₦airaland Forum

TonyeBarcanista:
Bro, as for me o, I am voting a northerner in 2023... Except either of the major parties field someone from Southeast.

I'm from SS but I believe in equity.

And it is the very mindset you embody, which elevates "equity" over "ideology", "character", "competence" and everything else, which has ensured Nigeria remains a developmental sh*thole, whose sole claim to fame (or rather, infamy) is now having more poor people than anywhere else in the world, even China and India combined!

Nigeria will never make significant progress as long as its politics is determined by people like you, who can see no further than taking "turns" at basically looting from the public purse with a few lucky fellow "kinsmen", even as the vast number of your kinsmen make do without running water, electricity, decent hospitals, quality primary education, even properly maintained roads! Worst yet is that many of those same benighted "kinsmen" will line the muddy, pothole-riddled excuses for "roads" to hail you and your fellow political looters as "Oga" and "Chief", while your Mercedes Benzes splash them and their kwashiorkor-plagued children with ringworm-infected rainwater. What hope is there for such a useless "country", full of useless, short-sighted people?

Thetruthshallse:
Wow!!! Reading Igbo people comment on this thread is an eye opener, so Igbo people finally accept that they have burnt all Goodwill bridges with other ethnic groups in Nigeria. That they can't be able to aspire to the highest office in the land? They are hereby promoting fulani/hausa to continue as president. Rich from people that usually call others slaves, maybe I don't understand what slaves means. SHAME

u have low mentality,the igbos with their great acumen have seen that APC is an islamic party decided to stick with PDP which is national party meant for everybody and have the interest of every tribes as top priority.

nairavsdollars:
By Temidayo Akinsuyi

Prince Tony Momoh, a former Minister of Information and one of the national leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in this interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI , speaks on the controversy surrounding power shift, former CJN Walter Onnoghen’s resignation and other issues. Excerpts:

The general impression that the presidency will come to the South after the completion of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure in 2023, but right now some Northern political leaders are threatening to field candidates, saying the South should forget . What is your take on this?

Politics is a talkshop. The armoury in the dictionary of politics is word. The only thing is that communication has rules. For instance, communication in a love letter should be different from communication that is published in national newspapers. I believe that there should be time for everything. We just finished a general election about a month ago and people are already talking about irrelevant things when we ought to be dealing with more pressing issues that will grow the country. Having said that, power is not served a la carte; you struggle to acquire power. There is no way anybody can beg anybody or any region to come and take power. So, it is a struggle and any part of the country can struggle to occupy any position in the country. Wining election is decided by votes, so if some people sit down and think people will say ‘come and take these positions in 2023, then they don’t know what democracy is all about. Politics is like a game of chess and those who are good players win. When PDP zoned positions, a lot of people from the North and South contested. I remembered when the PDP presidency ticket was zoned to the South, some people in the North contested.

Even look at the APC now which has zoned the position of Senate President to the North- East but some people from other regions are protesting, saying that they have a right to occupy the position. So, if anybody thinks that the Presidency will be zoned to the South in 2023 and then the North will just sit down and watch, then they have a lot of shocks coming for them. We can still find another person from another zone who may contest under another political party and win. So, nobody should think that they can just sit down at home, not work hard and then power will just be handed over to them like that.

But don’t you think the rotational policy between the North and South should be strictly adhered to so that there won’t be any political crisis?

Although that is what people think, it will not be that smooth. It has never been that smooth. When they said the PDP presidential ticket should come to the South- West to pacify the people in the region, did other people from other regions not contest? We had people like the late Alex Ekwueme from the South- East and the late Abubakar Rimi from the North who contested against Olusegun Obasanjo. I believe in 2023, a lot of people will come out to contest for Presidency and nobody will stop them. So, people must work hard to get power and the prayer for winning election is answered by votes; the volume of votes you can produce.

Now that he has resigned, should former CJN, Walter Onnoghen be prosecuted?

Prosecution is a political decision. I have said it before that all Onnoghen would have done to save everybody the embarrassment of being suspended by stepping down. Now that he has resigned, what happens next is a political decision.

