By Okoi Obono-Obla
Senator Magnus Abe has spoken the minds of many of us from Southern Nigeria.
At the official unveiling ceremony of the Rainbow Coalition candidates for the 2027 General Election held in Port Harcourt on Monday, Abe, standing before a crowd dressed in pink and red and flanked by microphones of major television stations, called on former Rivers State Governor and former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, to resign as running mate to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
His reason was simple and historical: it is the turn of the South.
Abe reminded the nation of what happened in 2015. When President Goodluck Jonathan, from the South-South, sought to continue in office, Amaechi led Rivers people and indeed many Nigerians against him on the principle that power must return to the North in the interest of rotation. That principle led to the defeat of Jonathan and the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Abe’s question to Amaechi now is therefore pointed: If you argued in 2015 that it was the turn of the North, how can you in 2027 support a northern candidate, Atiku Abubakar, as running mate when it is now clearly the turn of the South? On behalf of the gathering, Abe declared that Rivers votes will go to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the southern candidate.
That argument resonates deeply with those of us who supported President Buhari against President Jonathan in 2015, not out of hatred for Jonathan, but out of respect for political agreements.
Let us recall the facts. President Olusegun Obasanjo from the South served eight years from 1999 to 2007. Power then moved to the North with the election of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Unfortunately, President Yar’Adua succumbed to illness and died in 2010, after serving for less than three years of his first term. His deputy, President Goodluck Jonathan, constitutionally succeeded him as provided under Section 146(1) of the 1999 Constitution.
Jonathan completed that term and won election in his own right in 2011. By 2015, however, the moral argument had become overwhelming. The North had not completed its eight years. The Peoples Democratic Party’s internal zoning arrangement, though unwritten, had been that power would rotate between North and South every eight years. Many Nigerians felt Jonathan should have respected that and allowed the North to complete its turn.
This brings us to the larger principle. Political agreements may not be constitutional, but they are nevertheless agreements that have to be obeyed. As my people say, every human being knows the type of firewood that cooks his meal.
Nigeria at this period of our history as a heterogeneous and plural country knows that only rotation of power between Southern and Northern Nigeria can guarantee inclusiveness and stability. It is our unwritten constitution. It is the formula that has kept this federation from tipping over since the return to democracy in 1999.
This principle is not limited to the Presidency. Even zoning is unofficially accepted as the panacea for managing diversity. In all our 36 states, power is rotated among the three senatorial districts. Rotation is also practiced in every state for National and State Assembly seats and for local government chairmen and councillors. No zone, no district, no community wants to be permanently excluded from power.
We may pretend that merit alone will solve our diversity challenge, but experience has shown otherwise. Without a sense of inclusion, without a sense that power is shared, stability becomes elusive.
That is why Senator Abe’s intervention is timely. If in 2015 it was wrong for the South to retain power when it was the turn of the North, then in 2027 it is equally wrong for the North to seek to return to power when it is the turn of the South. Consistency demands it. Fairness demands it.
The South must be allowed to complete its eight years, just as the North was allowed to complete its own under President Buhari from 2015 to 2023. That is the only way to preserve the fragile trust that holds Nigeria together.
