THE more we claim we are building our nation, the more we recline to primordial leanings that expose our pretences, and affirm that politicians are in business just for themselves.

In their continuous quest for selfish enterprises, the nation’s importance declines in relation to their intentions. We have seen these times over.
In the season of change, the difference is the stridence with which people are appropriating Nigeria’s political offices – supposedly on behalf of their zones, peoples, and political convictions – to themselves.

The All Progressives Congress, APC, has shifted from the battle of electioneering to sharing the gains of controlling the centre. Nobody seemed to have been adequately prepared for the implications of slicing national offices in proportions that could annoy others, who could feel their contributions to victory were ignored.

The ordinary matter of electing the National Assembly leadership is providing sparks that could bring the party to early squabbles. Every zone, except the South East which did not contribute to APC’s victory, with votes others are parading, feels entitled to produce the Senate President or Speaker of the House of Representatives, offices that have assumed more importance over years of growing hunger.

Nigeria once farmed out those offices without attention to region or religion. It seemed that competence and camaraderie counted more than connections and contacts, some of the credentials being touted in today’s contests. Nobody needed to spread out the map of Nigeria and put pins on the zones of the President, Vice President and principal officers of the National Assembly. Undue weight is being put on spreading the offices.

Joseph Wayas from Ogoja, nearer to Enugu (then in Anambra State) than most parts of Cross River State, was President of the Senate. Edwin Ume-Ezeoke from Nnewi in Anambra State was Speaker of the House of Representatives though the Vice President Alexander Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme was from Okoh, also in Anambra State.

Some could argue the alliance between National Party of Nigeria, NPN, and Nigerian Peoples Party, NPP, caused the “anomaly”, but these officers never enjoyed a fraction of what the offices now offer.

Thirty-six years after, the past could be the building blocks for dispersing these offices without the on-going bickering. If the fights were about enthroning quality leadership at the National Assembly, they would be understandable.

Rather, they are about entitlement, easily captured in It Is Our Turn To Eat, Michela Wrong’s 2010 classic about Kenya’s power struggles (between Kikuyus and Kalenjins) as well as the permissive atmosphere of corruption.

We think entitlement should be the least qualification for leadership of the National Assembly for it to make laws to curb arbitrariness and the excesses it entails.