By Tony Edike, Enugu
THE position taken by Governors of the five South East States at their meeting in Enugu last Sunday on the burning issue of zoning of the presidential seat can best be regarded as the collective decision of the people of the zone which they lead. 

Although other geopolitical zones of the country had taken a definite stand on the issue which has seriously created a wide gap between the North and South, the chief executives of the South Eastern States were not categorical on whether the presidency should remain in the South for another four years  after the present tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 or that power should shift to the North as being canvassed by leaders of that zone, who argue that the internal zoning arrangement by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, rotating power between the North and South should be respected.

Ogbulafor: Backed the North

Four days after the South East governors made their position on the issue known, the PDP National Chairman, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, who emerged from the same geopolitical zone, also announced that the issue of zoning in the party died since 1999 and that it had been jettisoned.

Saturda Vanguard investigations in the South East, however, revealed that majority of the people of the zone are strongly opposed to zoning of the presidency either by the PDP or any of the existing political parties, describing it as undemocratic.

Leaders of political parties with strong base in the South East including the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA led by Chief Victor Umeh, Justice Party, JP, led by Chief Ralph Obioha, a Chieftain of the Peoples Progressive Alliance, PPA, Dr Sam Nkire as well as some opinion leaders in Igbo land are  of the view that zoning should be completely jettisoned to give way for the emergence of a president that is acceptable to majority of Nigerians.

Obioha, the JP National Chairman, threw his support behind the position of the issue by South East Governors saying the communiqué was indicative that the governors some of who are not in PDP and by extension the people of the zone they govern, are not interested in zoning even though they have resolved not to run for the office of the president or the vice president.

He said: “By their position as governors of the South East, they are the official political leaders of the zone.   By accepting that they are not interested in running for either the president or vice president, it has taken out any interest of the South East in particularly positioning themselves.  It is also, I believe, indicative that the zoning formula is actually the preserve of the PDP as a political party.

“The party has to internally resolve that position.  I am not in PDP and my view is that the doctrine that brought zoning in the first instance was for ensuring that this nation is run on a very equitable basis and that the position of the presidency is not the preserve of any particular section of the country. And that doctrine if you look at what has actually happened in Nigeria since its formation whether is in 1914 when the North and South were amalgamated, it had been clear that one section of the country, whether as civilian or as military, had dominated the leadership of this country.

“You cannot tell the other sections not to feel that they must be part of it.  By divine providence or whatever you may call it, the current President Jonathan had been thrown out from the part of Nigeria all Nigerians have now agreed has been marginalized and this thing being a purely political matter; you cannot pretend that it is something you could just lightly wave off.

“In the circumstance, this nation has been made in the past to create this fair-play and equity, to tell a man who is in the advantage position as Goodluck Jonathan is today to abandon his fundamental rights of aspiration will also not be very matured.

“All I am praying is that whatever we do we must always not let the political elite power game to override the security that the critical masses of Nigerians are entitled to.  In playing this game, we must always be patriotic to know that it must be handled maturely.  I ask all sectors in the country to know especially that the realities we are facing in Nigeria.

Anybody who pretends that he can ask a sitting president, who has all the rights to aspire to give it up just like that, will not be realistic.  So we had in the past applied so many accommodations to continue maintaining our cohesion and unity, and we ask also that the time has come now for us to engineer something that accommodates the realities on the ground.

“It has happened in the past.  In 1999 that Obasanjo became president of Nigeria it was on the firm consideration of the doctrine of necessity and today what is facing us, we must go back to the growing rock to give accommodation where it is deserved.

The position of the South East is like the position of all Nigerians who place the unity, stability and the peace of this country above any other consideration.   Positions come and go and another four years for Jonathan does not call for the beginning and end of Nigerians and when the time comes again there may be something that come that will make the same doctrine of necessity to create the window that will make everything come off, stabilizing, unifying and ensuring development.

“This issue should not be left in the domain of any power-play, it must be something that elder-statesmen, the patriots of this country must sit down and work out how it will best benefit the country.  Anybody who simplifies it by pushing it into zoning of North and South, South-South or wherever,  will be missing the point gravely.

The present situation thrown is not normal.  If Umar Yar’Adua had not passed on, this situation that we are in today that is a reality would not have arisen. And since it has arisen, it is important that a very mature approach should be applied and not a clique resolution. Mature minds must be co-opted to find out the best way they can resolve the issue so that we move on.”

Also speaking, the National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, said that since there was no clause in Nigerian Constitution that talked about zoning political offices in Nigeria or rotational clauses, zoning remains an arrangement that is not binding on anybody in Nigeria’s political dispensation.

Hear him: “We are practicing constitutional democracy.  Only those things that are provided for in the constitution are things that are available to anybody to canvass for.  The much ado about the zoning of the presidency which is an internal arrangement of the PDP is also no longer there.  The National Chairman of PDP, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo has made it clear that zoning in PDP died since 2002, I don’t know we can exhume something that is dead and buried now and use it to heat up the polity in Nigeria.

Those who manufactured zoning have told us that there is nothing like it anymore. So it goes to show that the field is open to everybody in Nigeria.  The much discussed issued of zoning has always remained the internal arrangement of the PDP.   And if the highest official in that political party has now said that zoning is dead and buried there is nothing more to discuss.

“There is no doubt but there is need to ensure that political offices should go round Nigerian, but it is something one should achieve through persuasion not the way they were going about it. It we find somebody that is very credible that has the vision to lead Nigeria to the Promised Land, and that person comes from a minority ethnic group, Nigerians should support that person to become president.  What is important is the good of Nigerians and the good of the country, not about where the president comes from.

“If we continue to emphasize ethnicity, geographical zoning, religion the country will continue to grope in the dark.  The best available in the country may not have the opportunity to provide service at the highest level in this country.