Are you saying the Federal Government can decide whether to prosecute him or not?

It depends on what the issues are. What are the issues? Did he plead guilty to misconduct? The Attorney-General is very powerful. He can withdraw a case at any time, he can take over a case at any time and he can institute a case at any time. The power to prosecute is there and that is why I said prosecution in any matter of this nature is a political decision.

Given the proliferation of political parties in the country as witnessed in the just concluded elections, some Nigerians are suggesting a return to the two-party system like we had in the 1993 elections. Are you r perspective on this?

What happened with the SDP and NRC during the time of IBB was an attempt to reduce the proliferation of parties in our political life and you know that a committee was set up and they had all the entries grouped into ‘a little to the left’ and ‘a little to the right’. So, we had the SDP and the NRC, and when we began preparations for a return to civil rule in 1999, a lot of people said, no, that the SDP and NRC were government parastatals. But the fact is, what people didn’t know is that as at the time Abacha dissolved those parties, they had taken over the ownership of their party because after the annulment of the June 12 elections, meetings were being called and SDP that produced Abiola was deciding to or not to attend meetings because they were already in charge of their party. So, if we had allowed the NRC and SDP to grow with all the structures already in place at the local, state and national levels, they would have grown into institutions that would have stabilised our democracy.

But what happened after 1999 was that we had a situation whereby the power of INEC to register was being questioned, and Obasanjo messed up the whole system by asking INEC to register as many parties as possible, most of which were initiated by the PDP. So, we had this situation where we had so many political parties, and as at the last count, we had 91 in the system, and it is not as if they are tired. More parties would spring up because we must look at what we have made of politics in Nigeria and you are a political association until you are registered as a political party. You cannot do business as a political association.

You can only do business when you are registered as a political party. We have made politics a business and political parties are the vehicles for those businesses while Nigerians are ruthless businessmen. In business, there must be a gain. We are not going to have a reduction in parties; we are going to have more. So, we have a challenge which is to ensure that politics becomes what it should be. In other realms, it is service, not a business. As long as we continue to see it as a business in Nigeria, we are going to handle political parties as we handle selling pepper or sugar or even 419.

We must decongest the political space. If we don’t do that, we will continue to have the outcome of what we have now and even vote buying will increase because again if the National Assembly is, and then you decongest the political space, reduce the power at the centre, move them to the States, then cancel local government elections and reduce it to part-time if you must have them, you will see overnight how we will cure these ills because these are businesses. Nigerians are ruthless businessmen and women, and it will continue to be business as usual.
https://www.independent.ng/moving-presidency-to-south-in-2023-wont-be-smooth-tony-momoh-2/

Southern fool

Yorubas should drop their presidential ambition and face the truth.

kernel001:
You sound frustrated.

They voted there own, but this time... They will vote there own against West, and to win any party they will seal it with block vote.

u are d one frustrated here, because I dont see reason why u carry west mata for head like gala, why erosion is taking away ur region, u guys are clueless, because if not u should know that SW is not expecting any thing tangible from u guys from the start, SW is going under the platform of APC, a party which u guys hate with passion, so with or without ur votes, nothing spoil, just do us good by stopping the blabbing on top 5% votes.

my PVC is for mallam, make them de rule us de go. at least they are not greedy like our southwest brothers

Quorax:
Bros, I have been hammering on this immediately after buhari was declared winner but the South West were calling me ipob.

u and the person u quoted are clueless. 25% from at Least 24 states not from each state, Buhari got less than 25% from Anambra this 2019 election, and he still win

oforjide:
u have low mentality,the igbos with their great acumen have seen that APC is an islamic party decided to stick with PDP which is national party meant for everybody and have the interest of every tribes as top priority.

u are spewing thrash, PDP has the interest of every tribe, then y av they not given ibo presidency or vice presidency despite ur servitude and slavery to them all dz years

Preshy561:
Yorubas should drop their presidential ambition and face the truth.

no, face ur life and leave yorubas alone. is it ur presidency? u guys av signed to be slaves of Fulani, leave those that are not slave alone. yoruba will go for presidency in 2023, any hater can kill themselves.

nairavsdollars:
By Temidayo Akinsuyi

Prince Tony Momoh, a former Minister of Information and one of the national leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in this interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI , speaks on the controversy surrounding power shift, former CJN Walter Onnoghen’s resignation and other issues. Excerpts:

The general impression that the presidency will come to the South after the completion of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure in 2023, but right now some Northern political leaders are threatening to field candidates, saying the South should forget . What is your take on this?

