Niran Adedokun
niranadedokun@gmail.com
Once again, agitations for the propriety for the election of a politician of Igbo extraction as President of Nigeria in 2023 are on the rise.
Last week, Governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Umahi, finally made good his rumoured exit from the Peoples Democratic Party from which he had sowed and reaped bountifully over the last two decades. And it happened that his decision to join the ruling All Progressives Congress has everything to do with 2023.
Speaking on why he had to embark on the bitter divorce, Umahi said: “… I offered this movement as a protest to the injustice being done to the South-East by the PDP. Since 1999, the South-East has supported the PDP. At a time, the five states were all PDP. One of the founding members of the PDP was from the South-East, the late former Vice President, Dr Alex Ekwueme. It is absurd that since 1999, going to 2023, the South-East will never be considered to run for the presidency under the PDP.”
No one can blame the governor for his choice. He is entitled to it, except that he is not entirely right in the foregoing assertion. Here is what I mean.
In 1998, when the PDP had its first primary preparatory to the 1999 elections, Ekwueme contested the presidential PDP ticket in Jos, Plateau State. Had he won the ticket, he would have been the first presidential candidate of the party ever, but Chief Olusegun Obasanjo carried the day.
It is, of course, possible to say that the Jos primary was set up to favour Obasanjo given the quality of support he seemed to have had from former military and political leaders, but the fact that Ekwueme, who was a founding father of the party had contested this primary, impeaches Umahi’s argument about the injustice done by the PDP.
However, an even more important point needs to be made. This is the suggestion that some Igbo were actually behind Ekwueme’s loss of this particular process. Speaking to newsmen in Umuahia, early this year, Senator Mao Ohuabunwa, who represented Abia North Senatorial District in the eighth Senate, alleged that the late former Vice President’s bid was scuttled by some unnamed Igbo men.
In a report published in Vanguard, Ohuabunwa was quoted as saying: “I was present at Jos, Plateau State for the PDP presidential primary in 1998 where Dr Alex Ekwueme was the leading candidate for the party’s presidential flag: Ndigbo were already coasting to victory, but Ekwueme was betrayed by our own brothers… Those who took us to Jos got there and sold Ndigbo out. We lost to our brothers who sold out Ekwueme for their selfish ends. We know these people and we clap for them. They are the commercial agents of the system…”
The moral in the point made by the former senator is that attaining Nigeria’s presidency is more than just talking and blackmailing any set of people into submission. At the level of the primaries, there should be a meeting of minds of the group of people who desire to attain this position. This lack of single-mindedness is, according to this intervention by Ohuabunwa, one of the handicaps that the eternal craves of the Igbo to attain Nigeria’s presidency has suffered.
But, while at that, Umahi and other proponents of Igbo presidency must realise that regardless of any regional consensus on the Igbo’s crave for Nigeria’s presidency, the point must be made that leading a country ours, mostly happens with the deliberate and conscious efforts of the aspiring politician and not their ethnic group. This is where people like Umahi and others who aspire to Nigeria’s presidency have a lot of work to do.
One of the important areas a candidate must pay attention is the acceptability to other parts of the country. Take the example of two Yoruba men who aspired and won presidential elections in Nigeria, the feat would have been impossible without the nationwide acceptance of their ambitions. In the June 12, 1993 election, the late Chief Moshood Abiola, candidate of the Social Democratic Party, was reported to have defeated Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention in his native Kano State. In the case of Obasanjo, his presidential bid would have suffered but for his acceptance in other parts of the country. He could not even win elections in front of his house!
Now, consider how the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was described by the late Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu as the best president Nigeria never had, found it hard to make it to the country’s presidency despite his eminent qualification and near-universal acceptance in his Yoruba source. The lack of widespread acceptability denied Awolowo the opportunity to be President and it would any candidate, just as it denied President Buhari his heart desire three times before the alliance that saw him through in 2015.
While it is truly desirable and equitable for an Igbo to become President in 2023, Nigerians should, however, begin to look at competence, and a grasp of the issues that affect the country in the choice of their leaders. Unless that happens, agitations would extend to minority groups who also feel left out in the scheme of things. Our leaders must begin to nurse a pan-Nigerian thinking driven by the capacity for compassion and capacity to inspire comprehensive development in their politics.
In any case, how much have ethnic considerations done for the country in its 60 years? It is in fact why Nigeria is plagued with one of the most pathetic leadership deficits in the world. When a country discards merit for ethnic expediency in the attainment to political leadership, it is impossible, that anything other than mediocrity and failed potential would be the lot for such a nation.
Thinking about it again, some folks from the North have ruled Nigeria for about 38 of its 60 years, so what does the region have to show for it but grinding poverty, lack, disease and a non-sparing epidemic of crime and criminality. The North is where you have a majority of Nigeria’s out-of-school children and the prevalence of some of the most debilitating diseases the world has known and forgotten. Otuoke, the riverine fishing community where former President Goodluck Jonathan comes from, is said to lack potable water, while the road leading to Obasanjo’s Ota, Ogun State home remained dilapidated all his eight years in government.
For 2023 and beyond, it would benefit Nigeria to seek compassionate leaders with liberal minds and the ability to look beyond immediate personal gains and the bragging rights that attend leadership.
Adedokun tweets @niranadedokun
