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The caveat here is that this is not a case for a Nigerian President whose claim to the office is based on ethnicity, geography or religion. What Nigeria needs in a President are patriotism, supreme competence, maturity, and fair mindedness.
Not a quota President who will flash an ethnic insignia on behalf of a section, whose interests he protects, to the exclusion of other Nigerians, who would be waiting for their turn to spin the wheel of fortune to their own section.
Even if you think that the idea of the Northern political establishment contemplating holding on to the Presidency in 2023 is fake news, or just to take a measure of the South’s reaction, it has grave implications for Nigeria’s political health. After all, Nigeria’s political elite voluntarily adopted the asinine power rotation scheme.
And they must be held accountable to it unless they all agree to emphasise merit over quota in selecting those who will assume high political offices in Nigeria. This quota presidency is not helping anyone.
Even the North that has held on to the central apparatus of government in Nigeria does not have much to show for it. Billionaire Aliko Dangote observed that more than 60 per cent of people resident in Northern Nigeria live in poverty.
Reno Omokri, a former Special Assistant on Social Media to former President Goodluck Jonathan, is reportedly scoffing at the probably informed rumour that former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu hopes to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023, or root for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo if that fails. There is no doubt that Osinbajo proved his mettle each time he was acting President.
Omokri obviously thinks the political South, or more specifically, the political South-West, has been had; that the unconstitutional gentleman’s agreement to rotate the Presidency between the North and the South is a fluke, and has already been discarded by the North.
Omokri commended Dr. Junaid Mohammed and Babachir Lawal, President Buhari’s former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who “just waited for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to convince (the Yoruba) to vote for… (re-election of President) Muhammdu Buhari (before unleashing) their bombshell (that the) South should forget about (the presidency in) 2023.”
Russian-trained medical doctor and Second Republic lawmaker, Junaid Mohammed, reportedly said, “How can you say that we now have a President who is from the North-West and… that next time it will be the turn of the South-West to produce the President of this country? What are we talking about? I don’t want to hear about this equity and justice. That is sheer nonsense.”
Mohammed then climbed a high moral horse: “This idea of zoning and rotation has been a tragedy for Nigeria because it can deprive Nigeria of getting a better leader. That being the case, whosoever wants to claim it, let him go… We keep on making this mistake of agitation of, ‘it is our turn’ over and over again.”
Lawal reportedly said, “If we say the North-West has produced a presidential candidate (in President Buhari), the South-West had produced one (in former President Olusegun Obasanjo), I don’t see why the North-Central cannot produce or the North-East cannot produce just as South-South, South-East, South-West and even North-West can still produce.”
Lawal then concluded the convoluted waffle with an inverted ouster: “The constitution doesn’t say it is prohibited. And as I said, I believe every zone, every state, has capable people that can run this country effectively.”
A senior member of the ruling All Progressives Congress declared, on condition of anonymity, that “the North is poised to retain power because the South has had a major chunk of the democratic power slots.”
This anonymous person argued: “Remember that Obasanjo ruled for eight years, but when power returned to the North through Yar’Adua, his reign was short-lived. The South returned to power under former President Jonathan after the death of Yar’Adua. But Jonathan refused to allow the North to complete its turn and he refused to quit power as requested by the North in 2011.”
Focusing only on the South having held the position of President more than the North in this Fourth Republic is either mischievous, or a lack of perspective. Throughout the First Republic, the North presented the Prime Minister, who was the Chief Executive of the government.
Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was merely a ceremonial president, with no executive powers. Even the British Head of the Army, Maj. Gen. Christopher Welby-Everard, regarded Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and neglected President Azikiwe’s command.
And of course, throughout the 28 years of military rule in Nigeria, Major General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi, of the South-East, ruled Nigeria for about seven months, Obasanjo ruled for roughly three and half years, and Ernest Shonekan was Interim Head of State for 82 days.
This faceless person, who points out that former President Jonathan breached the honour code, and “broke the trust and now the North wants to balance things up,” must be thinking of the hidden trump card in Nigeria’s constitution.
Section 134(5) provides that whoever wins the majority of votes in a second run-off election shall be President. Its silence on the spread of the votes to two-thirds of the states provides the constitutional leeway for the North, said to have a higher population than the South, to perpetually retain power at the centre.
The only other way is via a coup d’etat.
But Section 1(2) of the constitution insists that “The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any person or group of persons, take control of the government of Nigeria, or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of the constitution.”
Section 134(5) is a boobytrap, fraught with potential acrimony, the type that breeds separatist movements like the Indigenous People of Biafra. Surely, no section of Nigeria will want to travel a route that will dismember the country, and lead to serious consequences, of the proportion of the unfortunate June 12, 1993 crisis.
Section 134(1,2) of the constitution provides that “A candidate for an election to the office of President (of Nigeria) shall be deemed to have been duly elected, where… he has the majority of the votes cast at the election; and he has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja,” is the way to go.
Where there is no clear winner, Section 134(4) prescribes that a run-off election shall be held, and the winner shall be the candidate that “has a majority of votes cast at the election; and he has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
Even if you regard Abuja as the 20th state of a monolithic North, there must be a negotiation with at least four states in the South, to meet the statutory one-quarter of votes in two-thirds, or 24, states of the Federation.
Though German statesman, Otto Von Bismarck, says “Politics is the art of the possible,” the political North cannot but work with the political South.
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