It is also heartwarming that all analysis already made on this issue, it has become manifestly clear that no zone can go it alone, be it the North or the South.  The North has 19 States and the South has 17 States.  It shows that if we are to truly look at this issue based on geographical consideration, it means that nobody from the North can score 25 percent as required by the constitution in 24 states.  That person must cross over to the south to score at least 25 percent in at least five states.  So if they continue to orchestrate this zoning as being indispensable, it goes to show that no zone of  this country can produce the president of  Nigeria.

The North needs the South, the South needs the North.  In the same way, if it is reduced to the six geopolitical zonal structures which Nigeria is operating, it makes the case worse because a zone is about six states; it is only the South East that has five states. So if a geopolitical zone is clamoring for the presidency, that zone will be shopping for 30 other states to be able to meet the requisite spread in 18 other states in Nigeria to be able to satisfy the constitutional requirement.

“Nigeria should emulate America.  America is a country of diverse ethnic nationalities but then it a United States of America.  In America the church you go to, the language you speak, all these do not count when they want to choose a president and that is why it was possible for Barak Obama to become president in the first place.  Being an African-American that is about 10 percent of the American population would have been impossible.

So, Nigeria should deemphasize ethnicity, religion and geopolitical consideration in looking for leaders that will serve Nigeria.  Anybody who is endowed with wisdom and the necessary vision and education to provide all the needs of the Nigerian people, nobody will care to know where the person comes from, so long as we turn our taps water flows, somebody gets ill, he goes to the hospital and he gets treatment, we have good roads, we have uninterrupted power supply and all other basic infrastructure that will make the economy strong, any person that is able to achieve all these things, even if that person is a heathen (somebody that does not know God) Nigerians will vote massively for that person.  It is all about quality of life of the citizen.

This ethnic jingoism and religious bigotry have both combined to hold Nigeria down and this is time for us to actually do away with such considerations in very important issue of leadership that affects the lives of Nigerians.

“We are very happy as a party that PDP has killed its own zoning by their own pronouncement.  We will be approaching 2011general elections with less controversy.  Those of them who are in the PDP who still feel strongly that it is the turn of the North will continue talking about the turn of the North and Nigeria will continue to proceed.  Nobody will wait for them.

So long as the needs of the Nigerian people are met, the issue of zoning is not there.”
On whether Jonathan should run for presidency in 2011 election, the APGA National Chairman said: “Jonathan has a constitutional right to run. There is no way our constitution can say that somebody who is elected into office that has right of second term and then after one year out of his four-year term he shared with his predecessor you now tell him that he can’t run, that you are the author of zoning, it is clearly unconstitutional.

There is nothing standing on the way of Jonathan to run for the presidency of Nigeria.  What Nigerians are looking forwarding to is seeing that Jonathan rising to the occasion. He has promised credible elections in 2011, let him go ahead and deliver it.  Let him also continue to tackle the myriads of problems bedeviling the country in the area of the economy, rising unemployment, all sorts of problems facing Nigeria.  If he tackles them satisfactorily and he presents himself for re-election he will be generally accepted by Nigerians. Nobody can stop him from running for presidency.”

Reacting to the South East Governors’ resolution on the issue of presidency, Umeh said the governors are leaders in their own right, stressing that for their decision to be binding on all Igbos, they needed to do wider consultation.

“Leading in their statement is the fact that the South East as presently organized may not be in a position to make an effective bid for the presidency in 2011 and that our concentration will be to organize ourselves properly and make an effective bid for the presidency in 2011 or next time.  What is very important now is providing the much needed infrastructure in the South East by whoever is the president of Nigeria.

“That does not mean that they have foreclosed the chances of Ndigbo. What is pre-occupying them now getting the president of Nigeria to address the problem of the South East and at the auspicious time the Igbos will make an effective bid for the president.  It is an objective statement they have made, I must say that, but then they needed a wider consultation before such a statement could come.

One thing that is important is that they did not declare support for anybody.  So to the extent that they did not declare support for any intending candidate, it goes to show that they have left negotiations open when the time comes.  If the Igbos are not bidding for the presidency at this point in time, the Igbos must be interested in who will  become the president in 2011 and that persons must be in a position to convince  the Igbos that since they are waiting for another time to go for the presidency, that person must be in a position to meet their needs.”

Continuing, Umeh said the Igbos have a lot of challenges in Nigeria today, stressing that apart from the fact that “we have the least number of Local governments among the six geopolitical zones in the country, 95 only and five state,  if somebody wants to be president of the country and the Igbos are not bidding for the presidency at this point in time, the person must be able to guarantee that during his or her presidency the number of local governments in the South East will be increased and that the South East will also be given an additional state to bring it at par with the rest of the zones in Nigeria. I think it is the act of negotiation that will  come to play before the Igbos will take a final decision on this issue.  If we don’t get what we deserve, of course, we will go on and contest.”

In the same vein, the pioneer National Secretary and member of Board of Trustees of PPA, Dr Sam Nkire  said even though zoning was not a bad concept in solving problems, it should not be used to deny the nation the opportunity of having a credible leader.

“Zoning is not a very bad concept as it can be used to solve different kinds of problem. You find that even in Nigeria we complain that the North has dominated leadership for the better part of our independent life as a nation.  Even if Jonathan runs for presidency it is not enough to close the gap between the North and South.

“Basically, our party believes in free and fair primaries at all levels.  If at the primaries Jonathan wins he runs.  If he does not win, whoever wins should run.  We don’t believe there shouldn’t be a hard and fast rule on zoning.  What Nigeria needs is a good governance no matter who gives it. This is the position of our party on the issue,” Nkire told Vanguard.