The seeming absence of zoning in the 2023 presidential election is leading to what we have never seen before, the crowding of the political space with presidential aspirants. All manner of characters have filed out for the presidential race, especially on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), leaving us with a marketplace of sorts. This is in spite of the fact that the jostlers have to cough out a whopping N100 million to pick the expression of interest and nomination forms. The outrageous nomination fee, which, ordinarily, should scare many an aspirant away, especially the gamblers among them, has paradoxically become an incentive. Aspirants of various shades are falling over themselves to get enrolled on the APC platform.
But why this motley crowd of presidential aspirants? The reason, as I have hinted earlier, stems from absence of zoning. And since zoning largely rests on the ruling party, we have to look towards the Muhammadu Buhari presidency for this anomalous situation.
Nigerians of various persuasions agree, almost unanimously, that the government of the day is an embarrassing failure. The people have given up on the administration. They are only waiting patiently for a new government to come. That is why they are anxious about what the ongoing transition will bring. It is, therefore, worrisome that, some three weeks to the presidential primaries, the APC led by President Buhari has no clear sense of direction. It does not know what to do or how to ensure the proper emergence of the next President. The party and the government it formed are behaving as if they were taken unawares, as if they just realized that the next election is afoot. The impression we are getting from this is that Buhari and his kitchen cabinet are in a dilemma. It looks like they had a plan which the present realities do not support. That may explain the confusion that has enveloped the political space. A serious and clear-headed leader does not get overwhelmed by a programmed event. Regrettably, Buhari is.
But the ruling APC is not alone in this state of siege. The main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), is equally afflicted by the bug. The initial thinking within the two parties, from all indications, was to have the next President of the country come from the south. That explains why they zoned the national chairmanship of their parties to the North on the understanding that the presidency would be zoned to the South. This has always been the conventional arrangement in Nigerian politics. This ideal, which is about to be subverted, is the reason for the confusion we have in the polity. It has, somehow, made the quest for the presidency an all-comers affair. Everybody wants to take a chance at the coveted office.
It is a mark of the debasement of anything that comes our way that the presidency is being toyed with. The office of the President is a serious institution. No country worth its name gambles with it. But here we are, reducing the high office to a market square. It becomes even more distressing considering the fact that Nigeria of the present day is in dire need of rescue. Given the misrule of the past seven years, Nigeria is supposed to be repositioned towards good leadership. But this does not seem to be working.
This brings us to where we are. The problem with Nigeria at moment is the reluctance or refusal of a powerful clique in the country to give the Igbo a chance in the national scheme of things. Various segments of Nigeria have been sharing power since the end of the Civil War in 1970, to the exclusion of the Igbo. So far, the presidency has been ceded to all parts of the country, except the South East. Now the lot falls on the Igbo, no matter the disingenuousness of any conjurer. Arguments or reasons why it should not be the South East at this time have failed to make sense. They simply do not stick. The unassailable fact is that the zone deserves the presidential slot at this time without question.
But this hard reality is making other Nigerians uncomfortable. They are worried about this possibility. They do not find it attractive. Some find it even scary. They are, therefore, working hard to ensure that it does not happen. As the plot thickens, the plotters are faced with yet another dilemma. If they deny the Igbo a chance at the presidency, who steps into their place? Where do they take the slot to? This is the hangup the plotters are grappling with at moment. But even much more serious is the implication of the action. To deny the Igbo the presidency is to tell them that they are mere onlookers in the Nigerian federation. How will this powerful and critical ethnic group take it? Will they just swallow the bitter pill without stalking? Will it be business as usual? Those who are out to scheme out the Igbo do not and cannot have answers to these questions. They are incapable of predicting the outcome of what they are plotting. But some of us can help them to peep into the future. If the Igbo are schemed out of the presidency in 2023, Nigeria may have some unpleasant outcomes to contend with. This may sound very simple. But it can be very complex in real terms.
To underline the fact that certain segments of Nigeria are out to lead Nigeria to the abyss in this matter, efforts are being made by them to muddle up the situation the more. The South West has been prominent in this regard. If we take out the sincere and patriotic interjections of an Ayo Adebanjo and a few of his sympathizers in Afenifere, the rest of the South West is immersed in the plot to deny the South East a chance at the presidency. The crowd of presidential aspirants from the South West is playing the spoilsport. They want to make the scene messy and unmanageable to the extent that the prospect of a Nigerian President of South East extraction will be remotely and patently unattractive. This is the stuff mischief is made of.
But, ultimately, the North holds the aces, and they are weighing the options.
Does the North want to dare popular sentiments in the South and Middle Belt and hold power longer than acceptable? That will be a costly gamble. Will the ruling clique in Nigeria give the South West another chance, to the exclusion of the South East? That will be an expensive joke. What then will the power-brokers do, if the idea of the South East producing the President of the country remains repugnant to them? These weighty questions require urgent answers. But how they are resolved will be crucial to what Nigeria could become in the years to come.