₦airaland Forum

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

You don’t promote unity by simply glibly mouthing off infuriating platitudes about unity being “non-negotiable.” You promote it through meaningful symbolic gestures to reassure estranged groups that they too matter. 

Unity is promoted when conscious efforts are made to heal national wounds, to accommodate the dis-advantaged groups, and to make political concessions to restore faith in the promises of the country. The federal character principle, quota system, reservation of slots for students from educationally less developed states in federal institutions are examples of what sociologists call positive discrimination in the interest of the greater good of the society.

Nigeria also needs policies in positive discrimination in the political realm. That’s why I am a strong advocate for constitutionally enshrining power rotation at all levels of government in Nigeria in response to our peculiarities as a country that is riven by deep-seated primordial divisions practicing an American-style winner-take-all presidential democracy. 

In 1998, the northern Nigerian political establishment, which dominated the national power structure, sensed the imminence of an irrecoverable national collapse as a result of the deepening sense of alienation that the Yoruba people felt on account of the unjustified invalidation of the June 12, 1993, presidential election that MKO Abiola was poised to win, which was made even worse by his death in solitary confinement for demanding the legal recognition of his electoral victory.

When constitutional rule was restored in 1999, northern politicians and statesmen came to a consensus that the only way to keep Yoruba people from breaking away from Nigeria—or from being perpetual thorns in the flesh of the body politic—was to concede the presidency to them. That was remarkably patriotic and far-sighted. 

We have a similar moment now. The Igbo are almost in the same spot that the Yoruba were in in 1998. There is mass resentment among them. Several of them feel emotionally disconnected from Nigeria. And we all know why. Apart from the fact that they have never produced a president or vice president since 1999, Muhammadu Buhari has done an extremely poor job of husbanding Nigeria’s intricate diversity.

The sense of alienation that a vast swath of Igbo people feel now has made several of them, particularly their youth, susceptible to the murderous wiles of the mentally and emotionally disturbed mountebank called Nnamdi Kanu.

The cult of headless IPOB cretins Kanu has managed to build would only expand and might even transmogrify into something more sinister in the coming years if the estrangement of the Igbo persists. In fact, we can already see the steadily escalating foreboding of this in the current endemic violence in the southeast.

This is not unavoidable. It can be reversed with the election of an Igbo person as president. If we truly cherish Nigeria’s continuity as a country, we can’t afford to allow a huge section of it to feel so disaffected that it wants to break away from the union. 

Power rotation is not “democratic” by the conventional conception of democracy, but there’s no universally applicable practice of democracy. That’s why the American practice of democracy is different from the British one. 

American presidential election, for example, is not a one-person, one-vote democracy. That was why although Hillary Clinton won nearly three million more votes than Donald Trump in 2016, she was declared the president. We have a right to fashion our own democracy that shows sensitivity to our particularities. 

We will lose Nigeria if our democracy becomes an endless political Ping-Pong between the Northwest and the Southwest, as APC seems poised to make it. 
You first need to have a country before you can dominate it politically.  And you can’t have a country if a huge segment of it is forced to expend energies trying to get out of it because it doesn't feel welcome in it. 

I have invested tremendous emotional and intellectual capital in Nigeria and want it to evolve and endure. My recommendation for the election of an Igbo person in 2023 comes from that emotional and intellectual investment. It’s fine to disagree with me, but I’d be interested in knowing how you intend to solve the problem of the alienation of the third leg of the Nigerian tripod. 

In a 2020 book chapter, I wrote that Nigeria’s greatest misfortune has been that, in spite of its persistent, incapacitating fissiparity, it hasn’t disintegrated, but in spite of its apparent death-defying staying power, it hasn’t quite integrated, either. So, it is perpetually stuck in the twilight zone between death and life and between incipience and decay. 

The originative trigger for the enduring structural and conceptional instability of Nigeria, I pointed out, is traceable to its congenital colonial birth defects. But it’s not sustainable to be in that state in perpetuity. 

