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By Hon. Shu’ayb Darki
It is no longer news that the governing APC has zoned out the 2023 presidency to the ‘South’ without making it categorically clear to the electorates as to which of the ‘Souths’ it is referring to! But the APC is yet to expound on whether it’s the South-West, the Deep South or the politically short-changed South-East that the 2023 presidency has been zoned out to.
I suppose it’s high time they stopped pulling the wool over the eyes of the electorates by coming out to tell us who gets what as we are rapidly inching towards 2023 when Nigerians will go out in their hundreds, thousands and millions to decide their own destiny by electing the next President who will take over from President Muhammadu Buhari.
To avoid adding insult to injury and mitigate political tribalism to the hilt they should as a matter of nitty gritty allow the South-East this time around to produce an Igbo-speaking President for the first time in the political history of this country. And the only panacea to all the long-standing social problems bedeviling Nigeria is generally believed to be the byproducts of political disequilibrium where one geopolitical zone feels cheated upon our treated as a pariah by being denied their constitutional rights as citizens of this country as it has always been the case with the South-Eastern part of this country which has always felt democratically short-changed.
Since the return of democracy in 1999 there never was a time when any of the major political parties in Nigeria ever dreamed of fielding an Igbo man as its presidential flag bearer for fluffy reasons that could best be explained by these wolves in a sheep clothing called the political power brokers. Since then, the presidency has always been dominated by the two Nigeria’s major ethnic groups, that is, Hausa and Yoruba ditching the Igbo people. This advisory piece tends to draw the attention of the so-called Nigeria’s political power brokers to the dangers of depriving one region or religion of its rights to vote be an be voted in as enshrined in the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria as amended.
The transitional or rather rotational system of governance adopted by virtually all the political parties to rotate power among the three major ethnic groups in the country proves to be inimical to the Igbo dominated South-Eastern part of this country. Moreover, it could easily be remembered that from 1999 when Nigeria returned to democratic rule the Igbos as citizens were not given the opportunity to produce even the Vice President much less of occupying the much-coveted presidential seat.
As President Obama once opined “we are not pro-democracy until democracy manifests itself in our words, actions and convictions.” We must do everything humanly possible to save this country from collapsing in totality by being fair to all the ethnic groups as a surefire way to achieving lasting solution to all the long-drawn-out problems of insecurity confronting Nigeria on all fronts. It is believed that in a country where justice prevails no tribe is going to harbour any ill-feeling against another.
Hon. Darki, a political commentator and activist writes from Kano
