Although the 2023 date for another round of general election season in the country is still very far, it is also very close depending on who is looking at it and from what angle and vision. For ordinary Nigerians, four years from now is a long time. For Nigerian politicians, it is a short time. The fact that the average Nigerian politician thinks always of the next election makes the date to be closer. When Nigerians think of an election season, what they usually have in mind is the presidential poll, the highest electoral crown in the country. The winner is taken as the most powerful man in Nigeria and the nation’s father.
This can explain why the presidential election is the most keenly contested and the one that attracts most local and global attention. After the presidential election, the rest will follow in line. It is not that the rest of the elections are of less importance. They are considered local. It is because so much power resides in the central government. It has more allocation in the national budget. It controls virtually everything including natural resources in the states, especially crude oil. It is also because of our ethnic and religious diversity.
This is not unexpected in a highly plural society with diverse interests. Why the recent interest in 2023 general election when we are yet to inaugurate the winner of the 2019 general poll? There will be so many answers for such interest. We recall that even while the campaign for the 2019 election was on, the campaign for 2023 election had commenced even though subtly.
Some politicians used the 2023 to woe certain ethnic groups to vote for their candidate not minding the clash of interest it engendered in the polity. We shall return to this issue shortly in the discourse. That 2023 echoed during the campaign showed that our politicians do not sleep on such important matter as which of the nation’s six geo-political zones, will produce the president come 2023.
Since the issue of 2023 grabbed the headlines, many zones from the country have been laying claim to be the zone that will produce the president. Some of them are serious. Some are unserious while some are laughable and insensitive to the country’s power rotation principle between the North and the South which was birthed in 1999. Well and fine, it is the nature of politics to contend on issues and possibly agitate or fight for it in local lingo.
Let’s refresh our mind on how the extant power rotation between the North and the South became operational in 1999. Following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election generally believed to have been won by the late business mogul, Chief MKO Abiola, and the series of political agitations to actualize his mandate and other events that followed before the demise of Abiola, the country was made ungovernable by those that stood for June 12 and the rest is now history.
It was in the bid to placate the South West zone where Abiola hailed from that the presidency was zoned to the South West during the 1999 general election. To make this possible, all the major political parties then fielded a Yoruba candidate. But Chief Olusegun Obasanjo emerged victorious. The 1999 election ended many years of military rule in the country that started with the termination of democratic rule in 1983.
Before then the military had ruled the country from January 1966 to October 1979 when the then military ruler, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, handed power to President Shehu Shagari, after the 1979 general election. Nigeria’s democratic march which commended with our independence on October 1, 1960 was terminated by the military coup of January 15, 1966.
The beneficiary of the power rotation between the North and the South was a former military ruler, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. He ruled Nigeria as a democratic president from May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007. After Obasanjo, power shifted to the North in keeping with the power rotation principle and the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua became the president. However, his rule was cut short by death and his deputy, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan stepped in first in acting capacity and later became the president. He finished the remaining first term of Yar’Adua and contested for the 2011 presidential poll, although some Northerners protested saying it is their turn.
But Jonathan’s bid to do a second term in 2015 was strongly opposed by the North and some people in the South based on the fact that power should return to the North. Power actually returned to the North in 2015 with the election of President Muhammadu Buhari. The president was also reelected in 2019 poll. When he completes his second term in 2023, power will return to the South again.
Among the three geo-political zones in the South, the South West has taken its turn with Obasanjo’s presidency earlier mentioned, the South South has also taken his turn even though it was not up to eight years, it is only the South East that is yet to take its turn of the presidency. With the foregoing, it is safe to say that 2023 is indeed the turn of the South East.
Having said so and to which prominent Nigerians from the North and the South have also said, it is left for the zone to reach out to the people of other five geo-political zones and do the needful. The South East like any other zone in the country will need the support of the other zones to get the presidency. They should play the politics of getting the presidency well.
If they play their part well, we believe that other Nigerians will accede. It is a fair game that the zone be allowed to produce the nation’s president come 2023 in the spirit of equity. It requires hard work and hand shake across the ethnic zones.
JAMB’s best candidates and their dreams
One of the revelations of this year’s Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Unified Tertiary articulation Examination (UTME) is the emergence of a 15-year-old boy, Ezeunala Ekene Franklin from Imo State as the best candidate in the examination with a total score of 347 points. Ekene applied to read Chemical Engineering at the University of Lagos. The JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyode, was not too sure if UNILAG will admit Ezeunala on account of his age.
Ezeunala was followed by a 16-year-old Igbam Emmanuel Chidiebube from Abia State with a score of 346 points. Like Ezeunala, Igbam made UNILAG his first choice. The third best candidate in the examination, Olowu Isaac Olamilekan from Osun State with a score of 345 points, chose Obafemi Awolowo University.
While congratulating these gifted candidates on their sterling performance, I urge the Federal Government to offer them automatic scholarships and take over the responsibility of training them to any level they aspire. This is how it is done in other nations that want to develop. The dreams of these gifted children should not be allowed to die.