Awolowo struck a pre-emptive ‘coup’ against all his rivals by being the first to name a vice-presidential nominee in October 1978. Philip Umeadi, a competent Igbo lawyer, was tapped for the job in a calculated move to ‘bounce’ Awo’s ratings and the Unity Party’s among the Igbos. He had earlier tried to recruit former premier, Dr Michael Okpara, as his vice-president but was rebuffed. He felt that naming a top Igbo as vice-president would not only balance his ticket but would dissuade Zik from joining the presidential contest. Awolowo was not bothered that Umeadi was a Christian (like himself), a political lightweight and a fellow southerner like himself. As it turned out, Umeadi did not add much electoral value to the ticket as the Igbos were not impressed with his choice. Nothing he did could appease them.

Zik, who was amused by Awolowo’s calculations, was dragged into the presidential contest at the last moment when Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim overplayed his hand in the Nigerian People‘s Party and when the lgbo, as a nation, felt left out in the prestigious battle to elect a president. The party was a fusion of the ‘Lagos Progressives’, Club 19 (Middle Belt) and -Ibrahim Waziri’s National Union Council. When Waziri insisted on claiming both the chairmanship and presidential slots of the party for himself, Chief Solomon Lar, Chief Jim Nwobodo, and Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya went to Onitsha to awaken Zik from retirement and enlist him for the presidential race. (Zik had not paid his taxes as and when due and was disqualified by the Electoral Commission but after crying that he was discriminated against because he was lgbo, won a last minute reprieve.)

Awolowo realised that it was impossible to convince the Igbo people to vote for any other candidate once the great Zik was in the race. It was too late for him to have a rethink since he had already chosen Chief Philip Umeadi as vice-president. The choice of Umeadi baffled his supporters. Analysts thought it was a defective move and a political miscalculation ab initio. Worse, that strategy was now woefully undermined by the sudden entry of Zik. What to do? He could not dump Umeadi if he was not to look unserious but chose to write a flattering letter to Zik, the Owelle of Onitsha, imploring him to join forces with him and that he was ready to serve under him as the “chief servant” of the Federation or executive Vice President. This was a repetition of his 1959 offer.

Awo knew that if both of them worked together, the presidency would be in the bag and Nigeria would be better for it. (Awo complained in an unpublished interview with this author in Owo in 1978 that Zik came into the race purposely to hurt his chances.) If they collaborated, they could take the presidency in an election walk-over in a ‘co-habitation’ compromise (splitting the prize by holding office one after the other in a pre- arranged two-year formula to complete the four-year official tenure). This could be procured through a gentleman’s agreement because Zik disliked written pacts. But Awo’s confidential letter soliciting Zik’s co-operation was leaked to the Chief Abiola’s National Concord newspaper by an unknown person from within. Awo suffered embarrassment as the letter portrayed him as ‘desperate’ to hold office. He fired his secretary, Odia Ofeimun, whom he held responsible for the leakage. Ofeimun blamed the chief of staff, Ajuluchuku for the ‘sabotage’. The fingers also pointed to Zik’s sympathizers in the outside camp who loathed the idea of collaboration between the two super-politicians but Anambra governorship aspirant, Jim Nwobodo proved that the published letter was indeed Awo’s file-copy; And Zik himself showed his disinterest and did not even bother to reply. Adeniran Ogunsanya, an old NCNC diehard, wanted to become governor of Lagos and a deal could ‘not be worked out with Awo who preferred his newspaper’s editor, Lateef Jakande. This further upset the Zik camp. Conceding the Lagos governorship to Ogunsanya could have been a good bargaining chip with Zik and his lieutenants. But how would Zik convince the Igbo mainstream voters that Awo was now to be trusted to look after their interest after 30 years of ethnic rivalry and unveiled hostility? The Igbos might have rebelled even if Zik had chosen to be magnanimous. And Zik, who loathed Awo more than any other politician in Nigeria, refused to be magnanimous.


