An early campaign for the 2023 presidency has already commenced between the North and South despite the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari, who won a second term in the recent general election is yet to be inaugurated, Felix Nwaneri reports
Barely few weeks after the 2019 general elections, which saw the reelection of President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term, political intrigues have started in some quarters over the 2023 presidency. Many least expected such scheming to commence at the moment. Buhari would be inaugurated on May 29 (about five weeks from now) even as a suit challenging his victory by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), former Vice- President Atiku Abubabkar, who placed second in the election, is yet to be determined by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal. But, in what seemed a reminiscent of politics of yester-years, some political spin-doctors have started flying the kite of the 2023 presidency.
Though there has been no official reaction from the Federal Government, the two main political parties – ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and PDP or the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as such campaign contravenes provisions of the Electoral Act, there is no doubt that jostle for 2023 presidency is fast gaining ground. Those who described the move as unexpected have even predicted that it would be more pronounced immediately after Buhari takes oath office for a second term. According to them, the belief is that it is either the arrowheads of the plot are using it to test the political waters or to scare away some elements, who are desperate to take over from the President by the time he serves out the constitutional allowed two terms. Whereas such move is not new to Nigeria’s politics as time is of essence to politicians, a “worrying dimension” to the scheming for the 2023 presidency, is the plot by the North to hold on to power after eight years of the APC-led Buhari presidency.
The President hails from Katsina State of the North-West and by 2023, would have been in power for eight straight years, a situation that explains the belief that whoever would fly his party’s flag in the 2023 presidential election as his possible successor should emerge from the South. There is a sort of power sharing arrangement between the North and South that seems to have become a convention since the country’s return to civil rule in 1999. Though not documented, the various political parties have adhered to this principle, which allows for rotation and zoning of public offices as wells party leadership positions among the various component units at the federal and state levels.
The 36 states of the country are grouped into six geopolitical zones for political expediency, with the North and South having three zones apiece. The North has North-West with seven states (Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Kano, Jigawa, Katsina and Kaduna), North-East (six states – Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Taraba and Gombe) and North Central (six states – Niger, Plateau, Benue, Kwara, Kogi and Nasarawa). For the South, the South-West has six states (Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti), the South- South also has six states (Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers), while the South- East has five states (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo).
In the 20 years of the present dispensation of which the PDP was at the helm of affair at the centre for 16 years, the presidency rotated between the South and North. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (South-West – 1999 to 2007), Umaru Yar’Adua (North-West – 2007-2010) and Goodluck Jonathan (South- South – 2010-2015). Buhari of the APC (North- West), who took over from Jonathan, following the defeat of the then ruling party by a coalition of main opposition parties in the 2015 presidential election has just been re-elected for second term thereby handing the North eight unbroken years of power, but there is a plot by some political leaders from his region to extend North’s hold on power beyond 2023, when it is expected that the two main party’s – APC and PDP – will zone their presidential tickets to the South to facilitate the emergence of a president of southern extraction.
How Yerima gave the lid
What started as a personal view of the National President of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Alhaji Yerima Shettima, is fast gaining ground given comments by some Northern political elites. Yerima had in an interview with New Telegraph some weeks back, hinted that the North will take another shot at the presidency after eight years of Buhari’s presidency given what he described as the present administration’s neglect of the region. “Buhari’s administration has not really benefited the North because we are yet to see meaningful development. What most northerners know is that they have a brother, who is the president, but that has not translated to anything meaningful to them. Most of those who are supposed to spearhead the execution of landmark projects in this administration are from the South-West. As far as we are concerned, President Buhari’s administration is a government of the South-West because almost all the goodies were given to them,” he said.
Stating categorically that the North has no plans to relinquish power, Shettima said: “You can be rest assured that it will definitely happen. I am a leader and an opinion moulder in the North and when I tell you that we are considering supporting a northern presidency in 2023, you better believe it because it is not just my personal opinion. “The North has not benefitted anything from Buhari’s presidency because many northern states are still impoverished and under developed. The rate of poverty in the North has become worse than it was in 2015. We cannot beat our chest and say this government has favoured the North.
“The first four years of Buhari was a waste and we cannot expect any magic to happen in his second tenure; it is not possible. Already some south westerners are raising their heads to claim that it is their turn in 2023, but for us in the North, we will plead with the South to bear with us for another 12 years because we need to feel the impact of governance.”