Politics is a talkshop. The armoury in the dictionary of politics is word. The only thing is that communication has rules. For instance, communication in a love letter should be different from communication that is published in national newspapers. I believe that there should be time for everything. We just finished a general election about a month ago and people are already talking about irrelevant things when we ought to be dealing with more pressing issues that will grow the country. Having said that, power is not served a la carte; you struggle to acquire power. There is no way anybody can beg anybody or any region to come and take power. So, it is a struggle and any part of the country can struggle to occupy any position in the country. Wining election is decided by votes, so if some people sit down and think people will say ‘come and take these positions in 2023, then they don’t know what democracy is all about. Politics is like a game of chess and those who are good players win. When PDP zoned positions, a lot of people from the North and South contested. I remembered when the PDP presidency ticket was zoned to the South, some people in the North contested.

Even look at the APC now which has zoned the position of Senate President to the North- East but some people from other regions are protesting, saying that they have a right to occupy the position. So, if anybody thinks that the Presidency will be zoned to the South in 2023 and then the North will just sit down and watch, then they have a lot of shocks coming for them. We can still find another person from another zone who may contest under another political party and win. So, nobody should think that they can just sit down at home, not work hard and then power will just be handed over to them like that.

But don’t you think the rotational policy between the North and South should be strictly adhered to so that there won’t be any political crisis?

Although that is what people think, it will not be that smooth. It has never been that smooth. When they said the PDP presidential ticket should come to the South- West to pacify the people in the region, did other people from other regions not contest? We had people like the late Alex Ekwueme from the South- East and the late Abubakar Rimi from the North who contested against Olusegun Obasanjo. I believe in 2023, a lot of people will come out to contest for Presidency and nobody will stop them. So, people must work hard to get power and the prayer for winning election is answered by votes; the volume of votes you can produce.

Now that he has resigned, should former CJN, Walter Onnoghen be prosecuted?

Prosecution is a political decision. I have said it before that all Onnoghen would have done to save everybody the embarrassment of being suspended by stepping down. Now that he has resigned, what happens next is a political decision.

Are you saying the Federal Government can decide whether to prosecute him or not?

It depends on what the issues are. What are the issues? Did he plead guilty to misconduct? The Attorney-General is very powerful. He can withdraw a case at any time, he can take over a case at any time and he can institute a case at any time. The power to prosecute is there and that is why I said prosecution in any matter of this nature is a political decision.

Given the proliferation of political parties in the country as witnessed in the just concluded elections, some Nigerians are suggesting a return to the two-party system like we had in the 1993 elections. Are you r perspective on this?

What happened with the SDP and NRC during the time of IBB was an attempt to reduce the proliferation of parties in our political life and you know that a committee was set up and they had all the entries grouped into ‘a little to the left’ and ‘a little to the right’. So, we had the SDP and the NRC, and when we began preparations for a return to civil rule in 1999, a lot of people said, no, that the SDP and NRC were government parastatals. But the fact is, what people didn’t know is that as at the time Abacha dissolved those parties, they had taken over the ownership of their party because after the annulment of the June 12 elections, meetings were being called and SDP that produced Abiola was deciding to or not to attend meetings because they were already in charge of their party. So, if we had allowed the NRC and SDP to grow with all the structures already in place at the local, state and national levels, they would have grown into institutions that would have stabilised our democracy.

But what happened after 1999 was that we had a situation whereby the power of INEC to register was being questioned, and Obasanjo messed up the whole system by asking INEC to register as many parties as possible, most of which were initiated by the PDP. So, we had this situation where we had so many political parties, and as at the last count, we had 91 in the system, and it is not as if they are tired. More parties would spring up because we must look at what we have made of politics in Nigeria and you are a political association until you are registered as a political party. You cannot do business as a political association.

You can only do business when you are registered as a political party. We have made politics a business and political parties are the vehicles for those businesses while Nigerians are ruthless businessmen. In business, there must be a gain. We are not going to have a reduction in parties; we are going to have more. So, we have a challenge which is to ensure that politics becomes what it should be. In other realms, it is service, not a business. As long as we continue to see it as a business in Nigeria, we are going to handle political parties as we handle selling pepper or sugar or even 419.

We must decongest the political space. If we don’t do that, we will continue to have the outcome of what we have now and even vote buying will increase because again if the National Assembly is, and then you decongest the political space, reduce the power at the centre, move them to the States, then cancel local government elections and reduce it to part-time if you must have them, you will see overnight how we will cure these ills because these are businesses. Nigerians are ruthless businessmen and women, and it will continue to be business as usual.
https://www.independent.ng/moving-presidency-to-south-in-2023-wont-be-smooth-tony-momoh-2/

Can someone tell this loudmouthed fool it is enough with his slavish shenanigans. We all know Momoh of Kogi or Edo, Onoja of Benue and Adeniyi of Kwara State have been once favored houseboys in the house of Caliphate. These jackasses one of the reasons Nigeria should be disintegrated so everybody should have the opportunity defend ancestral heritage. The idiocy of hiding behind the moronic One-Nigeria to display political immaturity is getting too old.

FOLYKAZE:
No one has said Presidential Contestants will all come from a single or particular region. They surely will be Nigerians and Nigerians will make a choice come 2023.

Na Nigerians go decide, not these rable rouser

Not Nigerians but Arewas.

hisexcellency34:
From the look of things, Atiku will contest the 2023 presidential election. All these people shouting that northerners must contest in 2023 are only fronting for him

No.

The CPC part of Apc is simply telling Nigerians that APC will present a Fulani man and rule again.

I think by the time we realize what Buhari has done, it might be too late. The man has placed more northerners to head strategic positions who have placed more of themselves down the line. If its a lie, how many umempoyed northern graduates do you know?

And I'd doubt if these guys would relinquish power easily to the southerners, who fight themselves more than the northerners fight them.

As no one can become a President in Nigeria without significant votes from the north, how can we break the jinx? This man said power is not served a la carte. So can we, southerners also unite and speak with one voice and fight to gain power? Because until we say enough is enough, the northerners would still dominate the space just beacause they are more politically aware. Even if Buhari wishes to handover power to the south in 2023, I doubt if the northern oligarchs would allow that.

Honor10:
no, u guys are. and stop talking nonsense with we betray south and all those poo, to hell with southern unity. u guys should vote ur northern master and stop disturbing us with 5% votes. without ur votes we will still win.

oga am not an Igbo guy..i give no f*ck about who betrayed who,I don't bloody care whose tribe bcoms your president now till Jesus comes,.the south consist of so many tribes,.so when making a statement avoid saying other tribes are useless,you can use other diplomatic terms to spell out your points apart from inferiorizing others

Onijagidijagan:
No more Hausa or Fulani president in Nigeria again.

Hear this foolishness from this blind, incompetent Hausas man that went to Almajiris school.

Parasitic, tribalistic, Hausas cannot be deciding faith for Nigeria. Their ignorance and backward culture, lack of effective education ruined this country since Nigerian independence.

Hausa man come and contest I promised you will be defeated by southerners in 2023.
Seriously.. I cannot wait for Hausa or northerners to be defeated in 2023...is only if southerners are ignorant like them that will make them retain power.

It is Hausas and Fulanis that suppose to be fighting and agitating for secession not Igbo, South South and South West.

A southerner can never defeat a northerner as long as buhari is president

selemo:
Not Nigerians but Arewas.

5%er erase himself in the permutation. We all know yall are inconsequential.

FOLYKAZE:
During the 8 years of North, there were Contestants from South. In 1999 and 2003, there were also contestants from North. So in 2013, there may be contestants from all the tribes in Nigeria. Nigerian will decide who they want as president.

