2023: The Metrics of Ethno-religious Balance – Tinubu’s Predicament
By Gabriel Ikese
It was Tonie Iredia, a veteran journalist and former Director General of the NTA, who once wrote that the repressive monarchical system of old, which was premised on the divine Rights of Kings and Colonialism by which imperialists exploited conquered territories heightened the advent of democracy in many societies.
Going by this submission, we can confidently assume with ample ease that “freedom from oppression”, which is the sermon of democracy, facilitated the adoption of the system in virtually all parts of the world.
Nigeria embraced democracy early at independence, adopting the parliamentary system which was later ditched for the presidential model in the second republic.
The popularity of democracy has however been adversely affected by a dimension whereby people claim to be democrats just to attain power, only to enthrone a regime which erodes freedom thereby creating an authoritarian regime.
Politicking is an art of science which involves mathematical calculus and strategic planning to win elections. Perhaps that is partly the reason politics is often said to be a game of numbers. For Lewis Carol’s Mock Turtle, the arithmetic of politics includes four branches, which are “Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and derision”.
The abacus of adversarial political calculus in Nigeria revolves around Carol’s four branches. In politics, two and two can sometimes add up to 22 instead of the more modest sum of four.
This complex arithmetic metric sets in when political parties strategize toward party conventions to select candidates for various political offices. The issue of where a presidential candidate and running mate would come from usually becomes an intense subject for national discourse.
Political gladiators hold protracted nocturnal meetings to debate the metrics that best suit their interests. The 2023 election has the same peculiar challenges for political parties. The zoning of the presidential ticket to which of the six geopolitical zones by political parties adequately heated the entire political ecosystem.
It is therefore not business unusual when political gladiators began permutations ahead of the 2023 elections in an effort to balance the ethnoreligious equation. Agitation for power to shift back to the south after President Buhari’s tenor in 2023 was expectedly intense. It was a very serious business for southern governors and other stakeholders.
Political parties did not find it easy, particularly the two major parties, the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to do the zoning in a manner that guards against marginalisation.
Power shift under a principle of rotation between North and South was the most contentious and quaggy for the parties. The APC and PDP made efforts at sacrificing zoning on the altar for electoral victory.
The People’s Democratic Party had zoning rooted in its constitution, but melodramatically jettisoned the principle after a rework of the political calculus. Political gladiators from north and south went for the jugular. A committee of wise men was commissioned to cure the craze.
When INEC’s deadline for party primaries rapidly drew closer and the big 2 were still in a marshy situation, the Ortom committee did all the tricks using the “BODMAS” formula for the PDP and got answers. Zoning was sacrificed and the contest was thrown open for a free for all.
The PDP’s insatiable appetite for power overcame altruistic reasoning. The party damn the consequences and smiled broadly to the northeast where they thought they could harvest more votes in a bid to recover power from the ruling All Progressives Congress Party, haven left the corridor of power for too long. In the end, Atiku Abubakar was ‘ *elected* ‘.
The ruling All Progressive Congress has no explicit provision for zoning in its constitution. However, the prolonged usage of power shift commands the conscious obeisance of the majority of Nigerians. So it is only logical that the party go south to fish for a flag bearer after the northern presidency of President Buhari in 2023.
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The greed for power sets in and some APC men from the north refused the proposition to allow only persons of southern origin to contest the presidential ticket. Some of the aspirants from the northeast and northcentral regions contended that the regions have not produced any executive president since the advent of the fourth republic. They insisted they must partake in the contest, and so they did. In the end, Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerged as the winner from the southwest.
It was not yet Uhuru as the mutual mudslinging about claims of which zone or region and religion faith produce the vice president was a serious challenge for the presidential candidates of the various parties.
Some called it power shift or the rotational presidency. No matter how they call it, zoning has been a major cause of feud in the Nigerian polity since independence in 1960. It carries with it a strong moral force that can threaten the existence of Nigeria as a sovereign entity.
Nigerians are so sentimentally attached to tribal, ethnic and religious selfhood, and seemingly have a strong disdain for national identity. This cleavage along ethnoreligious lines can only be addressed by a power-sharing arrangement which although unlegislated, has been in prolonged usage and widely accepted by the people and commands the conscious obeisance of the majority.
The concept of zoning by political parties is not expressly captured in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as Amended), however, it is in tandem with the Federal Character Principle as enshrined in its Third Schedule, as a way of promoting equity, justice and fair play and giving every constituent of the Nigerian society a sense of belonging.
The rotational presidency is a pragmatic means of stabilising the Nigerian democracy and has been an ideological norm formally adopted by many political parties prior to Nigeria’s independence. That is why you see citizens arguing so passionately for societal harmony through equitable devolution of power and allocation of resources.
Ordinary Nigerians who are basking in the euphoria of the power shift ideology are quick to invoke the spirit of equity, fairness and peaceful cohesion when zoning of political offices is brought to public discourse.
During the interregnum when trigger-happy soldiers seized power, the boys applied the political metrics to share power for sake of equity in spite of its peculiar command structure. Almost all military governments in Nigeria seriously took strong cognizance of the ethno-religion balancing to gain a semblance of legitimacy and acceptability.
