I pity the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). What the opposition party is going through regarding zoning the 2023 presidential contest is akin to the tsetse fly that perches on one’s scrotum. Kill it or leave it, one will still be in trouble.

Recent reports indicated that the party’s committee set up to tackle the zoning issue recommended that the contest should be thrown open. Although the head of the committee, Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State, quickly denied the reports, the PDP has not come out of the zoning fix it has found itself. People are anxiously waiting for the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), which has the final say on the matter.

Legitimately, the South is insisting that it is its turn to produce the next President of Nigeria. Among groups championing this agitation are Southern governors, Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum and many others.

The argument is that there is a rotation principle in the PDP’s constitution, which must be respected. Since 1999, this rotation principle has been in practice between the North and the South. The incumbent President is from the North. He will serve out his two terms next year. Naturally, it should be the turn of the South to produce the next President.

However, major stakeholders from the North are opposed to zoning. In their enlightened self-interest, they fear it will shut them out of the equation and make them wait for another eight years before the presidency comes their way again. The Northern Elders Forum, the Arewa Consultative Forum and some others are among the northern groups championing the no-zoning philosophy. Their argument is that zoning is not in the Nigerian Constitution. Some say the South has ruled more than the North in this democratic dispensation.

As I have argued here before, the Constitution does not need to specifically mention zoning for us to implement what will engender equity, fairness and peace in a heterogeneous society like ours. Besides, Section 43(3) of the 1999 Constitution stipulates that the composition of the government of the federation must reflect the federal character of Nigeria. This is aimed at promoting national unity and ensuring equity, fairness and justice in the country. It is in the same spirit of promoting unity, equity, fairness and a sense of belonging to all members that the PDP enshrined zoning in its constitution.

Northerners who are aspiring to become President like former Senate President Bukola Saraki, Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar are among those amplifying this no-zoning noise.   

Atiku feels particularly more concerned. For one, age is not on his side anymore. He is desperate to rule Nigeria and, if he misses it this time, he may never get the chance to contest again. So, his desperation is understandable. Zoning or no zoning, he has obtained the party’s N40 million expression of interest and nomination forms. As far as he is concerned, zoning is not in the 1999 Nigerian Constitution and the Constitution has not barred anyone of them from contesting. My worry now is that the PDP may not have the courage to ask somebody who has spent N40 million on a form to stand down for a southern candidate. Why the party even allowed the aspirants to purchase the form before concluding its decision on zoning is suspicious.

Already, some southern stakeholders have threatened fire and brimstone if the zoning principle is not respected. The president-general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Professor George Obiozor, said the plan to jettison zoning was suicidal. According to him, the violation of the zoning principle simply changes the rules of the game in order to deprive Ndigbo the opportunity to produce a President for Nigeria.

“It is a political blunder and betrayal, given what Ndigbo have suffered in our own country and most recently for supporting the PDP,” Obiozor said.

History, he added, had never been kind to betrayers and the treacherous.

Some say the North needs to complete the one term it missed when the late Umaru Yar’Ardua died in 2010. They forget that, in our 61 years of existence as an independent country, the North has cumulatively ruled for over 41 years.

Some northerners who do not support zoning say the North has voting power and whoever the zone supports will win any election. They say the South, especially the South-East, does not have the numerical strength and cannot decide who wins election in Nigeria. These are all theories propounded by politicians who wish to upset the apple cart. They forget that the Igbo people reside in all the states of the federation and if election is conducted free and devoid of manipulations, their votes will count.

Even if the North is numerically stronger, is it a justification to jettison a principle that has been agreed upon by all concerned? Is that why Atiku, who protested against dropping the zoning principle together with some other northern PDP leaders at the PDP’s national convention in 2015, should now oppose his earlier stand? Recall that Atiku had also reportedly warned the leadership of the PDP to respect the already existing zoning of the party at its National Stakeholders’ Conference in 2010.

I have also heard some elements in the PDP saying they are only interested in winning and not zoning. Pray, was it not this same principle of zoning that produced the current national chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu? Was it not the same principle that made him emerge Senate President at some point? Was it not this same zoning that denied the late Chief Alex Ekwueme his desire to contest the presidential election in 1999?

Ndigbo had stood solidly behind the PDP in dry and rainy seasons. They had voted for the party despite all odds. In 2019, Ohanaeze Ndigbo had to openly express support for the PDP in the presidential election. For these reasons, they have suffered and continued to suffer different kinds of marginalization for their refusal to serve the party a divorce letter. Planning to scheme them out this time in the name of political expediency would spell doom for the biggest opposition party in Africa.