This attempt to work with Zik and the Igbo people to rescue the Nigerian nation from poor national leadership would be the third time Awolowo would send an olive branch to the Owelle of Onitsha. He was snubbed again. In 1953 and 1959, Awolowo had approached Zik, to forget the 1951 quarrel over the Western elections but Zik refused to budge. (Zik only agreed to sign a tentative but secret treaty with Awo to forge a new nation, South Nigeria, if the northerners remained obstinate about the 1960 date for independence from British rule.) Instead of forging a genuine southern solidarity, on both occasions, he led the Igbos to align with the northerners. Awo realized that at the ripe old age of 69, this was his last realistic chance of serving Nigeria at the national level and so he swallowed his pride and approached Zik again. But the 74-year-old Zik, (he was christened the beautiful bride by the press) turned him down when he knew that his stature was so diminished that he had no realistic chance of winning the presidency on his own. Victor Oshisada, a former features editor in the Daily Times of Nigeria, writing in The Guardian on Sunday of June 15, 1997, made the following observations:

In the political annals of this nation, there were two principal events that portrayed the Igbos as short-sighted. The first was the general election of December 12, 1959. A glance at the results of the election results into the House of Representatives which had a membership of 312 showed that the NPC won 134 seats, the NCNC had 81 seats, their NEPU ally had 8 seats, the Action Group had 73 seats, Ibadan Mabolaje Grand Alliance had 6 seats, Igala Union had 4 seats, Igbira Union had 1, Niger Delta Congress had 1 seat, and Independents had 4 seats. If the seats won by the NCNC and the AG had been combined, it would have amounted to 154 seats which could have pushed the NPC‘s 134 members into the opposition. If their allies‘ 24 seats were added to this, it would have been a clear and comfortable majority for the Southerners in the House of Representatives. The leaders of the AG, cap in hand, approached the NCNC to co-operate with them to form the federal government. The AG conceded the executive office of prime minister to Zik or his nominee with the AG leader happy to be the finance minister to lay the foundation of the nation’s economy. It was the most breathtaking chance to forge a Southern alliance but the Igbos and their friends threw away the offer. Dr Michael Okpara, flamboyant premier of the Eastern Region, regretted this lost paradise before his death when he said: ‘Our refusal to come together was the greatest political mistake I have ever made.’ In 1966, when Major General J.T.U Aguiyi lronsi came to power by default, he refused to release Chief Awolowo from Calabar prison. He said there were no political prisoners in the country. Yet everybody knew Awolowo and his colleagues were jailed to silence them. If the Igbos had prevailed on Ironsi to do the right thing, perhaps the civil war might never have happened. Our political history might have been different if the Igbos had co-operated.


The outcome of an electorally-divided South was a forgone conclusion. The election was held on August 4, 1979 and although Awolowo was within shots of scoring a historical triumph in spite of the Igbo factor, the military government of General Olusegun Obasanjo did not give him any chance. Awo scored 0.75 per cent and 0.64 per cent of the votes cast in Anambra and Imo states (the two Igbo states) compared to 82.88 per cent and 86.67 per cent respectively scored by Azikiwe there. He swept over 80 per cent of the votes in the Yoruba states and Lagos. Overall, and in spite of the manipulation of votes in some states, Awo scored 29 per cent to Shagari’s 33 per cent; Zik garnered 16 per cent while Waziri and Aminu scored 10 per cent each.

Even when the published results showed that Alhaji Shehu Shagari, the military government’s favoured candidate, could not muster a win of a quarter of the votes in ‘two-thirds of the 19 states’ as required by the constitution and the electoral law to be declared an outright winner, Richard Akinjide successfully persuaded the junta, and later the Supreme Court, that his man had done ‘enough’ to lock up the presidential prize in the notorious ‘two-thirds of 19 states is 12 states’ mathematical farce. Chief Awolowo challenged Shagari‘s declaration as the victor by the Electoral Commission at the Supreme Court on August 21.


The Federal Electoral Commission, which had always ruled that two-thirds of 19 states meant 13 states, found itself in a quandary. But it quickly accepted Akinjide‘s mathematical interpretation and chose not to take the elections into the scheduled second round in spite of the fact that no candidate emerged in the first round according to the rules of the election and the constitution. Akinjide ingenuously argued that ‘a quarter of the votes in two-third of the states‘ meant: ‘a quarter of the votes cast in two-thirds of the voting precincts of the 13th state and insisted that Shagari had scaled that hurdle in Kano State. The military regime and the Supreme Court agreed that a mathematical fraction of a state was feasible on the ground and in law and Shagari was returned as the first president in October 1979.

ndu_chucks:

The only way to stop GEJ from winning the 2011 presidential election is for Buhari to selflessly withdraw from the race, throw his weight and resources behind Ribadu and campaign with Ribadu, in the best interest of the nation. My personal view is that, Buhari will not step down just as Zik refused to work with Awo. If Zik had accepted Awo’s advances, NPN would not have won the election.