When reminded that it would amount to injustice to the South for the North to take another shot at the presidency in 2023 after Buhari’s eight years, the AYCF leader, queried: “Was justice meted to the North with the level of unemployment and physical infrastructure you find there; with the bad roads and almajiris everywhere and no any serious policy by the government to tackle that?” He added: “You are living comfortable in Lagos, enjoying the federal allocations and everything and you expect us to fold our hands and look at you and after the eight years, you will still take us again for another eight years.”
Lawal, Mohammed confirm position
Perhaps, many dismissed Shettima then given that his group (AYCF), unlike the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), does not speak for the North, but his advice that our correspondent should better believe him because his position is not just a personal opinion, compelled discerning minds to have a second thought about his comment. And as predicted by those who understand the workings of Nigeria’s politics that the North has something in the offing, it did not take time before the 2023 northern agenda started unfolding. Babachir Lawal, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Second Republic member of House of Representatives, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, who corroborated Shettima’s view in separate media interviews, declared that the North will present a candidate for the 2023 presidential election as the zoning and power rotation arrangement have collapsed. Lawal, a long standing ally of Buhari, who served as his SGF between August 27, 2015 and April 19, 2017 before he was fired over alleged diversion of funds earmarked for internally displaced victims of Boko Haram insurgency, particularly advised Vice- President Yemi Osinbajo not to expect preferential treatment on the question of who will succeed the President in 2023. Mohammed, on his part, declared that the power rotation arrangement as the tragedy of Nigeria’s politics because it has deprived the country of efficient leadership.
2023 presidency bait for 2019
A critical question that has popped up against the recent development is: What happened to the bait dangled by the APC ahead of the 2019 elections that Buhari’s re-election offers the South, especially South-West and South-East, the opportunity of succeeding the President in 2023? It would be recalled that Vice- President Osinbajo, a southerner of South-West extraction, had in the course of the campaigns for the 2019 elections, told his kinsmen that the success of President Buhari and the APC in the polls was the only way the South-West can secure the presidency in 2023. According to him then, the 2019 presidential election mattered to the Yoruba people, because the region has a larger interest in 2023.
“The 2019 general elections is our own. We are not looking at the 2019 but 2023. If we get it in 2019, Yoruba will get it in 2023. Because if we don’t get it in 2019, we may not get it in 2023 and it may take a very long time to get it. We need to look at tomorrow and not because of today. What we are doing now is for tomorrow and not for today,” he said.
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, who also hails from the South-West as the vice president was the first to raise the Yoruba stand to gain from Buhari’s return to power, when in October last year, he said the President’s second term will guarantee a return of power to the zone in 2023.
The former governor of Lagos State, who spoke at a special Town Hall Meeting on infrastructure organised by the Ministry of Information and Culture and the National Orientation Agency in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, told his audience in Yoruba: “Do you know that power is rotating to the South- West after the completion of Buhari’s tenure if you vote for him in 2019? Your child cannot surrender her waist for an edifying bead and you will use the bead to decorate another child’s waist. A vote for Buhari in 2019 means a return of power to the South-West in 2023. I am sure you will vote wisely.”
But, before Fashola and Osinbajo’s “wise counsel” to their kinsmen, the SGF, Mr. Boss Mustapha, had told the people of South-East that they will have a better chance of producing a president in 2023 if they support the second term ambition of President Buhari. Mustapha told a delegation of the Ebonyi State chapter of the APC, who visited his office in April last year that though the Igbo voted massively for the opposition PDP in the 2015 presidential election, which was won by Buhari, the South-East must support the ruling party in 2019, in its own interest. “Preach it to the other South- East states that the shortest way to Igbo presidency is to support Buhari in 2019,” he told the delegation.
The SGF also reiterated that Buhari will hand over the baton of leadership to an Igbo by the time he is through with his second term in office in 2023, while speaking during the inauguration of the South-East chapter of the Presidential Support Committee (PSC) in Abia State ahead of the 2019 elections.
S’West, S’East response to the bait
No doubt, the debate over which of the two zones will produce the ruling party’s candidate after Buhari, pitted them ahead of the recent polls, but the two zones responded to the “support Buhari and get 2023 ticket” in different ways. The South-West, whose son (Osinbajo) was Buhari’s running mate gave the APC 2,036,450 votes in the presidential election against 1,776,670 votes it gave to the PDP. On its part, the South-East, whose son (Peter Obi) was Atiku’s running mate, gave the APC 403,966 votes against 1,693,649 votes it gave to the PDP. Overall, Buhari polled 15,191,847 votes agaisnt Atiku’s 11,262,978.
