Before President Goodluck Jonathan is canonised for conceding defeat at the March 28 polls, let it be pointed out that his action was not unprecedented – even in these parts. Last year, after losing the Ekiti election to Ayo Fayose, Governor Kayode Fayemi did the unthinkable: he called his opponent and congratulated him.
Sections of his All Progressives Congress (APC) who thought he had been too hasty were outraged because they felt the results had been rigged. But he explained that he conceded to avert bloodletting that could have followed had he rejected the outcome.
In calling General Muhammadu Buhari even before the final tally was in, Jonathan has offered a similar rationale. There’s no doubt that his action deflated the tension that had built up in the polity and removed the ground upon which some of his supporters could have stood to react violently.
What Jonathan did, despite all the accolades, was ultimately in his best interest. The other option open to him was to take the nation down the road travelled by former Cote d’Ivoire leader, Laurent Gbagbo, with unpredictable consequences for himself and Nigeria.
The change in Abuja has been the most obvious talking point, but something equally far-reaching also occurred in the regions. Despite religious polarization Buhari achieved a breakthrough in the North-Central zone for the first time. The South-West that has always travelled a parallel route with whoever governs in Abuja now finds itself in proper alignment with the center.
Although it may not appear that way on the surface, the region most likely to witness long term impact of the changes in the polity is the South-East. For the first time ever the Igbos backed the wrong horse and voted themselves out of power at the center.
It’s not something that happens every day. In the First Republic the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) which controlled the Eastern Region aligned with the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) to control the federal government.
Again, in the Second Republic the pattern was repeated as the Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe-led Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) joined forces with Shehu Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria (NPN) to form the central government. Although NPP had an outcrop in Plateau State under the late Chief Solomon Lar, its main strength was in the East.
The abbreviated Third Republic threw up unusual political dynamics as the two-party system manufactured by the Ibrahim Babangida military junta produced a Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) that were fairly equal in strength across the regions.
Still, the dominant faction of the Igbo political elite largely drifted towards the center-right NRC. That explains why the party’s presidential candidate in the ill-fated June 12, 1993 elections, Bashir Tofa, chose Dr. Sylvester Ugo from the South-East as his running mate. He could have gone West or to the South-South zone.
Ever since the onset of the Fourth Republic in 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has maintained a vice grip on Igboland that only the All Progressives Grand Alliance’s (APGA) modest excursion into Anambra has been able to distort.
In 2015, Igbos were even more fulsome in their support for Jonathan than his own kith and kin in the South-South. In many states of the South-East the incumbent received over 90% of votes cast on March 28.
Although Jonathan was sold as one of their own, the closest he came to being Igbo were his middle names Ebele Azikiwe. That is just like saying Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, is Yoruba because of his first name!
Aside the names, the other plausible reasons for the South-East welding its fate so tightly to Jonathan’s was his promise to build them a bridge across the Niger. Of course there was also gratitude arising from the fact that the president favoured several of their sons and daughters with choice political appointments.
With the results in and APC headed for the center, the dominant tendency among the Igbo political elite have woken up to a strange new reality: they could roam the opposition wilderness for anything from four to 16 years. Or to rip a page from the PDP’s book of dreams 60 years?
So lopsided was the regional backing for Jonathan that APC couldn’t even manage a senate seat in the entire zone. That caused Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha, Senator Chris Ngige and others to convoke a wake where they bemoaned the miscalculation by the zone’s elite. The upshot is that Igbos are likely to miss out on the top four political positions come June.
The grumbling has triggered two types of reactions: defiance from the sociocultural group Ohaneze N’digbo who insist they have no regrets backing the losing horse. On the other hand, desperation has seen some suggesting that some newly-elected PDP senators from the zone defect to APC so the zone could be allotted the Senate Presidency.
I don’t believe Igbos did anything wrong in voting the way they did. After all, the North-West and North-East followed the same pattern in their backing for Buhari. Indeed, the President-Elect received a hefty 1, 903, 999 million votes in Kano – leaving Jonathan with a measly 215, 779.
It would have been expecting too much to think the scenario in the South-East could have been any different. The main political strain in the zone has always been center-right or right wing. They have always hewed to the center. There was no reason for them to dump Jonathan for Buhari in a country where an incumbent has never lost an election.
But having voted the way they did the Igbo must realize that there would be consequences. They cannot consume the cake and insist on having it whole. They cannot have something for nothing. Their political elite lost the gamble and must now watch the high stakes power play in Abuja from the sidelines.
Of course, constitutional protection means the zone cannot be totally marginalized or punished for its choice. They would get the ministerial seats allocated to each state as well as other appointments courtesy of the federal character principle.
In reality it isn’t the zone that is losing out but the dominant faction of the regional elite. Now the few Igbo ‘nobodies’ who tagged along with APC when it wasn’t fashionable to do so, and when its prospects didn’t look so attractive, would be the immediate beneficiaries of whatever is being divvied up in Abuja.
As the former PDP lords pine away in unaccustomed opposition wilderness, yesterday’s ‘upstarts’ would be promoted and built up by the new APC powers-that-be with federal patronage. Over the next few years their power and influence would grow as the new governing party dismantles the strongholds that had been built throughout Igboland in the last 16 years. It is a script that PDP knows so well; how galling that they would be at the receiving end.
March 28 means that in the not distant future the balance of power in the South-East would be more even between progressives and conservatives. The likes of Second Republic governors Jim Nwobodo and the late Sam Mbakwe were like aberrations in their day. Ultimately, their ideological foes saw the off. But the day is not far off when a Rochas Okorocha wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb among the Igbo political elite.
This is not to say being in opposition is such a terrible fate. For most of Nigeria’s civil rule or democratic experience, the main faction of the South-West political elite have always managed to maneuver themselves into opposition to the center.
But rather than bemoan their fate, they took their destiny in their hands and focused on rebuilding the zone. Today, Lagos is globally celebrated as a model for good governance on the African continent.
A long stint on the opposition sidelines might not be a bad thing for the South-East after all if it inspires the governors and leaders to look inwards and transform their region – rather than praying to be in good graces of the latest master of Abuja.
