If I were an Igboman, I would not find the current political calculations funny at all. Look at the fact: from an enviable height in the First and Second Republics, when Igbos held key positions in government, the reality today is that the highest-ranking Igbo is Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweramadu. And guess what? He is No. 5 in the hierarchy! For an ethnic group that is one of the biggest three, this is not something to cheer. If the last four years did not offer anything noteworthy to them, how can the next four years be different? That, to me, should be the focus of Ndigbo politics ahead of the April polls.
Let’s start with the most difficult question: when will an Igbo man or woman become President of Nigeria? The South East Leaders Forum, in a statement issued last Thursday, proposed 2015. Now this is very tricky. A major issue in the polity today is the return of power to the North this year to, as the saying goes, “allow the North complete its eight-year term truncated by Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s death”. Assuming President Goodluck Jonathan wins the presidential election and quits after only one term in 2015, the coming presidential battle then would be between the North and the South-east. It does not promise to be exciting.
On paper, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar made the best offer to the South-east before the PDP presidential primary election. He promised to complete the “North’s term” by serving only one term and vacating the seat for an Igbo president in 2015. Under this proposal, an Igbo president could emerge in just four years. That, I would say, was very attractive. It would be, for Ndigbo, a dream come true. Jonathan had nothing solid to offer the South-east. His own VP slot was automatically for the North, while the Senate Presidency was not available. In other words, Jonathan could only offer Ndigbo the status quo: No. 5 position.
At the level of making a tantalising offer, therefore, Atiku had an advantage over Jonathan. But for whatever reason, the South-east did not take his offer; of the 446 delegate votes from the zone, only 23 voted for Atiku. The rest chose Jonathan (a friend jocularly told me: “Jonathan is Ebele. We voted for him because he is our son!”) Did the South-east throw away a golden opportunity by not supporting Atiku? The counter argument is that even if the entire South-east had voted for Atiku, Jonathan would still have won. And the zone could have been considered as “opposition” by the president for not supporting his bid. That would have political implications.
With the Atiku offer now gone, what next for Ndigbo? There are two options, obviously: to support Jonathan or pitch tent with the opposition. If the alliance talks between ACN and CPC had worked out, Ndigbo could have pushed for the VP slot, hoping that in 2015 or 2019, the chance for No. 1 would finally come. But the opposition parties have behaved typically by failing to reach an agreement. The implication for Ndigbo is that their selling point is now at risk. What’s the selling point? Getting the VP slot with the hope of delivering the South-east votes to the opposition alliance in April.
Many Igbo opinion leaders believe that the unenviable position of Ndigbo in national politics today is a product of conspiracy. They argue that Ndigbo are still paying the price for the civil war—that, indeed, there is a deliberate plan to keep them out of power. On the other hand, some argue that Igbo themselves are yet to move away from the war and are always playing the victim instead of tackling the enemies within and taking their rightful place in the scheme of things. I don’t want to be involved in this sort of argument because it is neither here nor there. It is about opinions—everyone has one. I would say, however, that even if there is conspiracy against Ndigbo, it is not beyond redemption. Deft group politicking is a critical antidote. It requires strategic planning.
Putting the conspiracy theory aside for now, I would suggest that two key developments have contributed to pushing Ndigbo down the pecking order of national politics: (1) the mainstreaming of the South-west and (2) the rise of the Niger Delta. The failure of Chief Obafemi Awolowo-led South-west to join forces with the centre in the First and Second Republics meant the South-east had an advantage over them. Dr. Azikiwe’s National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) went into coalition with the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) and formed government in the Independence era. In the Second Republic, Azikiwe’s Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) also had an understanding with the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN), while Dr. Alex Ekwueme (an Igbo) was Vice-President to Alhaji Shehu Shagari. It appeared as if it was a matter of time for an Igbo to become president (I still believe if the military had not struck in 1983, Ekwueme was in line to succeed Shagari in 1987—but we would never know).
Ironically, Yoruba’s route to “centre politics” was through an unusual source: Bashorun MKO Abiola. Derided for “selling out” because he did not support Awolowo in the Second Republic, Abiola began building bridges across the country. When he eventually had a shot at the presidency in 1993, he won hands down. The annulment of the election created a serious national crisis; the powers that be decided they had to appease the Yoruba by zoning the presidency to them in 1999. The beneficiary? Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, another Yoruba reviled at home for “selling out” because he did not support Awolowo and the Yoruba cause in 1979.
With a Southerner occupying the No. 1 position from 1999-2007, it was expected that power would return to the North going by our political mathematics and sociology. The Igbo could neither take the VP slot under Obasanjo nor realistically have a go at the presidency in 2007. It’s a zero-sum game: my gain is your loss. If a Southern zone gets something, other Southern zones are automatically “zoned out” until the next time around. To compound matters, the South-south had become a big political force as a result of militancy in the oil-producing region. The politicians had also established a claim that the zone had never produced the No. 1 citizen, even for one minute. It became a movement. Militants were firing on one side, politicians on the other.
Suddenly, Nigeria was no longer seen as a tripod of Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba; the Niger Delta had assumed a life of its own, making a somewhat convincing claim to the presidency as the “hewers of stone and fetchers of water” for the country. With the Niger Delta now thrown into the equation, Ndigbo lost the most. They would logically have expected to produce the VP to Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, thereby positioning an Igbo to succeed the Fulani man from Katsina. But the powers that be decided to pacify the South-south by picking an Ijaw man. (Remember, the decision to appease the Yoruba in 1999 also effectively ended Ekwueme’s quest).
These two factors—mainstreaming of the South-west and the rise of the Niger Delta—did not favour Ndigbo in any way. However, they could still have got the No. 3 position—Senate Presidency—in 2007, but the nature of Nigeria meant the Middle Belt also needed to be accommodated. So the No. 3 position, held by the South-east from 1999-2007, went to another Northern bloc—the North-central. The least I expected was that the South-east would get the Speaker (No. 4); it went to the South-west instead. The South-east could only get Deputy Senate President, the No. 5 slot.

What next then? Ahead of the polls, the South-east leaders need to sit down, strategise and negotiate the zone’s interest with regards to projects and positions, irrespective of who they support. Truly, going forward, they are faced with difficult choices: one, to go with the ruling party and negotiate their interests in concrete terms; two, to pitch tent with the opposition and aim for the VP slot, hoping that power would change hands in April. It’s not an enviable situation, I conclude.

-ThisDay

Posted by admin on Feb 2 2011. Filed under Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry