The South-east And The Imperative Of Mainstream

By Ita Offiong
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Politics is quite often time seen as a game of numbers. Therefore any region clamouring to clinch the number one seat in the country should play national politics but a geo-political region that is in the opposition would need to work more than ordinary to have the necessary clout to ascend the plum office.

Political permutations in a multi-party democracy are not based on whipping of sentiments but by participation and building the required bridges across all imaginable dichotomies. The South-East may be blessed with good business acumen but the paucity of political sagacity is the bane of its political progress.

There are two situations of reference which are erroneously being canvassed in the region to advance its course on the need to be given a chance to produce the president of the nation. The first is that, the protest over Yoruba’s perceived political marginalization following the aborted June 12, 1993 presidential election which was believed to have been won by one of their own – the Late Chief Moshood Abiola was the reason for the concession of the presidency to the region in 1999. But the development which saw the three major political parties of the time – PDP, APP and AD zoning their presidential sloths to that region was orchestrated by the powers that be. While PDP adopted Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the alliance of APP and AD threw up Chief Olu Falayi as their candidate.

The PDP candidate Chief Obasanjo won that election not because his kiths and kins wanted him but the party with a more national outlook and spread was behind his candidature. He carried the day with well over 62 percent of the total vote casts, compared with the 32.22 percent votes garnered by Chief Olu Falayi who was the preferred candidate of the region.

Secondly, the emergence of insurgency and militancy in the South-South region, which was largely seen to be the reason for conceding the VP sloth to that region during the twilight of Chief Obasanjo’s administration in 2007. But it was the death of President Yaradua in 2010 that adventitiously paved way for the emergence of Dr Goodluck Jonathan as the substantive president. It was this development that placed the region among regions that have produced the number one citizens in the country.

In the scenarios under review above, it was the influence of the dominant party of the day that led to the emergence of the president from those regions. The case of South-West in 1999 where the candidate that the region rooted for did not make it, is to further reiterate the point that, the election of the president of the nation is far beyond the decision of a single geopolitical region. So the belief that a chance would just be allowed for the South-East to produce the president of the country even where they choose to play politics of exclusion is as fallacious as it sounds.

The Igbo in the South-East talk about being marginalized because they have not been given a chance to produce the president of the country, as if it is a turn by turn affair. Many do not seem to know that the much vaunted rotational presidency is not even enshrined in the nation’s ground norm. It is a matter of political exigency occasioned by a wide consultation, participation and obvious national imperative and not even whipping of sentiments that can lead to such consideration or concession.

Ndigbo from the inception of this republic have been in the mainstream national politics until the present political dynamics that has confined them to be in the opposition. The region is not known for an opposition politics and their tumultuous past does not even favour such posture.

Secession bid is not even a better political gimmick as it would further narrow their confidence quotient and widen the suspicion gap. Someone once opined that if Ibos should apply their inherent transactional business skills in politics, then they would equally succeed in it. Even in secession bid, consultation would still be required.

But in flying the card of secession as a way of arm-twisting other regions to concede the number one political position to them, they might have unwittingly shot themselves in the leg as this may end up making other Nigerians to doubt their sincerity in handling the affairs of a corporate Nigerian state. When it comes to trading, an average Ibo man is a free mixer who makes friends with less difficulty but in politics they are quick to distance themselves from others. Take for instance the reference to a national party like APC which controls the central government and majority of states in the country as a Hausa party by some Ibo political elite. One may wish to ask which is the Igbo party that can provide the platform that can win the presidential election? Is it APGA or UPP that are yet to stamp their feet even in that region?

The I gbo presidency can still be realized within the political framework of PDP but building such consensus around a political platform that does not form government at the centre may be a herculean task but not an impossibility.

The speech recently credited to Odumegwu Ojukwu Jnr. while defecting to APC that, he chose to make such move in order to protect the interest of Ndigbo and the alliance Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s NPP formed with NPN in the second republic, including similar other moves by a few others in the past, might have been salient attempts made to project Igbo’s interest beyond the parochial political prism.

The question here is, whether Igbo presidency can ever become realistic with parochial political mindsets?

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