Sir: With election of President Muhammadu Buhari for his second term, it seems the door to 2023 elections campaign has been opened. Although, there were initial speculations that the president may seek for third term, the president has since debunked the rumours while assuring Nigerians he would only serve for two times as stipulated in the 1999 constitution. The clarification was made during the recent NEC meeting of APC in Abuja.
However, what has continued to baffle many Nigerians is the question of whether or not the ruling party has reached an agreement on the controversial zoning arrangement. In the buildup to the 2015 election, the then ruling PDP was enmeshed with power rotation crises following the breach, by President Goodluck Jonathan of the power zoning arrangement instituted by his party. The inability of the party to resolve the crises contributed greatly towards its woeful performance and ultimate defeat. Now, it is history.
The 2023 election is still far away. However, those who have been watching or monitoring the political development in the country may rightly or wrongly say that the alignment and re-alignment of political forces have begun in earnest. It appears the ruling party is in the state of dilemma on the issues of power rotation. The person who fired the first salvo was the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai. He made his position known in prologue entitled “Defeating a determined incumbent – The Nigerian experience” which he contributed to the book – Power of Possibilities and Politics of Change in Nigeria written by Salihu Lukman, director general of Progressive Governors Forum. He described zoning of political offices as barrier to political equality. He called for the expulsion of zoning and application of merit in our politics. More recently, the acting chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum, Musa Liman Kwande stated that northerners will only vote for a northern candidate.
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In no distant time, other similar socio-cultural organizations will emerge and expectedly state their positions. The sublime threats and counter threats will unarguably heat up the polity and further divide the country along the traditional fault lines even before the election period.
The framers of our constitution have done a wonderful job when they enacted laws that mandated each state to produce a ministerial slot. The 1999 constitution also came up with the principle of federal character in order to give every ethnic group a sense of belonging. The constitutional provisions are aimed at addressing the problem of marginalization and under-representation across political zones.
Each of the six geo-political zones is blessed with people of timber and caliber, people who have excelled in various field of human development and could hold any position if given the opportunities. No region has the monopoly of competent hands.
It is obvious power rotation has helped tremendously in promoting unity in diversity. It has addressed the problems of power domination by certain zone in the country. By adopting the principle of power sharing before it was discarded due to selfishness and greed for power, the PDP deserves commendation. The ruling APC should learn a lesson from PDP’s self-inflicted zoning problems that consumed it in 2015. The leadership of the party should speak up about its zoning position in order to calm fraying nerves and clear the doubt in the minds of their stakeholders, candidates and party supporters.
- Ibrahim Mustapha,
Pambegua,Kaduna State.
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