In 1999 all contestants were from the south.

In 2003 northerners now contested.

In 2007, it was the turn of the north so southerners stepped aside n allowed only northerners to contest.

eagleeye2:
This is the question i keep asking and instead of giving answers they will resort to insults.

I'm 1999 the north n the south agreed that for equity, Each of the regions should rule turn by turn.

Such an agreement is also done in many Nigerian states, Each senatorial district is allowed to rule n then pass power to the next after either 4 or 8 years

PrecisionFx:
In 1999 all contestants were from the south.

In 2003 northerners now contested.

In 2007, it was the turn of the north so southerners stepped aside n allowed only northerners to contest.

You will need to see the list of contestants in those years.

Chachalogo:
Power will only shift from the north come 2032. For tinubu to think of himself or any southner becoming president in 2023, then he's the biggest fool that ever liveth.

That is if one party remains in power till then, they can therefore zone it. if it continues to change from APC to PDP then am sorry for the likes of Thièfnubu and other misguided SW. Politics is a game of numbers and the North has the numbers. That is why what we should have been fighting for is restructuring to true federalism or outright disintegration. The north cannot be fraudulently placed superior to the south in terms of politics, there should be a balance, a triangle or tripartite arrangement such that everybody depends on each other not one person being the overlord and every other person has to bow to his wish before support can be granted

hisexcellency34:
I disagree. After 8 years of the North, it's the turn of South, though an unwritten agreement.

Keep on deceiving yourself.

Rie nshii for this your comments

Who ask you not to contest
Whether you like it or not SOUTHEAST FOR 2023 OR 2023 FOR SOUTHEAST FULL STOP.

Onijagidijagan:
No more Hausa or Fulani president in Nigeria again.

Hear this foolishness from this blind, incompetent Hausas man that went to Almajiris school.

Parasitic, tribalistic, Hausas cannot be deciding faith for Nigeria. Their ignorance and backward culture, lack of effective education ruined this country since Nigerian independence.

Hausa man come and contest I promised you will be defeated by southerners in 2023.
Seriously.. I cannot wait for Hausa or northerners to be defeated in 2023...is only if southerners are ignorant like them that will make them retain power.

It is Hausas and Fulanis that suppose to be fighting and agitating for secession not Igbo, South South and South West.

If the southern politicians are united.

Seenyo:
I am.

Wow! Respect.

omohayek:
And it is the very mindset you embody, which elevates "equity" over "ideology", "character", "competence" and everything else, which has ensured Nigeria remains a developmental sh*thole, whose sole claim to fame (or rather, infamy) is now having more poor people than anywhere else in the world, even China and India combined!

Nigeria will never make significant progress as long as its politics is determined by people like you, who can see no further than taking "turns" at basically looting from the public purse with a few lucky fellow "kinsmen", even as the vast number of your kinsmen make do without running water, electricity, decent hospitals, quality primary education, even properly maintained roads! Worst yet is that many of those same benighted "kinsmen" will line the muddy, pothole-riddled excuses for "roads" to hail you and your fellow political looters as "Oga" and "Chief", while your Mercedes Benzes splash them and their kwashiorkor-plagued children with ringworm-infected rainwater. What hope is there for such a useless "country", full of useless, short-sighted people?

Oga stop the nonsense talk. He is right. Without equity there is no country thoughtless of democracy, thoughtless of progress or development. Does it take a genius to know that the lack of equity is what is keeping this nation down. The choices are stark. You either restructure to take tribe out of the equation completely or if you won't restructure then give everyone (every tribe) an opportunity at power then tribe talk ebbs away from our national lexicon. A black man has led America. Now blacks are less agitated about power than before because they have seen the extent and limitations of it. Same for the South-South Nigeria, the agitations are dying out.

To get everyone's attention off tribe and onto the nation equity must be paramount.

This false narrative about competence and performance is just that. We have had four years of so called 'competence and performance' but without equity where has been the progress?. Nigeria is practically no better than it was in 2015. All indices of living are down, instiutions are not better, stronger and more independent than they were, there is no perception that we are developing. This is the real situation.

