidential contest open so they can also participate.
Even in the ruling party, some selfish interests in the North are scheming to foist Jonathan as a candidate. Without his knowledge, as he claimed, some pastoralists bought the APC’s N100 million presidential nomination and expression of interest forms for him. Here is someone the North seriously opposed in the run-up to the 2015 presidential election and variously described him as clueless, weak and incompetent. The interest of those urging him to run for President now is principally to use him to stop the South-East from getting close to the seat of power. They know that Jonathan can only rule for one term, if he wins. If that happens, the North will come back to rule for another eight years.
Who is fooling whom? The framers of our Constitution were not stupid when they included Section 14(3), which is on the federal character principle in the 1999 Constitution. In doing that, they realized that Nigeria is a heterogeneous society where equity, fairness and justice must be entrenched to engender peace and unity. The quota system in our school system is part of this conscious effort to carry every section of the country along in our developmental journey. Rotating or sharing political offices is part of this principle.
Today, this system is in danger. If the South-East is denied the opportunity to produce the President in 2023, that will be the collapse of zoning as we know it. The consequences will be catastrophic.
One, the agitation in the South-East will heighten. Government has only succeeded in banning the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on paper. In reality, the organisation is still a potent force in the region. There are some other variegated groups claiming to be fighting for the emancipation of the people of the South-East. Unknown gunmen are some of them. They have been killing security agents in the region without much challenge from any quarter.
Two, there may not be any election in the region if there is no South-Easterner contesting as a presidential candidate in any of the major parties. Ohanaeze Ndigbo has hinted at this possibility. Those who think this poses no threat to the country should have a rethink. If a significant section of the country boycotts election, it will send a very bad signal to the international community. Investors will never come in such a situation and the country may become ungovernable.
Two legal luminaries, Afe Babalola and Robert Clarke, may have anticipated this scenario when they advocated interim government and extension of the tenure of the present administration by six months, respectively. While Babalola proposed setting up an interim national government to address some issues affecting Nigeria, Clarke proposed that Buhari’s tenure be extended to enable him to tackle insecurity before conducting election in 2023. Even though their propositions are distasteful, they are a sign that all is not well with our country and its transition programme.
The year 2023 will be a defining one for Nigeria. I had said it before and it is worth repeating that the 2023 presidential slot should be ceded to the South-East. It is the only major region that is yet to occupy the seat of power at the centre. The South-West has done two terms of eight years and is currently doing two terms of another eight years as Vice-President. Anyone from that zone aspiring to be President in 2023 does not love this country. Any northerner angling to be President after Buhari in 2023 does not want peace in Nigeria. Such people are the ‘surugede’ dancers. And their dance steps portend serious danger to the survival of this country.
Re: Flying to heaven at a discount
Casmir, ‘the ignoramus’ are obviously looking for short cuts to heaven despite the scriptures making it clear that all we need is to be ‘genuinely born again’ and to wait for ‘the hope of our calling’- Jesus. No man knows the hour that rapture would occur in which the saints would be ‘caught up in the air with Christ’ and the dead would rise from their sleep. Only the father knows the time! We are certainly in the end time. The bible states that the likes of Pastor Abraham would manifest and exploit ‘the mugus’ among us. Disaster awaits those who take the words of these supposedly men of God hook, line and sinker. Pastor Abraham wants to satisfy his belly and enrich himself. They are looking onto him rather than ‘look into the word and onto Jesus’ – who is ‘the author and the finisher of our faith’. The wrath of God awaits him on the day of judgement when the sheep would be separated from goats like him. I cry Abba father over all reprobate souls like him who refuse to genuinely repent IJN!
– Mike, Mushin, Lagos, +2348161114572
Bible made us to understand that judgement will start from the pulpit because of so many evil our so-called pastors always commit to make money. l believe the Christian Association of Nigeria and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria have roles to play in order to cleanse our Christendom before so-called pastors destroy it. How can a pastor charge members to pay money for their journey to heaven? Where did God tell him to charge members?
– Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia, +2348062887535