Zoning, Jonathan and the Igbo Dilemma

Anyone who chooses to write on the zoning debate from a sectional perspective runs the risk of being labelled an ethnic jingoist, so I should start by making it clear that I am not one.

No topic has engaged Nigerians in recent times more than the issue of zoning, the possible entry of President Goodluck Jonathan into the 2011 presidential contest and the implication of the latter to the North, especially. While the debate rages with strong arguments in favour for or against, the South-East which will largely share in its implication either way (as next in the Southern queue), has remained indifferent.

It is pertinent to state however, that the debate as it is being conducted misses the point about the actual concept of zoning. Most people who jump on the bandwagon freely juxtapose zoning for the concept of power rotation.
As a pragmatic idea of power sharing since the First Republic, zoning has been observed in various degrees and in different dispensations in recognition of Nigeria's complex and heterogeneous composition. For that purpose, it has served Nigeria well and the federal character principle enshrined in section 14 of our constitution, gives full expression to that principle.
Power rotation on the other hand, is a concept that rotates (mainly) presidential office between the northern and southern parts of the country. Though it was first mooted in the NPN of the Second Republic, it is today an internal arrangement within the ruling PDP. Two polar positions have become dominant in the debate: support for zoning as a necessary concept that gives all sections of the country a sense of belonging, and support for its abrogation in favour of what is called 'merit'.

Behind the argument is an unfortunate fixation that power rotation to the North at this period, benefits General Ibrahim Babangida's presidential ambition, while a PDP re-election ticket for Jonathan equates 'merit'. In this debate, very few have paused to consider a middle line: Is the PDP zoning arrangement and a Jonathan re-election ticket mutually exclusive? My answer is a resounding no!

What has caused the eruption in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and which has engulfed Nigeria arises from suggestions that the party's agreement on power rotation between the North and South should be dropped entirely for the incumbent to mount the party's platform. What may not work for the party is any attempt to shout the North down. With deft political arrangement, akin to the doctrine of necessity that brought in Jonathan as Acting President earlier this year, the resolution of this matter is not far-fetched.
From the ridiculous to the sublime, arguments have surfaced in certain quarters for or against zoning and power rotation! The pro-zoning debaters make their case on the need to sustain the country's unity and national cohesion based on the sense of belonging that the concept gives each component of Nigeria's diverse federation.

On the other hand, only the power rotation arrangement guarantees that one section does not dominate the nation's political leadership, ensuring that ethnic minorities (and majority back-benchers like the Igbo) get the opportunity to take real shots at the nation's presidency. Equally passionate debaters posit that zoning (and perhaps power rotation), has become unfashionable.

To me, the arguments in favour of Jonathan are strong enough on their own without PDP having to shoot down its arrangement on power rotation. For one, it rarely happens in developed democracies which we copy, that a sitting president is denied re-election ticket by his own party.
If re-election tickets for incumbent presidents are generally accepted as the convention worldwide, I don't see why Jonathan should be denied. The unfortunate incidents leading to his emergence as the president were after all, beyond us all. Secondly, there is no sacrifice too much for other parts of Nigeria to make in appeasing the Niger-Delta that has borne the brunt of our collective development as a nation since independence.
Thirdly, the picture aptly painted by Alhaji Muktar Shagari, deputy Governor of Sokoto State, should particularly appeal to Northerners. Shagari stated the obvious when he told his kinsmen that Jonathan deserves their support because the South-South zone where he hails from has over the years, been the North's vote garden in Southern Nigeria.

Zoning, just like the federal character principle, cannot totally be wished away in Nigeria because it is at the epicenter of our national stability. Neither the North, nor indeed the South-East, appears prepared to fall for that hoodwink. They conveniently forget the legion of examples of sitting presidents who don't scale the hurdle of re-election even with the party's ticket in the bag.

Even for the simple reasons of our ethnic diversity, our unique history and heterogeneous nature, merit can only succeed if it is embedded in any form or arrangement that recognises power rotation. It is therefore myopic, especially for the Igbo, to assume that after an incumbent Jonathan has crossed the river on the bridge of so-called 'merit', the same argument will sustain the plank for them to use thereafter.
So far, governors of the South-East have met, and declared support for President Jonathan to contest in 2011.Though they are not lacking support from politicians like Senator Arthur Nzeribe, the oracle of Oguta, they have equally been strongly criticised for their "timidity and political short-sightedness". Only a few Igbo leaders understand that with a Jonathan bowler hat in the ring, their immediate presidential aspiration will be in jeopardy.
Come to think of it, the argument for merit should ordinarily interest the Igbo, who are not in short supply of leaders of quality, but the power rotation agreement - written or not - does not have to be repudiated. The consequences, both for Jonathan and the entire nation are grave, moreso for the Igbo. And, like I have argued, a PDP ticket for Jonathan and retention of the principle of power rotation, are not mutually exclusive. The South-East leaders ought to emphasise this correlation to strengthen the zone's political interest in the long run.
Fifty years down the road of independence, the Igbo is the only one - among Nigeria's big three nationalities - yet to taste executive power in real terms, at the country's topmost hierarchy. Indeed, it has been discussed elsewhere that 2015 would have been the turn of Igbos, if the Yar'Adua presidency had run its full course. A Jonathan re-election will definitely push that prospect forward by at least four years, but without an in-built arrangement for power rotation thereafter, it could remain in the North for as many as 50 years if the prediction by erudite scholar and elder Yoruba statesman, Professor Aluko is anything to go by.

This piece was first published in SUNDAY TRUST newspaper of Nigeria on 08 August 2010 .