One of the ways to transcend it is to recognize the imperative of political inclusivity. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, this is more about symbolism than it is about substance. Electing an Igbo person as president would probably do nothing to improve anybody's lot—except, perhaps, the family and friends of the person elected to the office of president.

 Goodluck Jonathan's calamitous 5-year presidency couldn’t even bring basic infrastructure like boreholes to his hometown of Otueke in Bayelsa State, yet southern ethnic minorities derived vicarious fulfilment from the fact that he was president. Buhari’s infernal presidency hasn’t improved the lot of people even from his hometown, but they take pride in saying one of them is president.

Human beings are animated by a multiplicity of impulses, including rational and emotional impulses, both of which are legitimate. When we turn on our rational impulses, we may ask: What would electing an Igbo man as president do to Igbo people? My answer is “probably nothing.”

But we are more than rational beings: we are also emotional beings. That's why people are invested in symbolism. Electing an Igbo person as president is merely a symbolic gesture, but it inspires a sense of inclusion in the minds of many people from that region; it serves as a symbolic conduit through which people vicariously connect with the government and with the country.

In other words, electing an Igbo person as president is first of all an end in itself before it’s a means to an end. Reversing mass resentment in a large segment of the national population through electing a president from there like we did in 1999 is worthwhile, especially for a country that loves to say its unity and continuity are sacrosanct articles of faith.

Nonetheless, I am not suggesting that the reluctance to trust an Igbo person to be president because of the lingering memories of the Civil War are entirely misplaced. It took even the United States several decades before it elected a southerner as president after the region attempted to secede from the Union in the 1860s. Today, the American south is the most visibly “patriotic” region of the country.

Similarly, the imperative to elect an Igbo person as president doesn’t mean the rest of the country shouldn’t closely scrutinize the records of service, openness, and cosmopolitanism from the region’s contestants for president—like they should from other regions. 

Of the people who have so far declared interest to run for president from the region, only two, in my opinion, are worth our time. 

The first, for me, is Kingsley Moghalu. In a March 31, 2018, column titled “Moghalu, Sowore, and the Diasporan Presidential Challenge,” I wrote this about him: “Although I have no informed opinion on Moghalu’s tenure as CBN’s deputy governor, I have interacted with him since his relocation to the US in the past couple of years. He is, without a doubt, one of the best brains Nigeria has produced. He has an impressive mastery of the political economy of development and has written well-received books and articles on the subject.

“He also strikes me as a cosmopolitan, well-bred person who isn’t beholden to narrow, primordial loyalties, and who understands the complexities of Nigeria and the defining role leadership can and should play in managing national differences. He is energetic, passionate, and brims over with fresh, innovative ideas about governance and inclusive growth.”

The second is Peter Obi. In a March 25, 2022, article titled “Peter Obi: Applying to Be Driver of a Knocked-Out Car,” I mentioned that listening to his speeches has captured my imagination. He appears to have a handle on Nigeria’s problems, and what I’ve read of his record as governor of Anambra State inspires some confidence that he isn’t just a talker. I can’t speak to his cosmopolitanism and commitment to seeing all of Nigeria as his constituency. That’s up to voters to find out.

But I do hope that the “owners of Nigeria,” as we like to call the politically dominant members of the power structure, see merit in making political concessions to the Southeast in the interest of the national unity they routinely profess to cherish.

Fahdiga:
I am Dumb

yanabasee:
Igbos are politically lazy...

They're looking for someone that will carry the presidency and dash them on a Plata ...


They're disunited....

Every region will bring out one candidate and sort the consent of their traditional leaders and will push the candidate through media and will come out strong...

But Igbos will wait and when someone mention Peter Obi, they will go down and dig out his files and tent him.. You will call Ekwere madu, They will say he never did anything for them... If you mention Kalu, they will say he's an APC man and for that reason, they won't support him... Oya bring out a candidate, they will go to sleep...

lightskinnigga:
you ppl are still repeating this your nonsense?

