THE  sudden and desperate efforts to change the rules of the game midway will make the Igbos another weeping boy of the Nigerian politics. Igbos will again become victims of political frustrations in Nigeria.

It is frustrating that in this democracy, Igbos have not been President or Vice-President due to the role of zoning. It will be very painful that five years to 2015 when it will be the turn of Igbos to assume the office of the presidency of this country, then rotation will be discarded. Igbos should under no circumstance accept this political rigmarole to short-change the people of the Igbo race in Nigeria in the interest of other regions.

The people of the South East have been in the forefront of the liberation and development of Nigeria. Prior to independence, Igbos, like the late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr Michael Okpara, Chief Mbonu Ojike, Dr Nwafor Orizu and several others were in the forefront of the struggle for independence. The role of Igbo intellectuals in the struggle for independence and the building of a new Nigeria after independence are very prominent in the history of Nigeria.

Will the records of Professor Kenneth Dike, Professor Chike Obi, Professor Chinua Achebe, Professor Eni Njoku, Professors Gordian Ezekwe and Cyprian Ekwensi be swept under the carpet? If zoning is not maintained in the interest of one stable Nigeria, then let it also be on record that the contributions of Igbos to the growth and development of Nigeria have not been rewarded or appreciated.

It is on record that the Igbo have been marginalised right from the pre-independence days. Apart from Dr. Azikiwe, which other liberation leader in Africa failed to lead the country it liberated. Jomo Kenyatta ruled Kenya after their independence, Sekou Toure led Guinea, Julius Nyerere led the independent Tanzania, Sam Nuyoma of the South West Africa Peoples Organisation led Namibia to independence and became its first President. And Dr Nelson Mandela ruled the post-Apartheid South Africa at the collapse of apartheid in 1994.

The killing and abandonment of zoning by the technical claim of being unconstitutional will be another way of institutionalizing the continued deprivation of the Igbo people in Nigeria and that would be purely chicanery.

Even the watery argument by the antagonists of zoning on the non-constitutionality of the arrangement collapses flat before the position held recently by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olisa Agbakoba, who argued that “the Constitution prescribes the federal character principle at Section 14. Federal character is about inclusion of the six geopolitical zones in the allocation of political and public sector appointments, including the office of President.

Federal character has, however, assumed a negative connotation, as there is a strong perception that people gain offices at the sacrifice of merit. Zoning is the political name for the constitutional principle of federal character.

The call to abolish zoning is misconceived. All public institutions in Nigeria are zoned to include the six zones.

This is why Sub-section (3) of Section 14 of the Constitution stipulates that: “The composition of the government of the federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity and all to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there is no predominance of persons from few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or any of its agencies”.

This shows clearly that zoning is a constitutional principle.  It is important to ask why the drafters of the Constitution prescribed zoning or its constitutional name – federal character. The reason is quite simple.

There are, broadly speaking, two types of federations: Homogeneous federations where citizens have a strong sense of national unity.  On that note, I call on the Igbo people, irrespective of their low positions in the society and very high political ranks in the national and state affairs, to support the retention of zoning principle as a political strategy for giving every section of the country a sense of belonging.

The attempt by President Jonathan to violate the zoning principle and contest the presidential election is shortsighted and will have far-reaching implications on the future of Nigerian politics most of which will not be pleasant to the Southern region of Nigeria, especially the minorities of the Niger-Delta.

Igbos should work against the violation of the zoning principle for the safety of their political future and that of Nigeria as a whole.

By Ugochukwu Emenike, a commentator on national issues, writes from Imo State.