…Move Threatens Party’s Firm Grip on South-South, South-East
…Committee Screens All 17 Presidential Aspirants, Disqualifies Two
…Division Over Northern Consensus Candidate Ignites Tension
…Mistrust Amongst PDP Southern Governors Over Southern Presidency Vow
May 01, (THEWILL) – Leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are facing a Janus-like situation. Like the mythical god of duality, transition and new beginnings, after whom the month of January is named, PDP leaders are torn between the adoption or jettisoning of the concept of zoning in choosing its presidential candidate for the 2023 general election.
The challenge of transiting from the opposition to the governing party in 2023 for a party that once held power for 16 years is testing its tactics and strategy to the point of anxiety. This is to be expected for a party that wrote in its Constitution that zoning of key positions would be rotated between the North and the South.
Until the party convenes its National Executive Committee (NEC) on Thursday, May 5, 2022 and takes a frontal position on the zoning arrangement, the palpable tension among aspirants and stakeholders in the party across the country will still be at fever pitch.
In the meantime, some presidential aspirants from the North, who seek consensus arrangement, have also met a brick wall. This was evident in the criticism and rejection that trailed the adoption of a former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State as the northern consensus candidates by the Chairman of the Northern Elders Forum, Prof Ango Abdullahi.
Party leaders and aspirants from the South, particularly the Southern Governors Forum, comprising 17 governors from both the APC and PDP, are clamouring for the presidency in 2023 to be zoned to the South.
They argued that the major political parties should allow the alignment of party interests with popular interests, which feel maligned by the nepotism, insecurity linked to killer herders, profligacy and heightened ethnic mistrust under the current administration, besides the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani from the North, would have ruled for eight years by 2023.
Party leaders are aware of the ongoing tension caused by the two options among members and supporters of the party, but want to do things their own way, particularly with the zoning arrangement.
According to PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Debo Ologunagba, the party follows due process, consults widely and embraces inclusivity in its operations and so would settle the zoning and consensus matter soon.
He told THEWILL after the meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) on Tuesday that the NEC would meet and settle the matter once and for all.
He said, “The NEC at its 98th meeting constituted a committee on zoning. The Committee submitted its report to NEC through the NWC. The NWC would convene a meeting of NEC on May 5 to present the report for consideration. It is after NEC’s consideration that we, as a party, would make a decision. For now, the party has not taken a position on zoning or consensus. Any report to that effect is an attempt to paint the party in a bad light.”
But a former chieftain of the party and one-time Minister of Education, Prof Tunde Adeniran, spoke the minds of many party pro-zoning supporters in an interview with this newspaper.
According to him, “PDP is founded on some philosophy and certain principles which include fairness, justice, equity, the rule of law and of course, all that will bring the best in each member regarding patriotism and national development.
“Apart from the letters of the constitution of the party, the spirit of the constitution is also expected to guide the running of the party’s affairs. And it is my expectation that the present leadership, particularly the national chairman being a very solid scholar and an experienced politician and an ideologically oriented person would do the needful to ensure that the fundamental principles and the philosophy which informed the founding of the PDP are re-established.”
ZONING FORMULA AS BOTTLENECK
Although zoning is constitutional for the PDP, it has become a bottleneck for the party for two main reasons.
Leaders of the party devised zoning as a means of political inclusion, among all ethnic groups in the country, at a time the party was the only major party. Top political positions, such as President, Vice President, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and National Chairman were shared among the six geo-political zones of the country. The position of the president was to rotate between North and South.
With the emergence in power of the APC in 2015, the unexpected had happened. PDP had not taken into consideration that it may lose the presidency sometime in the future and so the constitution of the party did not envisage what happens if another party wins the presidency. How will the zoning of the offices be affected by such development? Will it take into cognizance the zone that produced the president from the other party in sharing the position in the following elections? The issue of zoning has therefore been dogged by controversy following the party’s loss of the presidential election in 2015.
Speaking with THEWILL, a former Deputy National Chairman of the party and a Board of Trustees member, Chief Bode George, said the founding fathers of the party did not envisage that the party would one day lose the presidential election and so they did not factor into the party’s constitution how the zoning arrangement will affect the sharing of its position.
MOUNTING POLITICAL FEARS
The fear that is being expressed by the pro-zoning group, including the aspirants, is the party’s delay in announcing the position on zoning after setting up two committees on it. The first was the Governor Bala Mohammed Committee on the review of the party’s performance in the 2019 presidential election. The committee had recommended merit, instead of zoning as the mode for choosing its presidential candidate. Recently, facing a backlash from the champions of zoning, it set up the Governor Samuel Ortom-led Committee made up of one representation each from all the states. That is the report the NEC will be discussing at its Thursday, May 5 meeting.
Apart from the 17-member Southern Governors Forum, several social and political organisations have joined the widespread agitation for zoning. Pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere and its counterparts in the South-East, Middle-Belt and Niger Delta, namely, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Middle Belt Forum and PANDEF, have said with one voice that the party must keep its word. These groups and PDP presidential aspirants suspect fouI play on the part of the National Working Committee of the party.
Speaking with THEWILL, one of PDP’s southern presidential aspirants, who did not want his name in print for fear of intimidation, said the National Executive Committee should have by now announced its decision on zoning after almost a month that the Ortom-led committee submitted its report.
“We are suspecting foul play. The Zoning Committee submitted its reports about three weeks ago. They left the report in a cooler and are screening all the 17 aspirants. So after clearing all the 17 aspirants for the primary, is it now that you will announce the zoning? Can they stop somebody who has been cleared by the party not to contest the primary based on any zoning arrangements? That is our fear,” he said.
