THERE were protests everywhere, especially in the South West. Many lost their lives.

To avoid incarceration or death, many of those who fought for June 12 actualisation went on exile.

It was against this background that the powers that be then picked General Olusegun Obasanjo as PDP presidential candidate in the 1999 general elections which he eventually won.

To the surprise of many Nigerians, particularly in the South West, the emergence of Obasanjo was not envisaged and was not acceptable. Rather, most people in the zone preferred Chief Olu Falae who contested under the coalition of Alliance for Democracy (AD)/All Peoples Party (APP) as presidential candidate.

Before Obasanjo emerged, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo from the South East was the leading aspirant in the PDP but all that changed at the Jos Convention where the party’s presidential primaries were held.

The implication of all this is that the zoning of the presidency was done to compensate the South West for the denial of an Abiola presidency and his subsequent death in detention while in the struggle to actualise his June 12 mandate.

But can we justifiably say it was in the same spirit of zoning that Obasanjo picked the late Umar Musa Yar’Adua from the North Central as his successor in 2007? Was he the choice of the North?

Didn’t many politicians in the Northern part of the country accuse Obasanjo of picking the late President for his own selfish interest? Among those in the PDP who showed interest from the Northern part of the country, two were most prominent.

They were General Ibrahim Babangida and Atiku.   IBB had to step down while Atiku went on to contest under the Action Congress (AC).

Today, we are talking of zoning as if it was done in the interest of the generality of Nigerians. Far from it. Zoning was applied to satisfy the selfish interest of some people.

But if zoning must equate justice and fairness, there is no reason why the presidency should not be zoned to the South-South, where President Goodluck Jonathan hails from.

This should be done to address the great injustice done to the people of this zone ,who for several years have had resources from their zone used to develop other parts of the country while their communities wallow in poverty and other forms  of  degradation.

As Vice President under the late President Yar’Adua, would Jonathan not have still been in the presidency as vice president if Yar’Adua had not died but contested and won to serve his second term?

If we agree that Yar’Adua’s death is an act of God, why do we want to deny Jonathan the right to contest?

By insisting that the presidency must rotate between the North and the South, are we not also agreeing that the late Abiola was denied the presidency because he was a Southerner?

This writer believes that at 50 years we should be working towards realising a country where no man is denied his right because of the circumstances of his birth.

We should start learning to judge our people not by their tribe or state of origin but by the content of their character.

Mack Ogbamosa   , a lawyer/journalist, writes from Lagos.