Nigerian politicians are known to be incurable optimists, always feeling hopeful and positive about the future of their country. More often than not they also tend to become malevolent or reflect on any vice that could outweigh virtues in their lives. However, recent events unfolding in the country have tended to invoke a tendency to expect the worst among hitherto hopeful and expectant people. Majority of Nigerian politicians are now pessimistic, seeing only the negative or worst aspects of all bad things which they expect to happen to themselves.
There is an intricate range of problems plaguing Nigeria, but the most aggravating and distressing is the issue of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ill-health and its relationship with prospective candidates for presidential elections. There is also a growing concern among the political elites about his ability to contest in 2019 and whether or not his successor will come from the North in the event he was unable to re-run.
It appears the politicians are losing their heads over this issue and are unsure how it would be handled rationally without any ugly incidence that could jeopardize the interest of the nation. As it is now the political gladiators in both regions are not governed by clear and sensible thinking or judgments in their deliberations and, instead carried away by narrow-minded reflections, ridiculous sentiments and vain prejudices.
There is no gainsaying the fact that some highly-placed southern politicians are nursing inordinate ambition to contest the Presidency in 2019, should Buhari decides not to contest for whatever reason, without giving due consideration to a subsistent arrangement within political circles that a presidential tenure must reside in the zone of an incumbent for eight years after which it could rotated or located elsewhere. Unquestionably, the continuation of ex-president Goodluck Jonathan in power after completing the remaining years of his predecessor’s tenure was responsible for the political turmoil that rocked the nation after he was sworn in for a second term.
Northern politicians, especially in the PDP, kicked against the idea of extending the tenure of Jonathan in 2011, insisting that power must actually shift to the North.
As if that leeway was not provocative enough, the southerners again schemed to throw Jonathan up for another round of four years despite vehement protestations from frustrated and disgruntled northerners. President Jonathan and his tribal warlords swore to make Nigeria disintegrate in the event of his inability to clinch the presidency in 2011.
Such threats of Nigeria’s disintegration did not manifest after Jonathan’s so-called victory at the 2011 elections but the stage was set for unprecedented political bickering and recriminations which had seriously taken its toll on his administration. In the statute books of most political parties in the country there is a provision for an interchanging pattern of determining presidential candidature which allows north to alternate with the south in a very unpopular policy called zoning.
That makes the clamor of power shift to the north from the south, during the previous dispensations, even more imperative.
The ruling clique within the PDP at that time has manipulated that procedure with a view to concede the office of the national chairman to the North, ostensibly to foreclose the chances of any aspiring candidate emerging from that region. And because of that the northerners had vehemently bickered over the election or appointments of their kith and kin which had effectively precluded other imminently qualified presidential aspirants in the party from their locality. That was the genesis of the rumbling in the ruling PDP which had also given vent to the current internal crisis attributed to the struggle by foremost players jostling for positions come 2019 elections.
Already the issue of presidential candidacy in 2019 is terribly undermining the APC, occasioning sharp divisions in all levels of its hierarchy. That immoral situation is further compounded by disconcerting demands for the unconditional disclosure of the nature of president’s ailment and the explicit revelation of his health status for the benefit of those that voted him to power. There are some northerners too who are currently hands-in-globe with prominent southern politicians, spoiling for ugly confrontation and eager to exploit any opportunity that may come their ways for contesting the presidency. They are hobnobbing informally with prominent politicians and civic leaders in other zones to formalize arrangements to secure favor for their allies to clinch presidential primary ticket.
From the foregoing, therefore, it was clear the problems that weigh down the country from the PDP days and which still plague the nation have their roots firmly embedded in dishonoring agreements earlier reached on rotating the presidency between the north and south in 2002 and the outright refusal to uphold the zoning policy through conceding power to the north in 2011. With the unbridled ambition of southern politicians for capturing the presidency soaring higher day by day, it is advisable they should learn for the past precedencies so as to ensure that nothing stands in between the north and the presidency in 2019 in the interest of peace and stability.