The selfish act of Zik’s is one of the main reasons Nigeria is in its current rotten position – Buhari is getting ready to make the same mistake.  Read the excerpt below, watch history repeat itself.  Congratulations in advance, President Goodluck Jonathan.

Nchara:


Dont know what you mean by Zik refused to work with Awo. You mean Zik should have stepped down for Awo? If so, why did Awo not step down for Zik? And why did Aminu Kano and Waziri Ibrahim not step down for Shagari?

[
Awolowo realised that it was impossible to convince the Igbo people to vote for any other candidate once the great Zik was in the race. It was too late for him to have a rethink since he had already chosen Chief Philip Umeadi as vice-president. The choice of Umeadi baffled his supporters. Analysts thought it was a defective move and a political miscalculation ab initio. Worse, that strategy was now woefully undermined by the sudden entry of Zik. [b]What to do? [/b]He could not dump Umeadi if he was not to look unserious but chose to write a flattering letter to Zik, the Owelle of Onitsha, imploring him to join forces with him and that [b]he was ready to serve under him as the “chief servant” of the Federation or executive Vice President. [/b]This was a repetition of his 1959 offer.

ndu_chucks:

The only way to stop GEJ from winning the 2011 presidential election is for Buhari to selflessly withdraw from the race, throw his weight and resources behind Ribadu and campaign with Ribadu, in the best interest of the nation. My personal view is that, Buhari will not step down just as Zik refused to work with Awo. If Zik had accepted Awo’s advances, NPN would not have won the election.


The selfish act of Zik’s is one of the main reasons Nigeria is in its current rotten position – Buhari is getting ready to make the same mistake. Read the excerpt below, watch history repeat itself. Congratulations in advance, President Goodluck Jonathan.


Bid for the presidency (1978-79)


cont’d

Dede1:


Were you drunk and in a deep slumber as you impugn the personality of great Zik by comparing him with a product of nepotism such as Buhari? The accusation of selfishness you leveled on Zik is a literary crime punishable by flogging. If all the post-independent leaders of Nigeria had slight resemblance of Zik’s political stigma, Nigeria would have not degenerated into the basket of tribalism it is today.

[size=14pt]The North is done[/size]. It is now south all the way. Both Buhari and Ribadu belong in the political trash can, just like Atiku has been put there. Go, uncle Joe

safari SA:

Yeswecan,

you brought your image slander of Buhari to this thread again. I will keep chasing you until you give up, bleeping religious bigots you are. Coward. what has Buhari's image got to do with this lovely article.

Religious psycho!

Arysexy:

@ poster, did u open this thread to insult the person of Great Zik of Africa? your comparison lacks point. Pls go think about your life and how to better it rather than getting urself worked up about a man u can never achieve 1/1,000,000 of his achievements.

eku_bear:

So nobody disagrees with what @ndu_chucks laid out?

If those are the facts, then how is Zik not an absolute jackass? Not trying to be disrespectful, but what he did seems absolutely selfish, shortsighted, and spiteful.

ndu_chucks:

I challenge anyone to provide information that will dispute the facts as I’ve laid them out.  I did not start the thread to insult Zik, Awo, or anyone else. The thread was started to educate some ignorant forumites about historical facts.  I believe that history is going to repeat itself once more.  What a shame!

eku_bear:

So nobody disagrees with what @ndu_chucks laid out?

If those are the facts, then how is Zik not an absolute jackass? Not trying to be disrespectful, but what he did seems absolutely selfish, shortsighted, and spiteful.

The selfish act of Zik’s is one of the main reasons Nigeria is in its current rotten position – Buhari is getting ready to make the same mistake.

Beaf:

The article is another stealthy "northernisation" attempt, while impugning Ziks good name. Power is not by force, neither is it a regional right, other sections of the country are as deserving of power; thats the new reality, cos its gonna harden further.

ndu_chucks:

@Sapeleguy, those who do not learn from history tend to repeat historical mistakes. It is the act of not forming a coalition when necessary for the betterment of the nation, that is in question. History is about to repeat itself while you people wallow in sentiments.

eku_bear:

So nobody disagrees with what @ndu_chucks laid out?

If those are the facts, then how is Zik not an absolute jackass? Not trying to be disrespectful, but what he did seems absolutely selfish, shortsighted, and spiteful.