Abandonment of zoning: The entrapment of Jonathan and the South?
By Jide Ajani, Deputy Editor
Sunday, July 11, 2010
* The game of numbers to come


Presdent Jonathan




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Having allowed speculations about his aspiration for the presidency next year, President Goodluck Jonathan may have unwittingly set in motion a possible chain of events that is bound to change the face of politics in Nigeria. But will the North, which sees its opportunity of producing the president for another four years being tampered with by Jonathan’s aspiration, allow matters to lay low? This report looks at the implications of PDP leaders’ sudden repudiation of zoning, a move that may have more debilitating consequences for the south and other minorities in Nigeria.

Thinking offensively, those in the vanguard of dumping zoning may have unknowingly entrapped themselves, leaving their flanks suspect. Just as the season is of the World Cup’s, attack, in this instance, zoning, may end up not being the best form of defence.

It is ironic. The frenzy over President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s aspiration for the presidency next year has already taken out its first casualty: ZONING.

The minutes of the PDP expanded caucus meeting where, in 2002, two persons abstained from voting, two persons voted against zoning and the remainder in the 47-member expanded caucus voted en mass for zoning, can not be wrong. According to the minutes of that meeting, it was the former governor of Akwa Ibom State, “Victor Attah, (who) said zoning as an arrangement can not be fixed for the future. It is an issue that we must agree on when each term expires. There can be dissidents but the party would know that it has decided on a particular. He said the south should be allowed to have a second term”. All that had said took care of the situation Nwodo deliberately twisted to claim that zoning had been dead for quite a while.

What the PDP leadership and President Jonathan ought to have done is to engage a more creative approach in handling the matter of zoning and not engage on vituperative condescension.

Without zoning the numbers will play

Perhaps, those pushing for the dumping of zoning have their points. For instance, whereas it may actually be an effervescent palliative to power sharing, it does not really allow for the best product.

However, in a polity like Nigeria’s, where the philosophy of an even lopsided tripod patrimony exists, it would be difficult for some regions to make hay.

Take the 1999 presidential elections as an example. That election saw the three political parties field presidential candidates of Yoruba extraction. Ordinarily, an argument could be made for expected apathy in the north. But the total votes cast in the north and south can not be said to have been fairly even – even when there was no northerner contesting.

Whereas votes cast in the 17 southern states totalled 14, 237, 626, votes cast in the north stood at 15, 471, 117 – in an election where the north did not present a presidential candidate, there was a difference of over one million votes in favour of the north. That is not all.

At the last special national convention of the PDP where Vincent Ogbulafor emerged as party chairman on Saturday, March 8, 2008, the total number of delegates at that convention of the PDP stood at 1970 and 1779 for the north and south respectively, handing the north a simple majority which still had about 199 delegates more than the south. At that convention, the delegates’ list was with prejudice to what presently obtains now in two states in the south and two states in the north. The governorships of Edo and Ondo States have since been re-won by Action Congress, AC, and Labour Party, LP, respectively. One of the implications is that the states’ governors, deputies, commissioners and a handful of aides qualified to be delegates from the two states would no longer qualify for same. But the Imo State governor, Ikedi Ohakim had since dumped his PPA for PDP, thereby boosting delegates by about just a few dozens in his Imo base. Conversely, however, the Bauchi State governor, Isa Yuguda and his Zamfara State

counterpart, Aliu Shinkafi, have both dumped their All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, for the PDP, thereby swelling delegates’ numbers for future conventions – the numbers will swell. (See table on Delegates’ Votes)

In the House of Representatives, there are 360 members and more than half of them are from the north. The senate has 109 members; 58 of them are from the north while 51 are from the south. Mercifully, some very critical provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria insist on two third majority and not simple majority. Were the provisions to favour the latter, perhaps, President Jonathan would not be tampering with the zoning arrangement of his party.

The anger of the North

Although the baggage of presidential ambition of major players in the Northern Political Leaders Forum pours cold water on their collective effort, there are other factors at play and which have drawn the angst of some politicians from the north. Take the issue of one of the presidential hopefuls from the North.

Sunday Vanguard was made to understand that former President Olusegun Obasanjo “actually sent one of the south west governors to break the news of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s terminal condition to the northern political big wig, urging him to come out and contest, that the coast will soon be clear”, according to a source. The politician in question happens to be Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. Therefore, Babangida, used to flying kites for his every intended move, came out openly, setting up structures. The source continued: “So, how do you think a Babangida would feel now that it is the same Obasanjo who is denying zoning and urging Jonathan to call the bluff of the north and contest next year. “This same Obasanjo, at the height of his meanness and powers as President and Commander-in-Chief came to beg some of us in 2002/2003 just to get his ticket for a second term; I do not understand why this same man is deceiving the incumbent that he can go it alone.