The northerners rhat are politically agile, how have it benefitted you?

Oshodipikin:
A reply to Mr. Kperogi

1. THE INALIENABLE RIGHT :
Atiku, Tinubu, Wicked Wike, Tambuwa, Osinbajo, Saraki and
even me, Oshodipikin has constitutional rights to contest for
the president. Igbos should know this and know peace.

2. WHAT IS LEGAL:
Nigerian constitution DOES NOT RECOGNISE zoning of the
seat of president. Igbos should know this and know peace.

3. POWER IS TAKING NOT GIVING: You need to hustle very
seriously to secure power. You cannot sit idly, come out
every 4 years to cry for marginalisation and return to your
shell when the hustlers have share the cakes. Igbos should
engage constructively, not sending Sending Nnamdi Kanu
and his boys to go trouble the water because pendulum
didn't swing the South East way.

4. DON'T POKE THE EYES OF YOUR ALLIES:
The South South and South West who are suppose to be
your strongest allies are being called out and harrassed to
step down because Igbos want to rule. In the anals of
friendship, you fight those who should get your backing at
your own peril. Igbos are as strong as their weakest southern
links. Keep harassing Tinubu, Wike, and Ameachi and expect
to clinch the Presidency. Remember, there is so much
animosity between Igbos & Northerners.

5. THE PROBLEM OF UNITY.
If you take sample in the south west today, 90% of the
indigenous Yoruba will tell you it's Bola Ahmed Tinubu that's
going to be representing the region because he is the most
serious candidate. Osinbajo hasn't declared, Doyin Okupe &
Dele Momodu just want to have the appellation of former
Presidential candidates.

Tinubu has crisscross the entire Nigeria, telling them he is
the best candidates. Though many in the South West don't
want him, but I tell you, when jungle finally mature, even
Dele Momodu & Doyin will que behind Tinubu.

Who is the South East bringing forward? I can count more
than eight 8 Presidential candidates (Okorocha, Umahi,
Peter Obi, Pius Anyim, Orji Uzor Kalu, Ngige, Moghalu, et all )
from the South East already. Abaribe & some of the south
Eastern cacus in the senate have already sold the SE to
another fulani man in the person of Atikulater. Are their no
qualified candidates in the South East, ohh... There are
candidates who are eminently qualified to manage Nigeria,
but the Igbos brand of politics do not give them national
acceptance.

How serious are the Igbos?

6. ELECTION IS WORN BY THE MOST POPULAR NOT THE
MOST PITIED.
You can't begin to shed crocodile tears, harassing people
who should be your allies, abusing and cursing people (you
abhorred) up north and expect them to queue behind you.
No people!

Few Igbos who are trying their very best to crisscross the
country like Kalu and Okorocha has been tagged Yoruba
puppets and Hausa slaves. Funny enough, Atiku, whom the
South East has been queuing behind is also a FULANI man.
Just as you cry for marginalisation, Saraki, Yahaya Bello has
the same right because their region has never produced
elected president since independence.

7. THE IGBOS BODY LANGUAGE
Most Nigerian people of all extractions know that an average
Igbo man loves what Nnamdi Kanu is doing. The Igbos as a
people fan the ember of disunity by encouraging and
applauding secessionists in the morning and cry for
marginalisation at night.

Except for very few igbos who have
outgrown this ethnocentric feeling that have spoken against
and condemned outrightly, what Kanu and his boys are
doing. And these true minds are outcast in the South East
today. I am not talking of Joe Igbokwe, the Gutter
commissioner in Lagos, because that one is an ambitious
hungry mofo who talks too much.

So, the Nigerian people feel giving power to Igbos is like
making your frenemies your personal physician Or like
throwing pearls to the swines.

So stop crying. Get serious.

