Date Published: 03/25/10

Time to jettison the zoning arrangement By Idang Alibi 

For me as a patriot and a firm believer in the Nigerian Project, the major national issue that the ill-health which has sidelined President Umaru Musa Yar’adua and all the controversies that have surrounded that change in leadership chair have thrown up, is the need for us a nation to rethink the zoning formula and absolutely jettison it. 

Zoning was a creative political formula evolved to reassure all Nigerians that they are “full-blooded sons of the soil” and as such every one can aspire to any office in the land, especially the most prestigious of them all, the presidency.

But with the constitutional crisis that arose from Yar’adua’s apparent incapacity and Jonathan’s ascension which nearly plunged the nation into the abyss, we should resolve to jettison this formula. It has outlived its usefulness, if it ever served any useful purpose at all. Even before the current crisis, every one recognized that zoning is not only unconstitutional, but that the formula is also undemocratic and quite irksome to implement. What is more, the very idea of not looking for the best man or woman from any where in the country to lead us to glory but restricting the search to a particular zone is a terrible idea that will not guarantee that we fulfill our enormous potential. Contrary to what advocates of zoning say that zoning and merit can not be mutually exclusive, the truth is that zoning is antagonistic to merit. Zoning can compel the unprepared and the unwilling to get a position that those who are fully prepared and willing are denied because it is not yet the turn of their place to get it.

There is everything wrong with zoning. It gives the benefiting zone a certain feeling of entitlement. The man or woman who emerges is now regarded as our own man. It is our turn to have a man there and now he is there he is ours first and foremost. Other Nigerians own him only tangentially. Some smart and greedy elite from that zone now begin to guard the office jealously and zealously such as the cabal behind Yar’adua are doing right now. When you criticize the office holder for even an obvious wrong he has done, some from that zone will accuse you of doing so because the man is their own son or daughter. Some even think that you do not have a right to poke nose in what he is doing. The thinking is the presidency is now ours and we can carry on with it the way we like. I do not think this is the intendment of those who came up with the formula.

Zoning inevitably gives a beneficiary leader some kind of narrow-mindedness even if he was a broad-minded person before. In fact the people who get to surround him begin to drum it into his ears that it is the turn of their region so the man should give all good things to their people. Others now watch them in envy. It is truly regrettable that the zoning formula which was invented as an instrument to unite Nigerians by giving all in the polity a sense of belonging has ironically become one that is creating so much division in our country.

The refusal of the Yar’adua handlers to do what the Constitution specifies arises from this sense of entitlement I have talked about. Their reason is that the Yar’adua presidency belongs to the north so why should the north surrender its right to another zone even if the development that led to it was an act of fate. If Yar’adua had been perceived as a president of all Nigerians, the cabal would not have acted the way it did.

If Yar’adua was seen as a Nigerian president, the senate also would not have had recourse to the ‘doctrine of necessecity’ it was compelled to adopt to solve the political lock jam. It would have impeached Yar’adua out rightly, not even on the ground that he was sick and incapacitated but on the solid ground that he left on a sick holiday for such a long time without transmitting a letter to the National Assembly as required by the Constitution.

For us to make progress, we must grow up in our thinking. As we have lived together for a while now the feeling of marginalization has been significantly assuaged. The threat facing our nation today is not the differences arising from our heterogeneity. We will not break up because we are so differently made by God. The reactions by Nigerians to Muammar Ghaddafi’s recipe are a clear indication that Nigerians do not want a break up. Today, the greatest threat facing us is that of poor quality leadership which has ensured collective misery for a vast majority of the population. This collective suffering has ironically made many Nigerians to yearn for good people who can offer high quality leadership.

From the sentiments I get from the streets many Nigerians will not mind if a good Nigerian from any where comes unto the scene to lead us out of misery. They say what they need to have is a Nigerian president who owes loyalty to the Nigerian people and nation. We need a state governor who belongs to all the people of the state and we need legislators who are loyal and answerable to the whole constituency.

Come to think of it, what is the real benefit that is conferred on a region when their son occupies the presidency? Let me confess that the only real good you feel about it is psychological. Beyond this, there is practically nothing else.

Apart from a few sons and daughters from the zone who get appointed to some lucrative offices, sometimes undeservedly, what tangible benefits do the ordinary people from that zone get because their person is occupying the presidency?

Let some one tell me the special advantages the Yorubas of the South West got because Chief Obasanjo their son was president for eight years and let some one also tell me what the people of the North West have got because Yar’adua has been president for three years now.

If we were a people given to deep reflection about our country and the way to move forward, what should have dominated our debate since the Yar’adua incident and the apparent unwillingness to surrender power should have been this zoning arrangement.

It is bad and it should be done away with if we want Nigeria to make progress.