Another sour point, Sunday Vanguard has been informed, is the position of some leaders of the PDP “who ought to know how these things play out”.

A look at the numbers as sourced and analysed in this report suggests that neither the north nor the south can achieve total control. However, the figures have almost always favoured the north.

This is without prejudice to the fact that voting is not cast in stone. But the north has always been known to bond together. Therefore, when Sunday Vanguard was told that “the north would present a consensus candidate for next year’s presidential elections”, it did not come as a surprise. Also, it has been discovered that the northern governors are not going to back a Jonathan ticket, except, of course, last minute re-negotiations are engaged and sealed.

One of the options being looked at, for instance, is “to continue to remain in the PDP and make a last minute decision to work for another political party to upstage Jonathan next year.

For PDP, working against the party from inside would not be a first. During the 2007 elections into the senate in Delta State, Patrick Osakwe got a raw deal from the leadership of the PDP at its headquarters in Abuja. Osakwe picked the ticket of ACCORD Party. On the eve of that election, a surreptitious text emanated from PDP leaders sympathetic to Osakwe and it read: Vote ACCORDingly for PDP.

On the heels of serious mobilization, the PDP faithful voted for Osakwe’s ACCORD Party. Osakwe has since been operating from the senate.

Rewind to 1999: Presidency for Hire

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP), Northern Caucus scheduled a meeting for Agura Hotel, Abuja, on February, 10, 1999. The meeting presidential candidate would emerge. The caucus meeting had 23 people. The chairman was Alhaji Lawal Kaita. Among those in attendance were Professor Jubril Aminu, Alhaji Adamu Ciroma. There were also Alhaji Mohammed Lawan and Senator Yusuf Mohammed – both have since died. Typically of most political meetings, it started at 10 p.m.

At the Agura Hotel meeting, held just three days to the Jos Convention, all the presidential aspirants were expected to make a last minute shadow bid by signing the document expected to bind whoever emerges to doing the bidding of the north. Don Etiebet, Alabo Grahem Douglas, Francis Ellah of blessed memory, Jim Nwobodo, Alex Ekwueme and, of course, Obasanjo, were expected. According to the minutes Obasanjo read out, Etiebet was the first to arrive; he had no problem signing. They called him the dark horse, an underdog. He said that in fact he is a northerner himself. He promptly signed the document without asking any questions.

Obasanjo continued: “Alex Ekwueme he was careful in his appraisal of the document. He was legalistic and academic in his approach. He reminded the caucus that he served for four years under Shehu Sagari and did not show any trace of disloyalty while serving with Shagari. He said he had no problem with the preamble to the compendium. He was told that he was at the liberty to remove or add whatever he wants to it.

Alex Ekwueme, this is what they wrote about him, ‘he would abide by the constitution and that he would not allow a northerner to head the army and police as well as defence and petroleum but submitted that he would not wantonly revise any project(s) that are of interest to the North (and that he did not have any problem with it).

Jim Nwobodo, he had no problem in signing.

“Now, let me read what they wrote about Olusegun Obasanjo, ‘we told him we were representing the Northern interest. We tired in vain to convince him to sign the document.

He said he was not happy about negotiating or signing a document with the North before the North would support him. He replied on the sincerity of purpose and his track record of performance. He reminded us that when he became the head of state after Gen. Murtala Muhammed died, he did not injure any interest of the North or molest any northerner in the public service, which he inherited, he respected the northerners he worked with and prosecuted all projects that were of vital interest to the North, including the transfer of the capital from Lagos to Abuja: a steel project in Ajaojunta, Katsina, Jos, Okene; a vehicle assembly plant in Kaduna, Kano and Bauchi; the Ashaka Cement factory in Gombe, Jebba/Shiroko Hydro Electric Power; Bakassi Irrigation Dam, and others.

“He gave us three conditions for signing the documents. First, that we should make it public (which they refused). Two, he should be free to sign similar documents with other sections of the country too, including the minorities (I said if you give me the northern agenda, I would get eastern agenda. and I would put them together and sign them). That he would only discuss the document with us and agree with it verbally, if necessary, to avoid being misunderstood.”

Obasanjo then explained to those present, including Sunday Vanguard, that “anybody who signed that would be a figurehead president and the vice president would be the president. And there is no way I would have signed such a document. I didn’t sign it. The week of the revelation, specifically Monday, September 30, 2002, Ekwueme and Douglas came out to deny signing the document. But the fact that there was a document was not totally in doubt. They settled for Obasanjo.


https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?action=post;board=20.0

Nigeria . . . . I hail thee

^^^lol^^^

Interesting!

[color=#006600][/color] as we approach 2011, many things swept under shall be revealed! I wish that it would be without reservation, llllong live Nigeria

Mr Obasanjo refused to sign away his rights or become anyone's slave. . . . Yet, look at what his opponents did!!! lol