Until equity is upheld, the nation will be like and engine with one or two blown gaskets, spluttering and stuttering, plenty of noise and smoke but very little forward movement. It is just a pity quite a number of Nigerians donot know what it takes to build nations and others know but will not bring their minds to accept what is right being comfortable in failure, beclouded by primordial feudal thinking.

Abeg if you think you own Nigeria, can determine who has and has not what, please carry your load and stop bothering the rest right thinking people. Enjoy your sorry state.

izombie:
Moghalu, durotoye, both contested in this past election but they are from the south. Why did they not wait for 2023 to contest since 2019 election was supposed to be only for the north? North will contest and north will win and north will continue to rule nigeria until this country divides.

The exposure is different from the past years.yo are nothing without the British .they support you,they rigged you into power, they forged the census for you.but the good news is that empire has gone down.we have Russia,China,Iran coming up.it will affect the power balance.so enjoy it while it last.

Honor10:
no, face ur life and leave yorubas alone. is it ur presidency? u guys av signed to be slaves of Fulani, leave those that are not slave alone. yoruba will go for presidency in 2023, any hater can kill themselves.

U guys are pathetic. You will always continue to be second Fidel to Hausa any day any time. The Igbo's will serve u guys the same food u served Jonathan when 2023 comes. Do u guys really think that a Yoruba man can defeat a fellow Hausa man in Nigerian politics. I mean are you that deluded? So if tinubu or fashola come out under APC and Atiku or Tambuwal runs under PDP u sincerely think that APC would win in presidential election? So the North would give block votes to tinubu/fashola/pyo against Atiku/Tambuwal because an hausa man is VP? Ode ni nie o. U see why its not good to be a snitch cos karma is observing in the corner. PDP zonal arrangement was the best thing that happened to Nigeria but u guys truncated it because of selfish reasons. Now bite the dust and kiss the truth

Well said. But truth is, will northerners accept that South presents a candidate again after 8 years in power?

oluwaahmed:
U guys are pathetic. You will always continue to be second Fidel to Hausa any day any time. The Igbo's will serve u guys the same food u served Jonathan when 2023 comes. Do u guys really think that a Yoruba man can defeat a fellow Hausa man in Nigerian politics. I mean are you that deluded? So if tinubu or fashola come out under APC and Atiku or Tambuwal runs under PDP u sincerely think that fashola would win tinubu in presidential election? So the North would give block votes to tinubu/fashola/pyo against Atiku/Tambuwal because an hausa man is VP? Ode ni nie o. U see why its not good to be a snitch cos karma is observing in the corner. PDP zonal arrangement was the best thing that happened to Nigeria but u guys truncated it because of selfish reasons. Now bite the dust and kiss the truth

Honor10:
u and the person u quoted are clueless. 25% from at Least 24 states not from each state, Buhari got less than 25% from Anambra this 2019 election, and he still win

ok

PrecisionFx:
I'm 1999 the north n the south agreed that for equity, Each of the regions should rule turn by turn.

Such an agreement is also done in many Nigerian states, Each senatorial district is allowed to rule n then pass power to the next after either 4 or 8 years

Which party agreed to that? where was it signed?
Even if PDP had an understanding about power rotation, don't forget that the understanding came to a dead end when Umaru Yaradua died in power without completing his term and his Vice Dr Jonathan completed the term and went on to contest for the presidency. Thus making it impossible for the North to take their turn.
Do you in all honesty and fairness think the North will continue with such arrangement?

Kennydoc:
The statement in bold is not true. A Nigerian president must win 25% in at least ⅔ of the states plus FCT, which makes it 25 states. It means that if a president fails to get up to 25% of the votes cast in each of the SE and SS states, but wins the simple majority of the votes, he will still be declared president. SE/SS have 11 states which a presidential hopeful can safely lose and still win the election, as long as he can win a simple majority of the votes.
I'm from the SE by the way, and I detest anything associated with APC.

Thank you for the clarification. But can any Southern Presidential candidate hope to win all the Northern states and his own region in a contest between the North and the South?