8. NIGERIANS ARE SILENTLY OBSERVING
Kaduna, Kano & Lagos have shown conscious efforts and
good precedents on how to develop Nigeria and make it
more united. There are have been Igbos & yoruba who
became commissioners in Kaduna and Kano in recent past,
there are currently Igbos & North Central persons who are
serving advisers and commissioners in Lagos. How many
people of other regions have any of the South Eastern
government considered good enough to be appointed into
their cabinets.

Any governor who attempted that in the south
east must be ready to have his head chop off by Ipob.
In what ways are the Igbos who want to be Nigerian
President been a uniting factor?

As for me though, what I want is a truly Nigerian President, which the country has NEVER had. Tinubu & Atikulators shouldn't be the candidates on board for our consideration as a people, but unfortunately, they are the most serious contenders.

Oshodipikin:
A reply to Mr. Kperogi

1. THE INALIENABLE RIGHT :
Atiku, Tinubu, Wicked Wike, Tambuwa, Osinbajo, Saraki and
even me, Oshodipikin has constitutional rights to contest for
the president. Igbos should know this and know peace.

2. WHAT IS LEGAL:
Nigerian constitution DOES NOT RECOGNISE zoning of the
seat of president. Igbos should know this and know peace.

3. POWER IS TAKING NOT GIVING: You need to hustle very
seriously to secure power. You cannot sit idly, come out
every 4 years to cry for marginalisation and return to your
shell when the hustlers have share the cakes. Igbos should
engage constructively, not sending Sending Nnamdi Kanu
and his boys to go trouble the water because pendulum
didn't swing the South East way.

4. DON'T POKE THE EYES OF YOUR ALLIES:
The South South and South West who are suppose to be
your strongest allies are being called out and harrassed to
step down because Igbos want to rule. In the anals of
friendship, you fight those who should get your backing at
your own peril. Igbos are as strong as their weakest southern
links. Keep harassing Tinubu, Wike, and Ameachi and expect
to clinch the Presidency. Remember, there is so much
animosity between Igbos & Northerners.

5. THE PROBLEM OF UNITY.
If you take sample in the south west today, 90% of the
indigenous Yoruba will tell you it's Bola Ahmed Tinubu that's
going to be representing the region because he is the most
serious candidate. Osinbajo hasn't declared, Doyin Okupe &
Dele Momodu just want to have the appellation of former
Presidential candidates.

Tinubu has crisscross the entire Nigeria, telling them he is
the best candidates. Though many in the South West don't
want him, but I tell you, when jungle finally mature, even
Dele Momodu & Doyin will que behind Tinubu.

Who is the South East bringing forward? I can count more
than eight 8 Presidential candidates (Okorocha, Umahi,
Peter Obi, Pius Anyim, Orji Uzor Kalu, Ngige, Moghalu, et all )
from the South East already. Abaribe & some of the south
Eastern cacus in the senate have already sold the SE to
another fulani man in the person of Atikulater. Are their no
qualified candidates in the South East, ohh... There are
candidates who are eminently qualified to manage Nigeria,
but the Igbos brand of politics do not give them national
acceptance.

How serious are the Igbos?

6. ELECTION IS WORN BY THE MOST POPULAR NOT THE
MOST PITIED.
You can't begin to shed crocodile tears, harassing people
who should be your allies, abusing and cursing people (you
abhorred) up north and expect them to queue behind you.
No people!

Few Igbos who are trying their very best to crisscross the
country like Kalu and Okorocha has been tagged Yoruba
puppets and Hausa slaves. Funny enough, Atiku, whom the
South East has been queuing behind is also a FULANI man.
Just as you cry for marginalisation, Saraki, Yahaya Bello has
the same right because their region has never produced
elected president since independence.

