How the zones will vote in March and why

The charged atmosphere in Nigeria before the
rescheduling of the 2015 presidential election was
not for the love of the country as many people
would make us believe. It was a desperate desire
to get power by the opposition All Progressives
Congress and to retain power by the ruling
Peoples Democratic Party.
The far North (North-East, North-West and some
states in the North-Central zones) wants to get
back the power that it lost in 2010, following the
death of President Umaru Yar’Adua. Since
Independence, the North had been used to being
in power. It had not been accustomed to being in
the opposition or out of power – for too long.
The constitutional provision that the vice-
president should become the president in the
event of the death of the president was something
the North could not do anything about, but the
decision of President Goodluck Jonathan to
contest the 2011 election was seen as a grave
injustice and a betrayal of trust by most
Northerners. It elicited much bitterness and anger.
It was not surprising that Jonathan got pelted with
stones and his campaign posters destroyed in
some parts of the North during the 2011
campaign (as well as in 2015).
In this 2015 election, it has become worse, for a
win by Jonathan will mean extra four years to the
five years he has already secured legally. That
will mean keeping the North out of power for a
total of 17 years out of 20 years (1999-2019).
That is too long a period! Nobody can tell an
average Northerner that this is not an act of
cheating.
Therefore, party or candidate means little to the
North in this 2015 election. If Maj. Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) were to be the
candidate of the PDP and Jonathan were to be the
candidate of the APC, it would have not changed
the voting pattern there. In fact, if Governor
Rochas Okorocha or Governor Babatunde Fashola
had been chosen by the APC as its presidential
candidate – whatever leadership skills they could
flaunt – the North would have broken ranks with
the APC in protest. The bottom line is that the
North wants power to return to it. And nobody
can blame it for that. So, Buhari is the natural
choice.
In the South-West, the story is different but the
end result is the same with the far North. Since
1999, the mainstream South-West had been in the
opposition. In fact, since 1960, the South-West
had been in the opposition. The only time one of
its own, Chief MKO Abiola, won a presidential
election in 1993, he was unjustly denied the
opportunity to rule, bundled into prison where he
died mysteriously after his wife had also been
killed. Even though Abiola did not have the
passionate support of the mainstream South-West
during the 1993 presidential campaign because
he had previously not been in the same political
camp with the leader of the Yoruba, Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, when his mandate was truncated, the
mainstream South-West people rallied round him.
The eight years of President Olusegun Obasanjo is
not seen by most South-westerners as the turn of
the South-West because he was the choice of the
Northern retired army generals in 1999. This 2015
election offers the South-West the best
opportunity to be in government on its terms: as
the ruling party. And the APC offers that chance.
So, there is a meeting point between the interest
of the far North and the mainstream South-West,
with a Northerner as the presidential candidate
and a South-Westerner as his running mate.
On the other side stands the South-South, whose
son, Jonathan, is the incumbent President.
Providence gave the South-South the Presidency
in 2010 when it least expected that it could rule
the nation. Given that it is the land of petroleum
that is the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, it felt
that having got the Presidency by luck, it should
be allowed to take its turn, since it had never
ruled the nation, and the North had ruled for 38
years out of the 50 years of Nigeria by 2010.
When the South-South got that chance, it went a
step forward to ask that it be allowed to complete
its own two terms like the South-West did in
2007. It does not even know whether it will have
the opportunity to rule again in the next 50 years,
given its size and the passionate interest others
zones have in the Presidency. In its eyes, any
attempt to deny it that opportunity is a case of
injustice that had persisted since Independence.
The South-East feels a kind of “solidarity” for its
South-South neighbours. It feels that it has been
marginalised like the South-South on political
matters, with its shot at the Presidency being a
short-lived six-month military regime, whose
head of state was assassinated in office in a coup
that led to a pogrom and culminated in a civil war
with death of some two million Igbo.
The South-East also feels a kind of sympathy for
the South-South underdog as it squares up
against a big North backed by an equally big
South-West. In addition, the South-East shares
the Christian religion with the South-South. It
feels that it has had a better deal under the
Presidency of a South-Southerner and feels safer,
having been victims of ethno-religious riots for
decades.
The North-Central is not homogenous in terms of
ethnicity and religion. Some share the same
minorities’ sympathies and Christian sympathies
with the South-South and therefore tend towards
Jonathan, while those who feel more affinity with
the North and Islam tend towards Buhari.
But happily, there are those who will swim against
the zonal tide or refuse to be swayed by
extraneous influences of ethnicity, religion or
party. These are the people who will be swayed
by the foundation Jonathan is believed to have
has laid in the different sectors and therefore want
to give him another opportunity to do more,
especially in growing the economy to the point of
being named the third fastest growing in the world
in 2015 behind China and Qatar. On the other side
are those who will vote for Buhari because they
are dissatisfied with Jonathan’s performance, or
those who simply want a change of leadership
after 16 years of the PDP.
Then, there are those who will either abstain from
voting or cast protest votes for any of the other
not-too-popular presidential candidates. These
are people who believe that neither Jonathan nor
Buhari measures up to their expectations of what
a President should be.
As much as we pretend to the contrary, ethnicity
and religion are strong factors that determine who
rules Nigeria. Since Independence, this has led to
less-endowed politicians being preferred to rule
the nation as against their more endowed
counterparts. The underlying forces that are
pushing for Buhari and Jonathan are still not far
from the forces of religion and ethnic origin. The
only difference now is that there is an addition of
the “it’s-our-turn” claim, which has led to threats
from the North and South-South as well as pre-
election violence.
There are no signs yet that the impact of these
twin factors is about to wane in the nearest future.
But as long as it continues, the quality of our
presidential candidates will remain middling;
desperation will continue to mount over which
ethnic group will produce the president; violence
will continue; the progress of the nation will
continue to be affected. And that is why it is
critical that the country is restructured to stop the
resource-sharing mentality, reduce the cries of
marginalisation and lessen the desperation to win
the Presidency.