From the very time the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), elected former Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as its presidential flag bearer for the 2023 general election, the case in the party has become one day, one trouble, sort of. This is because hardly a day could pass without the party jumping from one crisis into another crisis.
In this analysis, our man, Razaq Bamidele, traces the root cause of the party’s daily crisis and suspects that the division might not be unconnected to the refusal of the party to honour the gentleman agreement collectively entered into over power shift and rotational presidency, or simply, the zoning system.
Reason for the zoning formula
The question of rotational presidency in Nigeria’s political lexicon is familiar to almost every observer of events in the country and beyond. It took its root from the inglorious annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election believed to have been won by a candidate from the southern geo-political zone of the country but which a military president of northern extraction annulled unjustly.
Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola of one of the two decreed political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), defeated his counterpart of the second party, National Republican Convention (NRC), Alhaji Bashir Usman Tofa. Tofa was from the northern axis of the country while Abiola was from the South. The annulment of that election by the then sitting military dictator, General Badamosi Babangida (Retd), shook the country to its very foundation. In fact, the inglorious development threatened the unity of the country. It led to formation of different pro-democracy groups among which was the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), led by the late Pa Abraham Adesanya.
In an attempt to revalidate the annulled election, the groups had frontal confrontation with the military. In the process, some lives were lost, some were haunted into exile. The financier of NADECO, Pa Alfred Rewane, was murdered under curious circumstances. The likes of General Alani Akinrinade, Nobel Laureates, Professor Wole Soyinka, the late Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Gani Fawehinmi and a host of others were either haunted to exile or hauled into jail. Other notable members of the anti-military combatants included but not limited to the late Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Senator Sheu Sani, Alhaja Suliat Adedeji, Pa Ayo Opadokun, Pa Anthony Enahoro, Dr. Joe Odumakin, Alhaji Lam Adesina and Real Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu. The list is, in fact, endless.
The situation became highly aggravated when along the line, another military ruler of northern extraction, General Sani Abacha, arrested the acclaimed winner of the election, MKO Abiola, detained him till he eventually died in detention.
The seed of rotation really started after the annulment, which forced the man behind the annulment, Babangida to step aside involuntarily. And while stepping aside, he handed over the control of the country to the late Chief Ernest Shonekan, as Head of a contraption called Interim National Government (ING). This development, political pundits believe, was to pacify the aggrieved southern people whose son, Abiola, was cheated.
However, in an effort to keep the country together, concerned stakeholders put head together during the rule of the lasheadslitary Head of State, General Abdusalami Abubakar (retd), to arrange a political novelty that would throw up a president of southern origin to further placate the aggrieved southerners. It turned out to be effective because when a retired military General, Olusegun Obasanjo, from the same Ogun State as Abiola became president on May 29, 1999, the country started heaving sighs of relief as people are busy struggling to fit in and become relevant in the nascent democratic dispensation.
And the unwritten gentleman’s agreement on rotational presidency started yielding fruits of peaceful coexistence, unity and togetherness when after Obasanjo from ,the South came Musa Yar’Adua from the North. Goodluck Jonathan from the South succeeded him before the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari, came on board in 2015.
Disruption of the arrangement
Unfortunately, however, the rotational arrangement appears to be under serious threat now going by the emergence of presidential candidates of northern origin against the spirit of power shift. During the recent party primaries, the expectation was that all the political parties would throw up their presidential candidates from the South. But the North also fielded and elected presidential candidates to contest the coming general election for president despite the agreement to rotate the slot to the South.As things are now, the major opposition political party in the country, the PDP, elected former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), elected former Kano State governor, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso, as its flag bearer; former Anambra State governor, Mr. Peter Obi, emerged Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate while the son of the 1993 election winner, MKO Abiola, Kola Abiola became the flag bearer of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), among others.
Interestingly, no sooner the PDP threw up a northerner as its presidential candidate than the party started experiencing resentment within the party. Former National Deputy Chairman of the party (South), Chief Bode George, condemned the development, saying Atiku’s emergence as the party’s flag bearer contravened the party’s regulation as laid down by its founding fathers.
His words: “Our story in Nigeria is like the story of Switzerland. They have three major tribes in Switzerland, the French, the German and the Italian. Exactly like in Nigeria, they rotate the headship of the country. So, every Nigerian should have a sense that, whether I am in the majority or minority, if I have what it takes to lead, they will allow me to do so someday. That is the beauty of nationalism that I am proud to be a Nigerian. This majority/minority dichotomy would not work. Why are we going back to that period and enforcing it?”
So, Bode George, the president, in 2023, should come down South, possibly to the South-east that has not tasted it since 1999. He made particular reference to the sharing formula that forbids both the national chairman of the party and its presidential candidate to come from the same zone of the country. But as it is now, the two topmost posts are from the northern geo-political zone of Nigeria.
The National Chairman, Dr. Iyiocha Ayu, is from the North just as Alhaji Atiku Abukar. To this end, Bode George insists, it cannot work and can affect the fortune of the party in the 2023 general election.