7. THE IGBOS BODY LANGUAGE
Most Nigerian people of all extractions know that an average
Igbo man loves what Nnamdi Kanu is doing. The Igbos as a
people fan the ember of disunity by encouraging and
applauding secessionists in the morning and cry for
marginalisation at night.

Except for very few igbos who have
outgrown this ethnocentric feeling that have spoken against
and condemned outrightly, what Kanu and his boys are
doing. And these true minds are outcast in the South East
today. I am not talking of Joe Igbokwe, the Gutter
commissioner in Lagos, because that one is an ambitious
hungry mofo who talks too much.

So, the Nigerian people feel giving power to Igbos is like
making your frenemies your personal physician Or like
throwing pearls to the swines.

So stop crying. Get serious.

8. NIGERIANS ARE SILENTLY OBSERVING
Kaduna, Kano & Lagos have shown conscious efforts and
good precedents on how to develop Nigeria and make it
more united. There are have been Igbos & yoruba who
became commissioners in Kaduna and Kano in recent past,
there are currently Igbos & North Central persons who are
serving advisers and commissioners in Lagos. How many
people of other regions have any of the South Eastern
government considered good enough to be appointed into
their cabinets.

Any governor who attempted that in the south
east must be ready to have his head chop off by Ipob.
In what ways are the Igbos who want to be Nigerian
President been a uniting factor?

As for me though, what I want is a truly Nigerian President, which the country has NEVER had. Tinubu & Atikulators shouldn't be the candidates on board for our consideration as a people, but unfortunately, they are the most serious contenders.

gentiles:
Dele Momodu is not from south west. Otondo

yanabasee:
Zoning isn't in the constitution, doesn't mean that people should not apply wisdom to trade carefully....

If you keep sing this praise, there will be destruction as a region filling marginalized might want to break free...


The same way the middle belt is bringing out Y/Bello.. because they've never tasted power.... If the zoning is not observed, there will be problem.

Use your head...

Racoon:
I am sorry, no Igbo man, no matter how great or brilliant can salvage this false and failed contraption of a country giving the bastardized state the Buhari govt have plunged it into today.

What Nigeria direly needs today is referendum for all the regions to go exist as independent states and develop @ their own pace. The problems of Nigeria are multi-factorial that any region having the presidency does not means automatic development or Eldorado.

Oshodipikin:
Mugu... What do you know chief otondo, because idiots don't read, they know nothing.

I speak with facts... Google is your friend lazy mofo

Racoon:
I am sorry, no Igbo man, no matter how great or brilliant can salvage this false and failed contraption of a country giving the bastardized state the Buhari govt have plunged it into today.

What Nigeria direly needs today is referendum for all the regions to go exist as independent states and develop @ their own pace. The problems of Nigeria are multi-factorial that any region having the presidency does not means automatic development or Eldorado.

Oshodipikin:
A reply to Mr. Kperogi

1. THE INALIENABLE RIGHT :
Atiku, Tinubu, Wicked Wike, Tambuwa, Osinbajo, Saraki and
even me, Oshodipikin has constitutional rights to contest for
the president. Igbos should know this and know peace.

2. WHAT IS LEGAL:
Nigerian constitution DOES NOT RECOGNISE zoning of the
seat of president. Igbos should know this and know peace.

3. POWER IS TAKING NOT GIVING: You need to hustle very
seriously to secure power. You cannot sit idly, come out
every 4 years to cry for marginalisation and return to your
shell when the hustlers have share the cakes. Igbos should
engage constructively, not sending Sending Nnamdi Kanu
and his boys to go trouble the water because pendulum
didn't swing the South East way.

4. DON'T POKE THE EYES OF YOUR ALLIES:
The South South and South West who are suppose to be
your strongest allies are being called out and harrassed to
step down because Igbos want to rule. In the anals of
friendship, you fight those who should get your backing at
your own peril. Igbos are as strong as their weakest southern
links. Keep harassing Tinubu, Wike, and Ameachi and expect
to clinch the Presidency. Remember, there is so much
animosity between Igbos & Northerners.