Despite S’West support, North plans joker
Whereas the APC’s performance in the South-West should have placed it in a better position to produce the party’s 2023 presidential candidate ahead of the South-East, with the likes of Osinbajo as favourites, the North’s plot may pose a clog in the wheel for both zones. The former SGF’s advice to Osinbajo not to expect preferential treatment on the question of who will succeed Buhari is a justification to this assumption. According to Lawal, who still maintains a close relationship with the President despite his ouster from government, the APC did not promise Osinbajo its ticket for 2023 and no law compels the party to favour the vice-president. His words: “It is not in the constitution, so it is not a principle,” the Adamawa State born politician said, while rejecting the zoning formula. “Principle of what? It is not in APC constitution, it is not in the national constitution; it is not in the Bible; I don’t know whether it is in the Koran. So, I don’t see how it became a principle.”
Though he noted that he was not opposed to southerners vying for the office of president in 2023, he added that northerners, who are interested in the party’s ticket, should not be disqualified on the basis of zoning arrangement. “Being a cosmopolitan man, I know the Igbo, not less than 10 of them can successfully run this country. I know the Yoruba that can do, I know Ijaws that can do, I know Hausas that can do, I know even Kilba. Hey myself, my friend, I can be president of this country. I consider myself quite competent to do so from a small tribe of 300,000 people.” Junaid Mohammed, who holds a similar view, said: “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. Look at what the Afenifere said that next time it would be a Yoruba person.
Their understanding of rotation is between the North and the South-West or North-West and the South-West. That cannot be. “Now the contradiction, which they invented about zoning and rotation, has now collapsed and now they are looking for lies to tell to deceive us. Otherwise, how can you say that we now have a president who is from the North-West and his deputy, who is from South- West, and that next time it will be the turn of the South-West to pro-duce 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. “The people, who abused this equity and justice, are the people from the South-East because whatever we are talking about, in a democracy you cannot circumvent voting figures. You can say it is time for my people.
We will not vote for you and let’s see what hap- pens. I said it in one of my statements, look at the way the people of the South-East voted during the last election; they have a humongous collection of votes and they all voted for Atiku, and they expect somebody to come from his own area to vote for them. If you want other Nigerians to vote for you, you better look for other Nigerians and make a choice.”
Power shift as a unifying factor
While it is not contestable that the power shift and zoning arrangements were not provided for in the Nigerian constitution, but an agreement within the political parties, they have in a way, served as stabilising factors given the complexity of the country. Over 350 ethnic nationalities make up the country, with each viewing the other with suspicion, especially on issues political power, not only at the federal, but even the state level. This, perhaps, explains why the PDP held on to it between 1999 and 2015 that it was in power in the present dispensation. The party within the power rotated power between the North and South, but the APC, which could be said not to have adhered religiously to the zoning principle since coming to power in 2015 would have its test on the issue come 2023.
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react While the 2023 debate is expected to gather momentum in the days ahead, it was varied reactions by some southern leaders on the plot by the North to hold on to power beyond eight years. President General of apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, who refrained from joining issues with those proposing retention of power in the North, said it is too early in the day to talk about 2023. His words: “I am the head of a socio-cultural organisation, so I am not a politician, but of course eventually when issues are joined, you will have a point of view regarding my take. I cannot count my chicken before they are hatched. 2023 is a very long way. You should be asking politicians for their reactions not me. “You are making people like Junaid Mohammed feel important. I don’t think I have anything to say for now; I don’t want to elevate him to my standard, so that two of us are talking.
The head of Arewa Consultative Forum has not spoken, the head of Northern Elders Forum has not spoken, and you want me to reply to this small size? I mean you can ask my publicity secretary, but you should really be asking the Igbo politicians.” An elder statesman of Igbo extraction and First Republic Minister of Aviation, Mbazulike Amaechi, on his part, said that much as the likes of Junaid Mohammed have the democratic right to say whatever they like, it is left for the people of the South and Middle Belt to challenge them and fight for their right. He, however, added that the presidency is not given to anybody as a gift, but fought for. Against this backdrop, he urged the people of South- East, South-South, Middle Belt and South-West to unite and fight against what he described as political enslavement in the making. The elder statesman further stated that beyond the issue of who occupies the presidency, there is dire need of reworking the constitution, which according to him, is an illegal document foisted on Nigerians by “treasonable and criminal military regimes.”
“The present Nigeria is built on bad foundation and it can never stand, it is bound to crumble. But, power is not what anybody dashes, you have to fight for power, you have to capture power, you have to win power. So, yes, Junaid Mohammed has the right to say that power will remain in the North, but I doubt if Tanko Yakassai will say that because he is a nationalist. “If Ndigbo want power, if their idea of power is to hold the presidency, nobody dashes it.
You have to strategise, you have to mobilise, you have to work, you have to suffer, you have to sacrifice to get it. Nobody will give it to Ndigbo. So, if the Igbo want presidency or anything else, let them organise for it, work for it, fight for it and sacrifice for it,” he said. When asked whether in the context of internal zoning arrangement adopted by the two major parties APC and PDP – such comments about the North retaining power beyond 2023 was healthy, Amechi said it is allowed for political parties to rotate power based on internal party arrangements, but not a constitutional stipulation.
His words: “People can arrange zoning, that is the internal arrangement of the political parties, but the constitution does not say that. But, the issue is that the constitution of Nigeria has to be corrected first. Nigeria has to be run on a constitution that is equitable, considering the component units. Nigeria is today being run as an illegal organisation; it has no constitution of the people. The constitution we have in Nigeria is a constitution imposed by the military, a treasonable body of people, who found themselves in government through treason and crime.
“We had 1979 Constitution, but after the constitutional conference, the military sat over it, removed what they did not like and put what they liked. So it wasn’t the peoples’ constitution. Now, the constitution of 1999; again people met and drafted something, but after they had gone home, the military again removed what they did not like and put what they liked. So, it is a military constitution and therefore this country is being run as an illegal body. “So, it is for people of Southern Nigeria to fight, the North has said that they want to hold the rest of Nigeria as their colony, they don’t pretend about it, but it is for the people to fight to liberate themselves although there are democrats and nationalists in the North. “We have a situation that wealth of the country is produced in Southern Nigeria by the South-South, South-East and part of the South- West in terms of oil and gas, but a part of the South-West is now colluding with the North to colonize that wealth and saying they will rule in perpetuity.
“It means that is left for the people of South-South, South-East, part of the South-West and part of the Middle Belt, who they want to Islamize to come together and fight to liberate themselves. If they don’t fight to liberate themselves, nobody is going to do that for them. We have done it in our own time, people like us suffered, went to prison to drive away the British government from Nigeria, so it is for young men of today to do what we did in our own time to save themselves. If they don’t save themselves, let them become slaves.”
For pan Yoruba Socio-political group, Afenifere, though the problem facing the country is not about where the president should come from, but the restructuring of the country in such a way that every zone would have faith and sense of belonging in the entity called Nigeria, it is not debatable that the three geo-political zones in the South should produced the president in 2023 based on the gentlemen agreement between the North and South. Also, the group said the Yoruba may not be in a vantage position to produce the next president, considering the fact that the other two zones in the South – South-East and South-South – would want to do everything to make sure they get the presidency.
Secretary General of Afenifere, Bashorun Seinde Arogbofa, who stated these positions in an interview with New Telegraph said: “let us be realistic, power shift is not an easy thing, even within the family circle, nobody surrenders power easily. In a country like Nigeria torn apart by religious conflicts, ethnicity, bribery, corruption and nepotism, power shift will not be an easy thing. “Power shift is not a tea party; with the scenario just painted, the gentlemen agreement can easily be flouted.
I want us to be more realistic; until this country is restructured the argument about power shift will always come up in every election year. If we are copying the United States model, we should copy it well. “Let us get this country restructured, so that the number one person is not too powerful to hold others to ransom. We will like the states to be able to cater for themselves.
Every state in this country has enough to make it survive, has enough to address unemployment and has enough to develop economically. It is because the president has enormous power that makes people scramble for it and the power is not being used rightly. What we have is a skewed federalism.
Let every state be economically viable. “If the centre is made less powerful and states have all they need, you would not be bordered about what is happening at the centre. If the centre is not the breadwinner of the states, but the states their own breadwinners that contribute to the centre, the presidency will be less attractive. This do-or-die affair will no longer be necessary. On the chances of the South- West come 2023, Arogbofa said he doubts it if the zone would be allowed to produce the next president even if the North cedes power to the South. “I hope the Yoruba will look back to what happened recently, when the PDP was trying to zone some offices.
The Yoruba were best positioned to produce the national chairman, but the calculation changed overnight. So, I have my doubts if Yoruba will become president in 2023,” he said. While there seems to be a consensus among southern political leaders that the region should produce the president in 2023, on the basis of equity, it is left to be seen if some northern political leaders, who believe that the era of power shift is over, will, like true statesmen think more about the stability of the nation than pecuniary benefits that come with clinging to power.
• Additional reports by Babatope Okeowo and Kenneth Ofoma
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