In a heterogeneous country, the ethnic rivalry, which exists among the ethnic groups in that country, will pose a great problem to the entrenchment of unity. In that country, the top politicians, who belong to many different ethnic groups, are acutely aware of their ethnic origins.
And those politicians promote ethnic nationalism, which weakens national cohesion, and causes inter-ethnic disharmony. Ethnicity, which is a centrifugal force, had caused the dismemberment of such African countries as Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and others.
And in such countries as Kenya, which has the Kikuyu, Luhya, and Luo ethnic groups; and Nigeria, which is a multi-ethnic nation-state, ethnicity has caused divisions in the two countries. In Nigeria, even before our country became a sovereign nation-state, ethnic rivalry, which existed among the major ethnic groups in Nigeria, has characterized the country’s politics, and caused its disunity.
That was the reason Action Group (AG) was to the Western Region what the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) was to the Northern Region in the first republic. And the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC) was believed to be an Igbo people’s political party, then. That was the recipe for the deepening of ethnic animosity in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s disunity is partly traceable to our identification with our ethnic groups and rapid promotion of ethnocentrism and ethnic nationalism. And the British imperialists’ institutionalization of the culture of imposition of leaders on the populace further exacerbated our disunity.
Didn’t they (British imperialists) bifurcate our country in such a way to give the northern people an edge over the southern peope? And they helped Tafawa Balewa to become the Prime Minister of Nigeria at the expense of his political betters such as Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo.
So, until 1999, the northern people had maintained military and political dominance over the rest of Nigeria. Didn’t Tafawa Balewa lead Nigeria between 1960 and 1966? The Nigeria-Biafra civil war raged between 1967 and 1970?
And Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, and Sani Abacha – who were northern soldiers – took turns to rule Nigeria between 1970 and 1979; and between 1983 and 1998, save the periods when circumstances threw up chiefs Olusegun Obasanjo and Ernest Shonekan as the national leaders of Nigeria.
The Ibrahim Babangida’s convoluted transition to civil rule programme climaxed with the conduct of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, which was won by MKO Abiola. But it was annulled, throwing Nigeria into a political cul-de-sac. It took the deaths of the incarcerated MKO Abiola and the maximum ruler, Sani Abacha, for Nigeria to return to the path of democracy.
Earlier, during the 1995 national conference, the late Alex Ekwueme proposed the creation of the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria, and the rotation of the presidential seat among the six geopolitical zones. And when the transition to civil rule programme was started in 1998, the G-34 group of which he was a top member and other groups coalesced to form the PDP. The PDP, which has its doctrinal and ideological foundation on zoning of political offices, borrowed massively from the late Alex Ekwueme’s political thoughts.
The PDP’S abiding by the principles of rotation of power during its inglorious sixteen-year reign in Nigeria guaranteed us relative peace and unity and political stability, as well.
But today, that political party has abandoned its guiding ethos and principles, which were propounded by its founding fathers, including the cerebral Chief Alex Ekwueme (deceased) . So PDP has become a fractured party with Atiku Abubakar’s faction of PDP and Nyesom Wike’s group fighting bitterly for the soul of the party.
And the top members of the ruling APC, who should have zoned their party’s presidential ticket to the southeast in the interest of political equity, egalitarianism, fairness, and unity of Nigeria, did otherwise.
We all know that since the inception of the fourth republic, the South-South, South West, and the North had produced the presidents. And President Muhammadu Buhari, a northern moslim, will complete his second term in office on the platform of APC in 2023. The APC’s presidential candidate for the 2023 presidential election is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a Yoruba muslim from the South West geopolitical zone.
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Each geopolitical zone in Nigeria has sagacious, scrupulous, knowledgeable, visionary, and patriotic politicians, who can offer us good political leadership at the national level if given the opportunity to become our president. But the factors of religion, ethnicity, and population can prevent the emergence of a Nigerian president from some geopolitical zones. People from the geopolitical zones who cannot produce the president of Nigeria feel alienated, marginalized, and excluded from the power loop.
Indisputably, the resurgence of secessionist agitation in the South East of Nigeria is attributable to the marginalization of the Igbo people in the Nigeria’s scheme of things. The Igbo people are always quick to point to the fact that no person of southeast origin has been appointed to head national security outfits in Nigeria. And alongside other geopolitical zones, the southeast cannot hold a candle to other geopolitical zones regarding infrastructural development.
So the quest to re-make Nigeria, and set it on the path of achieving economic and technological development lies in entrenching peace and unity in Nigeria. This can be achieved by our evolving and fashioning out a variant of democratic culture and practice, which will embrace rotational presidency. Our people’s possession of the feelings and perception that they belong to Nigeria; and that they are not being politically marginalized will foster peace and unity in Nigeria.
Who does not know that peace and unity is the foundation of of national development in any country? A country with disunity, which is traceable to ethnic animosity, cannot achieve greatness as its peoples , who come from diverse ethnic backgrounds are working at cross purposes.
So now, I endorse the presidential candidature of Peter Obi of the Labour Party, not because he is my ethnic compatriot, but because his becoming the president of Nigeria will redress the political imbalance in Nigeria and address Nigeria’s problems of political inequity and lack of egalitarianism. It will also rekindle the people’s faith in the political edifice called Nigeria. And it will be the panacea and antidote to the simmering secessionist agitation in the South East.
More than that, of all the three major politicians jostling for the presidential seat, Peter Obi is the best presidential candidate among them. He has probity, patriotism, economic and political ideologies, leadership qualities, and vast experience in political leadership. He is famed for his frugality and expertise in husbanding lean financial resources as evidenced in his political leadership of Anambra State for eight years. So let us queue behind Mr. Peter Obi for a better Nigeria.
Okoye, a social commentator, writes from Uruowulu-Obosi, Anambra State