Gen. Murtala Mohammed had Obasanjo as his second in command. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo himself had to skip 3 senior military officers to elevate Shehu Musa Yaradua as his deputy for equity. Gen. Ibrahim Babangida had Ebitu Ukiwe and Augustus Aikomu as deputies. Oladipo Diya was second in command to Gen. Sani Abacha, and Gen. Abdulsalam Abubarkar had Mike Akhigbe for ethnoreligious balancing.
Nigerians, therefore, expected the current political parties and presidential candidates to adopt the existing zoning principle, and nothing less. The complexity of the heterogeneous structure which demands ethnoreligious balancing makes the choice of running mate a difficult exercise.
PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, a Muslim north from Adamawa state found it relatively easy to make an acceptable choice in Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, a Southern Christian and Governor of Delta State. The story is different for Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling APC who is obviously in a quagmire. He first announced Ibrahim Masari as a placeholder in a bid to meet INEC’s deadline while he continued his consultations.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s problem basically is his faith. He is a Muslim from the South going into an electoral contest against a northern Muslim opponent. Some persons who are not partisan would not see a problem in this, but not so for the politicians. What they see is different from what we see outside the political circle.
Nigeria politicians will never compromise their chances of winning elections no matter whose ox is gored. For them, it is victory at all costs. When Chief Moshood Abiola was faced with a similarly dire situation in 1993, he took a difficult decision and chose a Muslim northerner as deputy to brighten his chances at the polls. He got away with it at the time not because it was right, but because Nigerians of all faith trusted each other.
As it was with Abiola in 1993, so it is today with Bola Ahmed Tinubu. History has again repeated itself. Tinubu, a Muslim from the southwest travelled to the northeast to pick Sen. Kashim Shettima, another Muslim from Bornu state as running mate going into the 2023 elections. Tinubu was not so lucky. His choice has been heavily criticized by the Christian community and several other stakeholders.
Sometimes the permutations that go into making political decisions do not necessarily put some of the affiliations we considered outside of politics. What politicians see is different from what we see. You may wonder why Tinubu and the APC would risk a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
In doing the metric, Tinubu’s camp may take cognizance of the insinuations that Northern Muslims do not consider the Yoruba Muslims the way our religious sentiment may permit. Thus, if left out of the cycle the Northern Muslims would feel like not having a share in the government and Atiku may have been their next option.
Asiwaju has consistently said his life ambition is to become Nigeria’s President. And having Atiku, a Muslim from the North vying for the same position constitutes a political threat big enough to scuttle his ambition. He cannot afford to compromise his chances for 2023. Therefore, a careful analysis could have shown that the only way to stop Atiku and the PDP from getting block votes in the North as a Northern Muslim is to pick a Muslim running mate.
The emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the PDP candidate from the northeast, which is presumed to produce the highest number of votes, was what influenced Tinubu’s choice of Kasim Shetimma as deputy. Why would PDP still give tickets to the North when they knew quite well that power is to shift to the south? If that was not done, Tinubu’s political permutation and strategy would have been different.
I don’t envy Tinubu. Not now. Not many Nigerians do. Perhaps if he eventually wins the election, but certainly not now. I heard the chairman of the APC say religion doesn’t matter in choosing a running mate. The assertion is a smack of conspiracy which is most ridiculous, irritating and dangerously offensive to the sensibility of all Nigeria Christians.
Although Tinubu has never been linked to tribal or religious bigotry, ~, however, ~ selfish emotional sentiments along with religion and tribal cleavages pervade the polity and have eaten deep into the fabric of our society. Nigerians are now consciously inclined toward selfhood as against national identity more than ever before.
The reason for the uproar against the Muslim-Muslim ticket was basically because of President Muhammadu Buhari’s antecedence in power. In his first *stint* as military ruler ~ and president~ in 1984, Buhari defiled the *ethnoreligious* balancing against all odds to pick a fellow northern Muslim, Major General Tunde Idiagbon, as his deputy when his colleagues before and after him refused to do.
Again his actions and inactions since he assumed office as executive president in 2015 on the platform of the APC incited the existing distrust in the country. Most of his appointments are nepotistically skewed to favour his religion, ethnicity and family members. The story is the same in the military, paramilitary, civil service and other public offices including the board of federal parastatals.
The fear of Muslim domination and the Islamisation of Nigeria has never been so real like it is now under Buhari’s watch. Some Nigerians think his refusal as Commander-in-Chief, either by omission or commission, to curtail the excesses of Boko haram terrorists, rampaging militant herdsmen and bandits, who are largely Muslims from the North, killing across all nooks and crannies of the country is deliberate. It is a possible confirmation that plans to Islamise Nigeria are indeed a reality.
So, Nigerian Christians have every reason to be sceptical of Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket, especially under Buhari’s supervision. In as much as Tinubu and the APC are accomplices to the Islamisation conspiracy agenda, the obstacle to his ambition to be President is not the electorates. Apparently, Buhari’s nepotistic baggages and religious bigotry are Tinubu’s predicament.
Ikese is a Political Analyst, writes from Jos
