SINCE the victory of the All Progressives Congress, APC, from the epic electoral battles, each section of the six geo-political zones of the federation has been jostling for choice positions at the centre. This is expected and permitted giving the spirit of the letter of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which gives ultimate primacy to equity, fairness and justice.
Section (14), subsection (3) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, ably amplified equity as the bases for mutual coexistence: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few State or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies”.
The APC chant of “CHANGE” can only gain traction if all the zones in the country get their due place in power allocation or it will remain a flash in the pan if the party’s zoning of the plumb positions shies away from balancing geopolitical interest. The first litmus test for the party of “change” as had been said would be who and from where should Senate President and the Speaker of the National Assembly come?
The APC will be making costly mistake if it allowed itself to be misdirected into crowding a section of the country with key positions while other parts of the country are left as merest of zones whose contributions to the overall electoral victory means next to nothing. For the sake of it, that the APC has been labelled as Yoruba political party which gangly sought alliance with the north to wrestle power at the centre. This is enough for the party leadership to seek an embracing method and nationalistic fervour that will see it through avoidable crises in the future.
As strange as it stands, nothing suggests that the APC will not gleefully fall into the accustomed political traps of greed and pride that follow electoral victory by those who seemingly contribute huge stakes to its actualisation. But it is largely unknown to them that political leadership in multi-ethnic or multi-democratic society is a fragile thing and is hardly ever more than one or two periodic elections away from extinction.
As long as parties leaders remains parochial in their sharing of political offices against electioneering promises that all would be treated fair and square, and to protect and defend the Constitution, the people reserve the rights to demand for the implementation of such promises. I am afraid that our failure to ask or the party leaders refusal to keep their promises of equity, just and fair will not only continue to drive Nigeria down the road toward drift and incessant defection amongst political actors, we will be arriving at that unwelcome destination, where we will turn around and notice that the road has been paved with political unrest and instability.
You are wont to ask, how can nation-building or nation-being possibly emerge from such dubiety, such despondency, despair and ashes of poor party leadership that ascribes the ownership of a political party’ssuccess; the entire nation’s sovereign mandate to one powerful zone just because it pride itself as the ultimate sponsor of the victory? Where is the place of participatory democracy and collectivism in the face of slow and creeping autocracy after denuding and cajoling electorate to swindle them of their votes?
Without doubts, the people of South-South and South East will see in APC leadership the incarnate of the old Action Group, AG, who were alleged to have had poisoned heart with abiding hatred for the two regions. It’s obvious that exclusion or denial of the South-South geopolitical zone from the Speakership will certainly levitate old wounds and struggles for self determination; even dangerously in the swamping creeks of Niger Delta; right at the point of scoping petrol dollars and soiled with human blood.
As at moment, the President-elect, and the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the Senate President and the in-coming Senate President are coming from the North. The only office in the South is the Vice-President elect that is from the south. The South West and North West already have the positions President and Vice President, respectively. It is only fair and just and, as a matter of necessitate, if the Senate Presidency goes to either the North East or North Central, the Speakership should go to the South-South. While the South West has the Vice President, invariably the Speakership should come from the South-South since the South East has no ranking member.
In the spirit of give and take and in the interest of inclusive governance, and by every standard, considering the economic importance of the South-South geopolitical zone as the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs has to be factored into the distribution of high political offices. This will further suppress opportunistic agitation, part ofwhich led to the Niger Delta militancy.
The APC as a party can ill-afford the crisis that will arise from the mismanagement of her victory which was the same reason the PDP roundly lost the elections across the country, recently. Governor Kwankwaso of Kano hits the bull’s eye when he sounded a note of warning on the APC’s party leadership in the Vanguard Newspaper edition of April 26, page 37. It reads: “I think what is important is to have a fair distribution of the posts to ensure that all zones are represented and I think it is one of the mistakes of the PDP which decided to lumppositions in certain preferred places while others had little or nothing at the end of the day. I think that has gone a long way in really killing the party”.
Despite such affront in impunity by the PDP in allocation of positions and the howling mob within, the party leadership arrogantly ascribed invisibility to itself until failure crept in. Before now, the PDP had deluded itself that it will rule for between sixty and hundred years, a gambit that hurts the party to this day. This is a lesson that when you enthrone your private, or sectional authority in opposition to the collective, sooner or later comes along a more uncompromising private challenger to your fragmentary authority, armed with greaterunscrupulousness and selfish manipulation against party development.
Governor Kwankwaso, yet again, echoed performance as one of the bases for consideration in terms of posts allocation in the interest of party solidarity: “Of course performance is an issue but even those that didn’t perform as much as others need to be encouraged… so I look forward to seeing people in the East and the South-South joining the APC so that by 2019, our task in terms of campaign will be minimal”.
In the last presidential election, in spite of the blatant military brutality against the APC leadership and the virtual arrest of the Comrade Governor, Adams Aliu Oshiomhole, Edo State was where General Muhammadu Buhari, the President-elect scored 45% votes which is above the mandatory 25% as required by the Constitution.
It is in this context we are calling on the leadership of our great party to consider the person of Hon. Pally Iriase, a chattered accountant, a former ALGON Chairman, a former Deputy Speaker, Edo State House Of Assembly, a former Secretary to the Edo State Government and two times member of the House of Representatives for the Speakership of the National Assembly.
We appeal to the leadership of the APC, to be on the side of fair play, equity and justice in the lager interest of our great party. This is pertinent in view of the fact that election will still take place in 2019 and every part of the country is needed to contribute meaningfully so as to move the party forward. At the moment, caution is necessary, without which Tambuwal’s Speakership saga will steer APC in the face and it will be too hot for the party to handle.