A northern governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, when hosting Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his state prior to the primary election asserted that his support for rotational presidency is born out of honesty and commitment to the agreement in line with the northern respected leaders, who he said bequeathed honesty to the present northern generation.
“I am now campaigning for my candidate, and all of you know who he is. He is Bola Ahmed Tinubu and by the grace of God the next President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. When the APC northern governors took a position that we insist that in our party, we decided that power must rotate to the South. We did it with the understanding of our sense of our history,” El-rufai said.
“We asked ourselves as northern governors what would Ahmadu Bello do in this circumstance. What would Tafawa Balewa do in this circumstance? What would Aminu Kano do in this circumstance? What would they do before we take a position because we are the inheritors of their legacies? The 19 northern governors and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are the direct inheritors of the legacy of Ahmaadu Bello, the Sadauna of Sokoto. We are conscious of that burden of responsibility, and that is why we debated taking a decision; we have these industrious sons of northern Nigeria as our reference point. And we took that position without regard for the interest of some people, who insist that after the eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure, another northerner should succeed him. We felt, as northern governors, that this is not in our character. We are not like that. We are people of honour and justice. This is what our grandfathers did; this is what our parents,honor of whom are here, did.
“It is (therefore) our duty to protect the sacred words of any northern politician. When we say we will do something, it does not need to be written, we do it, we deliver on it. And that is how we started the process to deliver Bola Ahmed Tinubu as our choice for the president and we are confident that with the collective support of all of us, with the direct wisdom of our elders, with the unity of our youth and compassion of our women in northern Nigeria, we will make Nigeria great again.
“So, Asiwaju, whatever you see here is real. We do not pretend. We have received you because we believe in you. And we will continue to do so to the very end when you are declared the president by the grace of God.”
Speaking in the same vein, the Chairman, Arewa Community in Lagos chapter of the APC, Engr. Saadu Yusuf Dandare Gulma, said 80 percent of the northerners would vote Tinubu for president in 2023 based on trust, justice and honesty.
Gulma, who doubles as the South-west Coordinator, Arewa Community in the party, said the North will not renege on the gentleman’s agreement on zoning. He explained that the gentleman’s agreement about zoning is that even if the people contesting are not from the APC, they should be from the southern part of the country.
“That is what was agreed upon that all the political parties should source their presidential candidates from the three geo-political zones of the southern axis of the country. I mean from the South-west, South-south, and South-east.
“I am a northern, and I can say it loud, clear and unequivocally that 80% of us if we say yes, our yes will remain yes. And you can take that to the bank and it will definitely be honored. Our yes in this sense means that on the rotational presidency and power shift to the south, we stood yesterday, we are standing today and in sha Allah on it shall we stand tomorrow and forever as long as that is the collective agreement.
“And if we say, no, it will remain no. Remember I am part of them, I mean part of the north because I am a northerner from Kebbi State. In sha Allah, in 2023, northerners will vote Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in as the next President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. You can record it down because it will be you and I that will celebrate Asiwaju Tinubu’s presidential victory together on May 29, 2023.”
Wike, Makinde angle
Both Nyesome Wike and Engr. Seyi Makinde, are governors from the PDP stock for Rivers and Oyo State, respectively. But right now, since after the emergence of Atiku from the North as the PDP presidential candidate, there has been no love lost between the duo (Wike, Makinde) and Atiku Abubakar, perhaps, based on the arrangement that threw Atiku and Ayu up from the same zone.
Recently, Wike vowed that PDP would win in Rivers State in all other elections except the presidential poll. In the same token, Seyi Makinde of Oyo has not hidden his love for a southern president and thus insinuates that his vote would be for Tinubu next year. Although some elders of the PDP chapter of the state have disassociated themselves from his stand, that does not erase the fact that the governor has stated the obvious. A former minister in the state, Elder Wole Oyelese, condemned Makinde’s outburst, saying he is on his own on the perceived anti-party posture.
Pundits believe that Wike’s grudge against the PDP and Atiku is understandable. Recall that Wike contested the presidential primaries in the PDP against Atiku and came second. But when it was reported that Wike was being touted as the vice presidential candidate with Atiku, expectation rose to the high heavens in some quarters. But when Atiku decided to pick the Governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa, as his running mate, Wike felt betrayed. And since then, all attempts at wooing him back to Atiku’s camp have not yielded favourable results. One of the conditions he gave for reconciliation is for Ayu to vacate his seat as national chairman to give room for a southerner, as a replacement. However, Ayu has vowed that nobody can remove him, and thus, the crisis persists.
Governor Wike’s desperation to make sure that Atiku fails seemed to have manifested in Lagos recently when, during a visit, he openly endorsed Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu of the APC for a second term in office, saying the governor is doing well. This posture expectedly drew condemnation from the PDP former state chairman, Navy Captain Tunji Shelle, who insisted it was beyond Wike to tell the party members who they should vote for in the coming election.
Conclusion
As things are falling apart and the centre has refused to hold in the PDP, it appears the ghost of the rotational presidency, power shift and zoning formula is haunting the party, and how far the hunting can go as far as the party’s fortune is concerned next year remains in the realm of conjecture.
