Fashola’s alarm

By Emeka OMEIHE

When Mamman Daura, cousin to President Buhari recently called for the jettisoning of rotational presidency for the most qualified in the 2023 election, many smelt a rat. Daura had while speaking on a BBC Hausa service program said: “this turn by turn, it was done once, it was done twice and done thrice…it should be for the most competent and not someone who comes from somewhere”. He dismissed calls for power shift arguing that it was time for Nigerians to unite and go for the most qualified.

Those conversant with political events in the country were taken aback by Daura’s position not necessarily because of the substance of the issue canvassed but the quarters it emanated from. It was not surprising that the advocacy was read as an attempt to test the ground for the possible dumping of the zoning principle by the ruling All Progressives Congress APC.

And when this is paired with the cacophony of voices from sections of the north on the same issue, suspicions became high that something untoward is about happen to the zoning principle which had been a balancing force to accommodate the interests of the diverse groups and stabilize the polity.  But it was a matter of time for this suspicion to assume practical shape.

Thus, when the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola last week made a serious case for his party, the APC to respect its zoning formula in picking the presidential candidate for the 2023 elections, one was not left with any iota of doubt that all is not well with that arrangement within the ruling party. Then also, it began to dawn on all that Daura was not just speaking for himself when he called for the scrapping of zoning for allegedly not serving the overall best interest of the country.

Fashola had told reporters covering the APC that though zoning is not in the party’s constitution, but the leaders of the party had an agreement on it when the party was being formed. The legal luminary argued “the truth is that what makes an agreement spectacular is the honour in which it is made not whether it is written. The private agreement you make with your brother and sister should not be breached, it must be honoured”.

According to him, the nearest thing to zoning in the party’s constitution is implied in Article 20 which states: Election and Appointments (iv) Criteria for nomination (6) that states “All such rules, regulations and guidelines shall take into consideration and uphold the principle of federal character, gender balance, geo-political spread and rotation of office, to as much as possible, ensure balance within the constituency covered”.

It is not clear what prompted the minister to argue so persuasively for the APC not to abandon the zoning agreement which leaders entered into when the party was being formed. Neither did he state why he chose this time to remind members of that understanding.

But given the way Fashola spoke, drawing parallels with other agreements that are kept irrespective of their not being written, there is everything to suggest an attempt within some quarters in the party to ditch the zoning arrangement. That deduction is not in doubt as it is the logical outcome of the case the minister strove to make. There is the further extrapolation that those in the vanguard of this move, base their argument on the fact that the APC constitution did not explicitly contain provisions for the rotation of presidency between the northern and southern parts of the country.

Yet, we are faced with the implication that such moves are coming from the section of the country that is currently occupying that elated office. That should not by in doubt in view of the strident efforts being mounted by key political personages from the southern divide to have the two major political parties zone that office to the south in 2023.

Just a fortnight ago, Ebonyi State governor, David Umahi ditched his party, the Peoples Democratic Party for the APC for what he called the injustice of not zoning that office to the Southeast. Before then, the Southeast had been making a serious case for that office given that it remains the only zone within the southern Nigerian divide that is yet to have a taste of that key national office since the return to civil rule in 1999.

Within the Southwest where the major alliance that gave the incumbent president victory at the 2015 elections was nurtured, expectations are that the presidential ticket will naturally devolve to that geo-political zone. So if Fashola took out time to remind his party members of the need to keep faith with an understanding to rotate the presidency, it is very likely some of their party members have begun to exploit the fact that the constitution of the party was not very explicit on that.

That is my reading of the self-assigned campaign Fashola mounted against those seeking to discard rotational presidency hiding on fact that it was not explicitly captured in the party’s constitution. Fashola has reminded such people that there is an unwritten agreement to that effect and the party should keep faith with it. That should go without saying.

Even then, the same document contains such provisions as federal character principle, gender balance, geo-political spread and rotation as some of the principles that should guide action. But even if the issue of rotation was not clearly captured in the constitution of the party, the dictates of our federal contraption makes it imperative that it is one principle that is not negotiable. It devolves naturally from the diversities of our federal order.

So the argument on whether rotational presidency is unambiguously inserted into the APC constitution or not and the modalities for it, is patently unnecessary. Rotation, balance and federal character principle are irreducible decimals in a heterogeneous, multi-ethnic and multi-religious country as Nigeria. They are the necessary ingredients without which a federal arrangement will lose taste.

That the issue resonated within the ruling party such that the minister had to take up the case shows all that is wrong with us as a country. It shows the duplicity of some political elites and vested interests constantly on a devious voyage of exploiting loopholes to heat up the polity and cause confusion. Yet, those who represented the south during the drafting and approval of that constitution committed a mortal error by failing to explicitly insert rotation of the presidency between the north and south and among the geo-political zones in that all important document.

Had they been more circumspect and politically discerning especially given the rancour and bitter competition for that office, they would have saved the likes of Fashola the trouble of trying to persuade some sections that an unwritten agreement should be binding. But it is a wrong analogy to compare unwritten family agreements or that of social clubs with constitutions of political parties. The futility of that argument is obvious from whatever developments that compelled the minister to speak the way he did. It is hoped he was not part of the team that drafted that document. If he was, too bad!

It is yet unclear the reasons one section of the country would seek to monopolize that national office. But if the kite flown by Daura is anything to go by, competence is touted as the key factor. Yes, competence! But there is nothing to suggest that people with sterling credentials for that office can only be found in a section of the country. And it appears a new song to seek to discard zoning after it helped the incumbent president to win the 2015 elections. We cannot forget events that shaped that election in a hurry.

The idea of zoning is to ensure that competent people from all sections of the country are given the opportunity to vie for the highest political office in the land. It is a stabilizing factor in a heterogeneous society. More than anything else, zoning is dictated by the devious deployment of coercive apparatus of state on these shores to thwart the will of the electorate. It is a safeguard against domination that can only be ignored at a great risk.