2023 and the Ndigbo Question By Simon-Kolawole – TheNigerialawyer

After the leadership elections of the ninth national assembly in
June, one fact stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb — not a
single Igbo man or woman would be counted among the top seven
citizens of Nigeria: president, vice-president, senate president,
speaker, chief justice of Nigeria, deputy senate president and
deputy speaker. Senator Ike Ekweremadu failed in his last-minute
bid to return as deputy senate president. That could have changed
the situation. In a federation where Igbo are one of the three
biggest ethnic groups, this is bad news for enthusiasts of national
integration like me — and possibly a trigger for more rancour in an
already fractured federation.

Obviously, if I were the one offering advice to the decision
makers at the All Progressives Congress (APC), I would have
suggested that since the core north had already produced the
president and the south-west the vice-president, the positions of
senate president and speaker should go to the two other zones in
the south. The north-east and north-central should take the deputy
positions, I would have proposed. This, I think, would provide for
a more balanced political outlook in the interest of national
cohesion. If national assembly rules had to be changed to
accommodate this arrangement, so be it. We need the right political
atmosphere for peace and progress, I would continue to say.

Of course, I am not a politician so it is easier for me to sit
down in my living room and start sharing political offices from my
laptop. Those who understand politics better than I do — having
played it at the highest level — would say it is about risk and
reward. I agree that things are more nuanced. I have listened
carefully to both sides of the argument. From the Igbo side, the
argument is that they are not wanted in Nigeria; they are still
paying the price of the civil war; there is a conspiracy against
them; they are being systematically pushed out of the federation
through an unofficial policy of marginalisation. These arguments
are widespread among the Igbo.

In a sense, therefore, it is easier to understand their choices:
they would naturally bond with any political gathering that holds
the promise of a better accommodation to give them a pride of place
in the scheme of things. That would be a rational choice, in any
case. Therefore, in February 2019, the Igbo naturally opted to vote
for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). As things turned out, the
party failed in its bid to wrest power from the APC at the polls.
Had the PDP won, the No. 2 citizen would have been Mr Peter Obi, an
Igbo, and you could also be sure many key positions in a government
presided over by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would have gone to the
south-east.

However, on the other side of the fence, I have heard that the
Igbo would get their “constitutional dues” under Buhari but would
not enjoy the luxury of picking what they should get. Buhari
himself has consistently said he gave four senior ministerial
positions to the south-east in 2015 despite the fact that they did
not vote for him. The word in his camp is that no matter what he
does, he can never please the Igbo. He finds it difficult to
understand why the Igbo have never supported him since 2003 when he
first ran for office. In five election cycles, the south-east has
made it very clear, through the ballot, that Buhari is not their
kind of man.

It is also being argued in Buhari’s corner that he has been fair
to the south-east in terms of projects — the biggest being the
ongoing construction of the second Nigeria bridge which had only
existed on the lips of previous presidents. Buhari made a bullet
payment of N50 billion for the contract. That is probably the
largest mobilisation payment for a construction job in the history
of Nigeria, and work is going on steadily. This, it is argued in
his camp, is proof that Buhari does not have anything against the
Igbo. Regardless, the argument continues to go back and forth. I am
not expecting the protagonists and antagonists to reach a consensus
and shake hands today. Or tomorrow.

In all the arguments, though, we need to get something very
clear: if we truly desire to make Nigeria great, it would be
illogical and destructive to push Ndigbo to the margins. In the
first place, we will never be able to construct the kind of
political consensus we desperately need for nation-building and
national development. We definitely need all hands on deck to move
the Nigerian project to the next level. Secondly, the Igbo have
demonstrated their abilities and capabilities in virtually every
field of human endeavour, locally and globally, so it would be a
disadvantage to Nigeria — not just the south-east — if we lock them
out of the room. Politics must never triumph over reason.

That said, and leaving Buhari and APC out of the picture, we
need to interrogate some issues that have continued to shape the
debate about the place of Ndigbo in the Nigerian arrangement. One,
are the Igbo and Hausa/Fulani permanent enemies — as the frosty
relations between the two groups appear to suggest? Two, is there
indeed a grand design to marginalise the Igbo? Three, if there is
no such conspiracy, what are the chances that an Igbo would ever be
elected president of Nigeria? These are not issues I can discuss in
a 1,200-word article such as this and I honestly cannot claim to
have unimpeachable answers to these questions, but I promise to put
in a decent shift.

To start with, the impression you get today is that Igbo and
Hausa/Fulani are enemies made from the foundation of the world. It
is absolutely false. In the first republic, the two blocs aligned
to form government. The west was in opposition. In 1979, less than
10 years after the civil war, Dr Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo, was elected
vice-president to a Fulani, Alhaji Shehu Shagari. Dr Nnamdi
Azikiwe’s NPP, which controlled the east, officially aligned with
Shagari’s NPN at the national level. Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke (NPP)
was speaker of the house of reps. Those were No. 2 and No. 4
positions for the Igbo. That does not suggest eternal enmity in my
books, despite all the bile and bitterness of the coup and
countercoup of 1966. We need not be completely moved by the
emotions of the moment.

In the annulled third republic, the NRC was portrayed as the
party for northern conservatives. Three of four south-eastern
states were controlled by NRC while SDP, cast as progressive and
south-leaning, controlled all the five states in the west. It was
an established pattern of alignment. In 1999, the Igbo were more
comfortable with the PDP, which was portrayed in the AD-controlled
south-west as the party of the “northern oligarchy”. The Yoruba
used to tease the Igbo as playing “second fiddle” to the north. It
is amazing how things change in Nigerian politics. It now looks
like the Igbo and the north have never seen eye to eye, but that
would not be the true position of history.

But there remains a million-dollar question: if there is truly
no conspiracy against the Igbo, why then have they never produced
the president? If we are to set aside the conspiracy theory, can
there be a plausible explanation? The Nigerian power matrix is
constructed in such a way that one southern bloc will always be
paired with the north. As we saw in 1979 and 1983, it was
north/south-east. In 1993, it was south-west/north, although it was
annulled. In 1999 and 2003, it was south-west/north. Ordinarily, it
should have been north/south-east in 2007 but the south-south had
emerged as a third southern bloc — following the militant campaign
for resource control. That was a major disruption.

The rise of APC in 2015 on the strength of a north/south-west
alliance has further altered the balance, worsened by the party’s
poor showing in the south-east. We are now confronted with a
situation: the south-west wants to take a shot at No. 1 in 2023.
That would leave the south-east completely out of the north/south
power equation — yet again. Avoiding technical arguments, ignoring
conspiracy theories and adopting the sense of political expediency,
therefore, many would say that the rest of Nigeria should only
think of a president from the south-east in 2023. I would give it
to the south-east if I had the power — in line with my belief in
federal character.

Though, I find it quite irritating that we are already
discussing 2023 in 2019, but that is the way we are. We were
created for elections and political intrigues. Nothing excites us
as much as politicking. And with what I can see and smell so far,
2023 will be fiercely contested between the power blocs. The north
will certainly have a go again (there is nothing like power
rotation in APC). The south-west will also have a go. The
south-east will definitely make a strong case that it be given a
chance in the interest of “equity”. I am unable to predict how
things would go, but something tells me whoever forges the fight
alliance will get it. It is all about playing the politics that
will deliver the goods.

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