Continuing, the source said, “You would share our fear if you remember that some people said they saw a leaked report of the zoning committee that throws the presidential ticket open to all the zones, although this was refuted by Governor Ortom.”
Collectively, all the southern ethnic groups have said that zoning the presidency to the south, particularly the South-East, must be adopted for the sake of fairness, equity and justice.
Addressing a gathering comprising representatives of these organisations, recently, Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, said, “For merit, fairness and justice, the South-East should be allowed to produce the president in 2023.”
To make matters worse for the PDP, its major rival, the governing APC, has held on to its long decided decision to zone its presidential ticket to the South. Currently, all its 20 presidential aspirants are from the South, except Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi who is from the North-Central.
PDP IN SURVIVAL STRATEGY
To say the party is in a dilemma over zoning is to state the obvious. Chief Bode George made the point in an interview with THEWILL. He said, “The founding fathers of the PDP sat together when General Abdulsalam Abubakar was trying to hand over and they said ‘Look, let us be serious with our nation. What has been the major setback in this country?’ It has been that in the North, the minorities were to be seen and that is all.
“In the South, it was the same thing. So the founding fathers, Chief Bola Ige from the South-West and Pa Alex Ekwueme from the South-East, for example, were people who would not get in the same room and discuss politics. So, the G9 wanted to find out what exactly had been the major setback in the progress of our nation and they thought the majority would always have their way. The minorities were to be seen and not heard. So they came up with this brilliant idea to divide Nigeria into six geopolitical zones so that there would be three zones in the North (North-Central, North-East, and North-West) and in the South, you have South-East, South-South and the South-West.
“With these geo-political zones, they sat back and said, ‘Look, there are six top positions in the government: The President, the Vice President, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Reps, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and National Chairman of the party.’ So there are six geopolitical zones and six top positions.
“Nobody, whether you are minority or majority, will go home without something to show to their people. So that sense of commitment was established. But when you look at it like that, after eight years, all the positions in the South will go to the North and all the positions in the North will come to the South. But the mistake they made was that, and it is natural, you know, you can’t find solutions to all problems, especially when it is a developing country; even developed countries do have problems.
“What the founders didn’t consider was that there might be a situation where another political party would produce the president. You know it wasn’t in our political equation. So when the APC produced the president and he was from the North, what happened to our zoning arrangement? We never factored that in our political equations.
“Now President Buhari of the APC has been in power for eight years and he is from the North, how will that affect the zoning in the PDP? Our founding fathers didn’t put that into consideration and that is why we are having the current problem.”
Still, in an attempt to manage the aforementioned political fallout, the party’s body language, points to a high probability that it will throw the contest open among presidential aspirants.
The argument by bigwigs of the party is that the PDP wants to win the presidency in 2023 and to accomplish that, it will adopt a workable strategy to do so. Thus last Friday, the party screened all 17 aspirants for its presidential ticket, ahead of its May 28 and May 29 presidential convention. The screening committee was chaired by a former President of the Senate, David Mark. He said two aspirants, who he did not identify, were disqualified.
Echoing Mr Ologunaba, who on Wednesday last week, after the NWC meeting, was quoted as saying that the Constitution gives all qualified Nigerians the right to contest and not be discriminated against, the National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, last Thursday said he had no preference among all the 17 aspirants, whom he enjoined to canvass their aspirations among party delegates across the country.
Ayu spoke while addressing former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and one of the party’s presidential aspirants, who addressed the NWC on that day and asked to be given a right of first refusal, having garnered 11 million votes in the 2019 poll, which the party lost.
Ayu said, “So, you are a presidential aspirant today. But I want people to know that you are still my friend. I can’t deny you. I’m saying this to make it clear to those who say, ‘Oh, because of my personal relationship with you, as chairman, I’ll work for you.
“Mr Vice President, I will not work for you as an aspirant. I will work for all the 17 aspirants. It is left to you to convince the delegates of our party that you are the best. You have to market yourself. You have to work hard.”
With the position of Ayu and Ologunagba and the screening of all 17 presidential aspirants, the party’s Thursday, May 5 meeting of the NEC may be a fait accompli on zoning, throwing the contest open to aspirants from all the regions.
THE POLITICAL FALL OUT
With the South and Middle Belt adamant about the zoning of the presidential ticket to the South, particularly the South-East, the PDP may possibly be gambling with votes from the three geo-political zones. This argument is well canvassed by groups backing former Anambra governor and presidential aspirant, Dr Peter Obi, and ex-Secretary to Government of the Federation, Pius Anyim Pius. However, the PDP is expected to seriously consider fairness and justice as well as the likely voting pattern that would emerge if the APC picks its candidate from the South-East/South-South.
The combined voting strength of the North overwhelmingly trounces that of the South by over 60 percent, no doubt, but in a representative democracy that the country practices, the Constitution requires an even spread and two–thirds majority across 24 states of the federation.
Moreover, the possibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) achieving at least 60 per cent success rate with electronic transmission of election results has strengthened the position of the advocates of power shift. All that is needed, they argue, is for both political parties to present candidates with national appeal and leadership qualities, considering the convergence of interest for a leader with strong economic, wealth management and job creation skills, to replace the Buhari administration.
Also, there is the overwhelming national sentiment about power shift to the South, against the backdrop of the perceived lopsidedness of the current administration’s key appointments which favoured the core North most. Generally, key APC governors like Nasir-el Rufai of Kaduna State and his Katsina counterpart, Aminu Masari, have been canvassing the concept of power shift to the South since the president won his re-election in 2019.
*** BY AMOS ESELE and AYO ESAN
About the Author
Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
