March 10, (THEWILL)- Like a topic that everyone enjoys discussing but never cares about its implementation, rotational principle in governance has been on the front burner in Nigerian intellectual and political circles for long.
Right from the tenure of Second Republic President Shehu Shagari whose party, the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, proposed to embrace “zoning formula and rotation of power” between the North and South, but failed to follow through, rotation has been a recurring decimal in national discourse.
A fortnight ago, Ojema Ojotu, a member of the Federal House of Representatives, PDP Apa/Agatu Federal Constituency of Benue State, revived the discussion by proposing a bill to include power rotation in the constitution for all elections. His proposal appears to be gaining traction not for its novelty but the attempt to give the plan a constitutional backing.
Earlier, during the life of the 9th National Assembly, the proposal reared its head at the Senate, but it was quickly shot down.That was in November 2022.
Senator Patrick Abba Moro, PDP Benue South had presented it as a bill during plenary. Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, APC Kebbi South and Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omon- Agege, APC Delta Central, immediately rose against it.
Although both of them argued that they did not see the merit in the proposed bill as it seemed to contradict the principle of equality in democracy, they however stated that it should have been made part of the Constitutional Amendment exercise and not as an autonomous legislation coming from the Senate.
Ojotu’s visitation of the plan as a constitutional matter may therefore be said to be a step ahead of the 2020 fiasco that the proposal witnessed in the Senate.
The bill, which is yet to be listed for first reading, proposes to amend sections 133, 179, 48, and 49 of the Constitution to rotate the office of the President of the Federal Republic among the six geopolitical zones, with each state holding the presidency for a maximum of two terms.
Curiously, the proposed legislation aims to prevent the geo-political zones that have previously produced presidents since May 1999 from doing so again until all other zones have had the opportunity to produce a president.
If the current political dispensation is followed, the North-East, North-Central, and South-East geopolitical zones, which have not produced presidents since 1999, are envisaged to be the first beneficiaries.
Moreover, the draft bill also seeks to rotate the office of Governor among the three senatorial zones within a state, as well as senatorial elections among all federal constituencies within a senatorial zone.
CONTENTS OF THE BILL
The bill proposes that the office of the President shall revolve around the six geo-political zones, with each state holding the office for a maximum of two terms of four years each, to give every section and state in Nigeria a sense of inclusion, participation and representation in Nigeria’s democracy.
“(3) Any zone in Nigeria which has produced a President of the Federal Republic shall not be eligible to produce another President until the other zones take their turns.
“(4) the effective date for consideration in the rotation of power shall be 29th of May, 1999 when the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) became effective.
Subsections 6 and 7 is being proposed to amend section 179 to read as follows; “(6) The office of the Governor of a State in Nigeria shall revolve round all the three Senatorial Zones in the State, to give every indigene of the State a sense of inclusion, participation and representation in the development of the State.
“(7) Every Senatorial Zone in a State which has produced a Governor of that State in a democratically conducted election shall not be eligible to produce a Governor, unless and until other Senatorial Zones produce Governors of the State.
The amendment to section 48 is to add subsections (1) (a) (b) to read thus; “(1) (a) Senatorial election shall rotate round all the Federal Constituencies in the Senatorial Zone to give a sense of inclusion, participation and representation in the Constituencies to engineer social progress and development.
“(b) Every Federal Constituency in a Senatorial District which has produced a Senator shall not be eligible to produce a Senator, unless and until all other Federal Constituencies produce a Senator.
Also, two subsections (1)(a) (b) are being proposed to alter section 49 to state that “(1) a. every Local Government which has produced a Member of House of Representatives shall not be eligible to produce a Member of House of Representatives upon cessation of tenure, unless and until all Local Governments in the Federal Constituency produces a Member of House of Representatives.
“(b) provided the occupant of an office in (b) above shall have served a full term of four years or any number of terms that Electorates validated through an election.”
FEARS UNDERLYING THE PROPOSAL
As a diverse, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and multi-national society, it is generally believed that Nigeria ought to uphold a power sharing formula that reflects the shared visions and aspirations of the many interest groups and nationalities making it.
As a multi-party democracy, it is expected to create equal opportunities for the different people in their different geo-political zones to fully participate in governance. The story of decades of democratic practice in the country has been contradictory; cries of marginalization, lamentation of hardship, worsening insecurity, call for separation and self-determination rent the air every now and then and heat up the polity. That is why power rotation has become a recurring decimal in the task to make participatory democracy work and resolve the fears, real or imagined, of every segment and geo-political zone in the country.
REACTIONS
Arguing that the current practice, with its winner-takes-all mentality, has reduced successive governments in the country to oligarchies, the General Secretary of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, CNPP, Chief Willy Ezugwu told THEWILL, that the rotational proposal is a welcome development and he prayed the National Assembly to accommodate it in their current amendment to the Constitution.
He said; “When all elective positions are made rotational, that will save us the agony of the salience of tribe and ethnicity, bribery and corruption to an extent. Knowing that it will come to their turn, each zone will bid its time and work to produce their best in the spirit of competition. Tension and pressures on the system would be greatly reduced.”
Ezugwu however suggested that the term of office should be made a single tenure, unlike the current practice of two-terms of four years each, so that they can go round in quick succession. “Anybody who has the quality of leadership does not need eight years to make a meaningful impact in governance,” he said.
Hassan Ardo Jika, the immediate past Nigerian Ambassador to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, does not think rotation is the solution to the many political challenges facing the country. For him, character, competence and will all be key deciding factors in the transformational leadership that Nigeria wants.
He told THEWILL in a recent interview, “I don’t believe in zoning and have always advocated competence instead. It doesn’t matter where the President comes from. What matters is someone with the political will and capacity to deliver. That is all.”
For the Igbo Elders Consultative Forum, the principle of rotation should be easy to operate as it has been part of the Constitution except that the Nigerian ruling elite has been unserious in operating it.
According to the Secretary of the group, Professor Charles Ikekeaku, rotational principle is constitutional by virtue of the Federal Character Principle as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution as amended.
Citing Section 14 (3) of the Constitution, he said, “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. It also provides that there is a need to promote national unity and command national loyalty and thereby ensure there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from an ethnic group or from other sectional groups in the government or any of its agencies, among others.”
The federal character principle implies there is a rotational principle in the constitution. He thinks that the National Assembly should amplify it according to the force of the Constitution.
He proposes that the Igbo have a first shot at the presidency, should the principle become constitutional and operational.
He said the South-East occupied the position for six months during the tenure of General J.U.T Aguyi-Ironsi in the First Republic and not even since.
Admirably, a leading light in the Nigerian left, Dr Edwin Madunagu, supports the rotational principle. Taking a historical position since the Second Republic government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari when the, “zoning or rotation” of power between North and South was first mooted, Madunagu argues that the Nigerian ruling elite have always used the “rotation or zoning” principle for convenience without the intention to observe it in practice unless it enables them to feather their nests at the expense of their rivals or opponents.
“In place of the present office of the president, let there be a Collective Presidency or Presidential Council of six equal members, each member representing a geopolitical zone. The tenure of the Council should be four years and the headship within that tenure should rotate between the members every eight months,” he said.
Amos Esele is the Acting Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