5. THE PROBLEM OF UNITY.
If you take sample in the south west today, 90% of the
indigenous Yoruba will tell you it's Bola Ahmed Tinubu that's
going to be representing the region because he is the most
serious candidate. Osinbajo hasn't declared, Doyin Okupe &
Dele Momodu just want to have the appellation of former
Presidential candidates.

Tinubu has crisscross the entire Nigeria, telling them he is
the best candidates. Though many in the South West don't
want him, but I tell you, when jungle finally mature, even
Dele Momodu & Doyin will que behind Tinubu.

Who is the South East bringing forward? I can count more
than eight 8 Presidential candidates (Okorocha, Umahi,
Peter Obi, Pius Anyim, Orji Uzor Kalu, Ngige, Moghalu, et all )
from the South East already. Abaribe & some of the south
Eastern cacus in the senate have already sold the SE to
another fulani man in the person of Atikulater. Are their no
qualified candidates in the South East, ohh... There are
candidates who are eminently qualified to manage Nigeria,
but the Igbos brand of politics do not give them national
acceptance.

How serious are the Igbos?

6. ELECTION IS WORN BY THE MOST POPULAR NOT THE
MOST PITIED.
You can't begin to shed crocodile tears, harassing people
who should be your allies, abusing and cursing people (you
abhorred) up north and expect them to queue behind you.
No people!

Few Igbos who are trying their very best to crisscross the
country like Kalu and Okorocha has been tagged Yoruba
puppets and Hausa slaves. Funny enough, Atiku, whom the
South East has been queuing behind is also a FULANI man.
Just as you cry for marginalisation, Saraki, Yahaya Bello has
the same right because their region has never produced
elected president since independence.

7. THE IGBOS BODY LANGUAGE
Most Nigerian people of all extractions know that an average
Igbo man loves what Nnamdi Kanu is doing. The Igbos as a
people fan the ember of disunity by encouraging and
applauding secessionists in the morning and cry for
marginalisation at night.

Except for very few igbos who have
outgrown this ethnocentric feeling that have spoken against
and condemned outrightly, what Kanu and his boys are
doing. And these true minds are outcast in the South East
today. I am not talking of Joe Igbokwe, the Gutter
commissioner in Lagos, because that one is an ambitious
hungry mofo who talks too much.

So, the Nigerian people feel giving power to Igbos is like
making your frenemies your personal physician Or like
throwing pearls to the swines.

So stop crying. Get serious.

8. NIGERIANS ARE SILENTLY OBSERVING
Kaduna, Kano & Lagos have shown conscious efforts and
good precedents on how to develop Nigeria and make it
more united. There are have been Igbos & yoruba who
became commissioners in Kaduna and Kano in recent past,
there are currently Igbos & North Central persons who are
serving advisers and commissioners in Lagos. How many
people of other regions have any of the South Eastern
government considered good enough to be appointed into
their cabinets.

Any governor who attempted that in the south
east must be ready to have his head chop off by Ipob.
In what ways are the Igbos who want to be Nigerian
President been a uniting factor?

As for me though, what I want is a truly Nigerian President, which the country has NEVER had. Tinubu & Atikulators shouldn't be the candidates on board for our consideration as a people, but unfortunately, they are the most serious contenders.

jerseyboy:
This statement here proves this Farooq is a fraud: "When constitutional rule was restored in 1999" because clearly the 1999 constitution is a forgery. He is an agent of Islamic hegemony who realizing the imminence of Nigeria's break-up simply wants to buy time for the Northern agenda.
This is taqiyya.

jerseyboy:
This statement here proves this Farooq is a fraud: "When constitutional rule was restored in 1999" because clearly the 1999 constitution is a forgery. He is an agent of Islamic hegemony who realizing the imminence of Nigeria's break-up simply wants to buy time for the Northern agenda.
This is taqiyya.