The governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, recently opened up that he had no interest in becoming the president in 2023 and would not support a Northern candidate for the Presidency. In an interview with the BBC Hausa Service, he said, the idea of zoning the presidential seat is necessarily not constitutional, but is based on the country’s political arrangement, which he believes should be respected.
“The Southern part of the country is supposed to produce the President come 2023; I don’t support a Northerner to vie for the seat after President Muhammadu Buhari, based on Nigeria’s political arrangement. Emotion, equity, and equality, a tripartite complexity depending on which lens you are viewing with.
“That is why I came out and said that after President Buhari has been in office for eight years, no Northerner should run for office. Let the Southerners also have eight years. “If you look at how I am, I don’t take anyone to work with me for the zone he came from. The eligibility I look at is if who is entrusted to the public will hold it properly.”
Who are the Southerners? Does it include Elder Tinubu, aka Jagaban? Is it equity and equality that Mr. Obasanjo and Osinbajo translate to sixteen years of presidency, and Mr. Atiku, Yar’adua, and Buhari would be some 18 years thereabout and no Igbo has been part of the sharing of the cake, or how about that argument that Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was Igbo?
President Buhari’s nephew, Mamman Daura, had earlier in an interview said he was against the zoning of the presidency. Which caused a lot of rubble especially among political watchers in the South East. For quite some time, many groups, organisations, and associations have drummed about the importance of giving the Igbos an adequate shot at Presidency.
How will the Igbo presidency bring about national interest and political stability, has any presidency brought about national interest and political stability, patriotism, or statehood, with each section holding sway? Is it not a case of deepening ethnic fascism, religious parapoism, with each turn by turn arrangement?
The entire country is in a mess, nowhere is left out, and the most important thing is that the presidency whether Igbo or Igala in 2023, will address the $93b loss in foreign investments in the eastern part, tackle the unattractiveness of the region to investors, restructure her tax regimes, improve the quality of infrastructure and low return on investment.
For all her noise of being the heart of Nigerian business, the South East does not have a functioning and operational industrial cluster.
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While solving her problem, that Igbo Presidency will have to find respite to Nigeria’s numerous problems, especially the ones that are being created or it will be an extension of the blame game rather than a case of equity or balance because the current Presidency has not even helped Katsina, or benefited Ogun state in any real special way.
Talking Equity and equality, even if you take the time to search the words equity and equality in the dictionary, you might walk away thinking they mean the same thing. Equality has to do with giving everyone the exact same resources, whereas equity involves distributing resources based on the needs of the recipients.
Equity and equality are two strategies the Igbo Presidency can use in an effort to produce fairness. Equity is giving everyone what he or she needs to be successful. Equality is treating everyone the same. Equality aims to promote fairness, but it can only work if everyone starts from the same place and needs the same help.
Is the above the case in Nigeria, will the Igbos give their best 11 or produce a feeder team? Is the Igbo Presidency in Nigeria’s interest or just a matter of balancing a nonexistent balance? Do the Igbos want the Presidency? is sharing the Presidency like a piece of candies for kids a recipe for a great Nigeria, would giving the Igbos the Presidency be equality and equity and when will we give it to the Ibibios, or efiks? Or is the Tiv man not also part of Nigeria?
The solution to Nigeria’s problem or to achieve equity and equality is complete restructuring. A clean overhaul of the current structure. This is because the country needs justice and equity. Anyone can make disingenuous arguments, but the current constitutional structure of Nigeria and the concentration of power favors some parts of the country and disenfranchises others, in particular those parts of the country from which the natural resources rents support the current structure. It disenfranchises them because they have no control over these resources (which should not be the case in a truly federal state), and also because the arrangement places excessive political power in the hands of whichever groups control power at the center.
The restructuring also is essential because it will help Nigeria’s democracy achieve better governance. The periodic rituals of elections have not necessarily improved governance. There are two ways this will happen. One, restructuring will bring greater accountability and transparency to governance because power and responsibility will devolve closer to the people. This will help evolve a better culture and quality of leadership, and will also foster competitive development between the regions.
When the system is restructured it becomes impossible for Nigeria to continue in sliding down into oblivion and economic recession.
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