A rotational presidency is dangerous for Nigeria
Nigeria belongs to all Nigerians and if we will not have war again, all parts of the nation must be included at the centre.
The 2023 presidential election is perhaps the most violent of all elections held in Nigeria since Nigeria adopted the presidential system in 1979. Two major contenders Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have taken their cases to the Supreme Court because they rejected the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which gave favourable judgement to Bola Tinubu of the APC.
Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party said though he respects the judiciary he did not accept the judgement of the PEPT. Peter Obi in a subsequent statement which is veiled to signpost what may be in the pipeline said Nigeria is sliding into anarchy because of the rejection of the rule of law. For the first time since he has been contesting for the presidency, Atiku Abubakar did not hide his deep tribalism. He had always pretended that he was a bridge builder among all tribes. Atiku married from the three major tribes in Nigeria. But in the 2023 election, he told a gathering of emirs in the north that he was best placed to safeguard the interest of the north. Religion and tribalism featured prominently in the campaigns. Bola Tinubu of the APC chose a Kanuri Muslim as his running mate playing the Kanuri against the Fulani who had been dominant in the nation's power calculus and playing Muslims against Christians. Tinubu also is a Yoruba Muslim. Peter Obi, though much veiled, campaigned from church to church. He told a gathering of clergymen to take their country back, a statement that many people understood as meaning that the country needed to be weaned away from Islamic control.
Peter Obi's candidature exposed the danger of the much-talked-about rotational presidency. Though not in the constitution, a rotationary presidency is accepted as a convention. Former Vice President Alex Ekwueme is said to be its author as the defunct National Party of Nigeria, NPN, perfected plans in hopes of winning the 1987 elections. NPN planned to rotate the presidency between the South and the North. Ekwueme, an Igbo became the vice president to Alhaji Shehu Shagari who won the presidency with an understanding that an Igbo will succeed Shagari. However, the convention was not tested for effectiveness because Shagari's administration which became inept and wasteful was terminated by a coup led by then Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, who later emerged as military head of state.
At the return of the country to civil rule in 1999, the old NPN coalesced into the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP as all parties were reincarnations of the old ones, the Action Group/ Unity Party of Nigeria, AG and UPN of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, resurrected as Alliance for Democracy, AD, while the Southeast reinvented its old alliance with the north in PDP in fierce competition with the Yoruba who always prefer to stay in the opposition. At that election, Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired military general and former head of state, seen by Yoruba as an imposition of the north to prevent AD candidate, Chief Olu Falae from becoming president, emerged victorious. The Yoruba had fought in NADECO, a pro-democracy organization put together to protest the military annulment of the election of a Yoruba man, the late Chief MKO Abiola who had presumably won the presidency under a military-contrived party, Social Democratic Party, SDP. Despite this rotationary arrangement, a northern carrot to the east, the east has never been president nor presented as a presidential candidate and it is as if that vital part of the country will be permanently locked out of the power loop at the center. Again when it was supposed to be the turn of the Igbo in the PDP in 2023, Peter Obi, an Igbo, was ousted by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, a Fulani. But Obi was a good candidate who had a good following among the youths most of whom were voting for the first time because they just turned 18. Ndigbo cashed in on that to express their legitimate desire for power at the centre by following Obi. Unfortunately, Obi's candidacy was hijacked and it became regional.
Bola Tinubu of the APC began his plot to be president in 2015 when he dragged the Yoruba to the centre for the first time. The Yoruba had played opposition politics, prefering to stay aloof for a long time but Tinubu led the merger of Buhari's Congress for Progressive Change, CPC and his AC together with some other parties to form the APC. He aimed to be a running mate to Buhari which did not sail through and eventually after Buhari's tenure he positioned himself to be president which meant the hope of Ndigbo would again be dashed. This background gives reason for the war that is attending the 2023 election, an Atiku who must be president even when his party, PDP had promised to zone it to the Igbo, a Tinubu whose ambition to be president knew no bounds and Obi who is the hope of Ndigbo for the presidency for the first time since the civil war which Ndigbo fought with the rest of the country. This 2023 election scenario therefore presents a vivid example of the danger of a rotational presidency. A rotational presidency will always be betrayed by politicians for selfish reasons and its continual failure can mean a part of the nation feeling rejected making the desired unity a mirage.
Each of the three major tribes, Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba sought power only for itself and not for the nation. The arrangement also leaves out the minorities. Tinubu fought the election and was declared the winner with only slightly above 8 million votes in a country of more than 200 million people. Obi and Ndigbo are aggrieved because it seems the much-coveted centre has eluded them again. When by a combination of Buhari and Tinubu, APC won in 2015, Buhari locked out the Ndigbo from any participation in power. He was accused of nepotism. He had members of his family in the presidency and other appointments, he put in Fualni whether they could perform or not. Tinubu is doing the same, perhaps in fulfilment of his controversial promise to continue where Buhari stopped. A human rights organization, Huriwa has accused Tinubu of nepotism. Not only is Tinubu infusing the federal government with his Yoruba ethnicity, but most of his appointees are from Lagos, his state. As it seems, Ndigbo will again be excluded if Tinubu occupies power for two terms of eight years. That is the reason the election was fierce. We may not have seen the end of that fierceness because nobody knows how the Supreme Court will rule. Obi has sounded that Nigeria is sinking into anarchy because she has jettisoned the rule of law. Perhaps he was signalling anarchy if he was rejected at the Supreme Court.
The President is the father of the nation and nation-building requires that talent which abounds in every part be sought and used but in four experiences now that has not been the case. Umaru Yaradua had more northerners in his government than any other tribe, Goodluck Jonathan together with his Secretary to the Government of the Fedreation, Anyim Pius Anyim stuffed his government with people from the South-south and Southeast. Jonathan is South-south with an Igbo name. Buhari's winner-takes-all government was all Hausa-Fulani while Tinubu has started to tread on the part of lopsidedness with his Yoruba ethnicity getting most of the jobs. Nigerians are just getting the meaning of Tinubu's "emilokan" campaign. Nobody is left in doubt that it means it is the turn of the Yoruba to do what other ethnicities have done.
With this kind of attitude, Nigeria is never going to be united and the development we so much desire will elude us forever. If Obi is to be declared winner by the Supreme Court, he will appoint his Igbo men and women. If we continue like this, we will never reach our destiny as a nation. Therefore the idea of a rotational presidency must be jettisoned. Nigerians should be able to queue behind a man or woman no matter where he or she comes from. Tinubu can change by refusing to walk as others before him walk. Once a president is elected he must see the whole country as his constituency. I have it on good authority that Tinubu has an oath with his Yoruba not to let them down. He will have to betray that oath to be successful. Nigeria belongs to all Nigerians and if we will not have war again, all parts of the nation must be included at the centre.
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Masters degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos