ONE of the most complex problems in Nigeria, it has been dispassionately observed, is that of recycled leadership.

From our flag independence to the present, power has consistently been wielded by the same power brokers who always pretend to hold power in trust for the people while in actual fact they are holding it for themselves, their families and other parochial associations.

Some sophist may dispute this claim and smugly point to the president of the nation, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as one whose emergence is an exception to the unwritten convention of recycling.

That is to be expected, especially if our analysis of his rise to power is superficial and sentimental all in one breath. Yes, we may cite that and strike our collective chest in congratulation of our ability as a nation to look into our political compass and chart a new course.

However, if we would do an accurate stock-taking of our troubled past and see things from a correct perspective, if we would avail ourselves of logic and percipiently recognise any sociological development as not a disparate action in itself but one of a series, we are bound to see with recourse to eye slave, old wines in new bottles.

At first it was the North, toting a somewhat exaggerated superiority in number – a superiority boosted by the blithe incorporation of trees and cattle into the census mathematics – that produced all the mainstream rulers, sorry, leaders.

Later, when the parading shifted to the ability to handle a gun and belch deaths all over the place with a hectoring voice, it was still the North which determined who were the crown. That was how green cranks who helped themselves at the national till, rule us as if we had been their personal chattel.

It was also from the North that we had our first taste of the concept of mega-party, and that party called NPN had as its main agenda the prosperity, through contractual patronage, of its members, to the detriment and chagrin of the masses.

Ask Umaru Dikko and he would regale you with the economics of rice merchandising. Ask the late Adisa Akinloye-perhaps through a seasoned necromancer- and he would let you in into the dynamics of personalising even a general hard liqour such as champagne with a powerful , vault-opening signature. Ask Uba Ahmed and he is sure to point to his rosy cheek.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it was from this prime mega-party, NPN, that the latest one, PDP, coalesced and with the same operating agenda to enrich party members at the expense of Nigerians.

Especially as the man who put the contraption together, Alex Ekwueme, was a prominent NPN man.

Therefore, President Goodluck Jonathan is the first cousin of Shehu Shagari. Old wines in new bottles!
And in the Warri North Constituency of Delta State a replay of this national recycling syndrome is enacting itself.

As a matter of fact, the constituency which comprises about 75 percent Itsekiri and 25 percent Egbema Ijaws has always had indigenes from the outskirts, the riverine communities grabbing political power, relegating the people of the inland to the back seat.

What is even more remarkable, despite the fact that the headquarters of this local government area is sited in Koko, the famous port town, it is ineffaceably on record Koko indigenes have not been elected into any elective post since 1991.

The indigenes of the surrounding riverine communities have been the ones monopolising political power and its appurtenant prestige, concessions and money. Political equity, it has been established, is so lopsided that most of the politicians who had been riding roughshod over the area since 1991 have come from Oghoye Ward 1.

Clearly this is a clear case of robbing Peter to pay Paul and inevitably against everything that is fair and square.

Those who demand equity, the saying  goes, must come with clean hands. If for a long time Southerners had been accusing the North of marginalisation is it not time for this glaring injustice in Warri North to be addressed? Are the politicians in the outlying villages around Koko saying that those who made the famous port town headquarters in the first place are fools?

Clearly too, democracy thrives in a place where there is mass participation, mass sensitization and empowerment. This is what makes it the most realistic and authentic political system in the world. Any negligence of any component unit negates this mass orientation.

To redress this anomaly, the people of Koko  town advocates that in 2015 candidates from Koko town should be given preference in the distribution of political appointments.

Mr. GAB EJUWA,   a journalist, writes from Lagos.