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The only way the PDP can rescue itself from the looming crisis is to adhere strictly to what has been guiding it since 1999. When a situation is dicey and difficult, the best way out is to follow what is right, to follow truth, justice and fairness. Anything outside this will bring about chaos, conflicts and death for the party. 

 

Re: May Chinelo’s blood liberate Nigeria

Dear Casmir Igbokwe, in your ‘May Chinelo’s Blood Liberate Nigeria,’ you said, “The terrorists were reportedly shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God Is The Greatest) when they were shooting and killing people.” In the spirit of freedom of information, can you publish in your next edition the following scriptures: John 3:16 and Koran (Surah) 9: 5, 29-31, 111, 123, 129 plus Koran 47: 4 for the whole world to read, digest and assimilate. But, note this: This your Nigeria, and by extension, the whole world, will never be liberated, until the whole world knows the difference between ‘God’ and ‘Allahu.’ Bear in mind also that, unknown to the whole world, the acceptance of democracy is the rejection of theocracy. Leave God out of Nigeria, maybe, in Biafra, God shall be given a place. What a man sows, he shall surely reap. It is “The Land of Injustice.”

–Durugbo Ogueri Vincent, Odi, Bayelsa State, +2347069667120

Casmir, the bandit-terrorists are now into a competition of a sort among themselves to prove who is the most dangerous! One group seems to now want to prove to the other groups that they are better at it than the rest as if there is a price attached to it. I am not surprised at the turn of events. I knew it would come to all of these since 1999 when Sharia was introduced that further radicalised an illiterate dominated and impoverished northern region. As news goes round that Nigeria is now the most fertile/profit yielding country for terrorism, more groups are invading the country via our porous borders. They are improving in their dastardly deeds as governments at all levels and the local citizens become complacent. Intelligence gathering is the key. Gov. el-Rufai should talk less on strategies. Kaduna is a focus of attack because he is garrulous. My heart goes to Dr. Chinelo and the rest. Rest in peace our heroes.

–Mike, Mushin, lagos, +2348161114572

I am informed by my educated guess that these recurring attacks are not religious but political. Even if one is in dire need of power, one can influence Nigerians through civilized means to vote out a sitting government. But certainly not through these attacks that lead to the loss of innocent souls. At the outset, I was a fan of this government: but not now. However, my conscience would not make me to wish that artificial attacks are carried out to achieve a change of government. The train attack is not an Amaechi issue or that of anybody who is in the transportation sector. We are now in very trying times in Nigeria that even our military institutions have been rendered vulnerable to attacks within its fold. The safety of the defenceless citizens is now left to the uncertain play of fate. If matters of the security of the citizens and Nigeria have now assumed a political dimension with all of us on one another’s neck, it means we are all casualties. And by extension the opposition still immersed in confusion and mere political statements, the APC government may still retain power in 2023.

– Edet Essien, Esq., Cal South, 08037952470

I pray that Dr. Chinelo’s soul rests in peace! Our security challenges are both man-made and natural. And Nigeria remains a ‘forced’ amalgamation of ‘atomistic’ and ‘troublous’ nations that are perpetually at war with themselves. It appears we have all run out of ideas and wherewithal to save the situation. Let’s now set politics aside and resort to divine intervention.

– Kokoete James, +2348108095633

Dear Casy, Igbo proverb has it that when the corpse of someone else passes by in a casket, it appears as if it is a stack of wood. This is why human lives have been wasted in an unspeakable dimension in this country in the last seven years and all that adorn our ears is the rhetoric oozing forth from the camp of those who, statutorily, swore to give us security. Casy, why the caption: ‘May Chinelo’s blood liberate Nigeria’? A country manacled and pulverized by misrule which attained a dizzying height in this dispensation? If any liberation there is at all, it should begin with the blood of the children of our Dealers, sorry, ‘leaders’, especially, the ‘Megaphone’ that suffer from the compulsive disposition to polish falsehood as truth.

– Steve Okoye, Awka, 08036630731

Dear Casmir, the rail attack is a great lesson for Buhari’s government. A stitch in time saves nine so administrative orbiting should be avoided from now. May the soul of Chinelo Nwando and those of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace!

–Cletus Frenchman, Enugu, +234 909 538 5215