By Kingsley Omose

I have  read Professor Ango Abdullahi’s letter to Chief Edwin Clark which was published in the Vanguard of August 4, 2010 on the vexing zoning issue which continues to dominate public discourse, and coming from a former vice chancellor and the holder of a national honor, I must say that I am deeply trouble by the tone of the said letter.

Ango Abdullahi starts by recalling the efforts of the Northern Union and the South-South to prevent Olusegun Obasanjo’s supposed bid to extend his tenure beyond two terms, and the ensuing agreement for both the Northern Union and the South-South leaders to support the emergence of a Nigerian President of northern extraction supported by a Vice-President of Ijaw extraction.

While the emergence in May 2007 of Umaru Yar’Adua as President and Goodluck Jonathan as Vice President appeared to meet the minimum expectations of the Northern Union and the Ijaw nation, Ango Abdullahi believes that adhering to the power rotation agreement would certainly have guaranteed the South-South zone the support of the North in producing the next president in 2015.

With the death of Umaru Yar’Adua and the refusal of the South-South leaders under the leadership of Edwin Clark to wait for its turn in 2015 obviously because of the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan as Nigeria’s President, Ango Abdullahi believes that both Goodluck Jonathan and the South-South are being led on a hazardous trail that would inevitably lead into a blind political ally in 2011. He concludes by declaring that Goodluck Jonathan is destined to lose the fight against the legitimate right of the North, whatever that means, to produce Nigeria’s next president in May 2011 ensuring that the South-South zone would be shut out of the power equation in 2015 because of lack of support from the North, and for which Edwin Clark should take personal responsibility.

I noticed that Ango Abdullahi avoided making mention of the often touted but now worn out argument on the power rotation agreement of 1999 in which kingmakers from the North decided to concede political power to the South West to produce the president as compensation to the Yoruba’s for the unjust annulment of the election of Moshood Abiola, but his reasoning is still flawed. First, the letter is written with a heavy dose of arrogance and generous assumptions that are not supported by prevailing realities such as those that have shown that men may conspire to achieve what is in their selfish interests but ultimately their plans will come to nothing such as in the case at hand where neither the Northern Union nor the South-South leaders factored in the role of death in 2007.

Second the letter undermines clear provisions of the Constitution that excludes sectional and religious considerations to determine eligibility for elective positions, and impliedly questions the need even for the conduct of elections every four years since the supposed application of the power rotation agreement would always produce already determined results.

Three, the letter also impliedly calls into question the possibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission being able to conduct free and fair elections, again since the supposed application of the power sharing arrangement would always produce results that have no bearing with the actual choice of Nigerians or the state of affairs in the nation.

Four, the letter also assumes a general naivety and docility on the part of Nigerians to vote in accordance with sectional and regional nomenclature and at the behest of sectional and religious leaders who like sheep can be driven in the desired direction, without the people being cable of determining what is in their best interest as a nation. Five, the letter makes clear that the power rotation arrangement ordinarily allows for a turn by turn approach to elective positions with the primary beneficiaries being the political leaders from the region or zone holding power at the material time, and with the South-South zone embarking on a kamikaze or suicidal trail its peoples should hold Edwin Clark responsible for their expected wilderness experience.

Would any reasonably minded person want to live in an environment where the likes of Ango Abdullahi talk arrogantly using words such as “a power game, hazardous trail, political ally, destined to lose, your South-South, inevitable loss, great expense of the South-South zone, legitimate right to rule, enjoy our support”, to others unless they are talking to their enemies who belong to a different nation? In conclusion, Ango Abdullahi’s letter and similar reasoning advanced by many others, have pushed me to reluctantly agree with those who say that the January 2011 general election would mark a watershed for the future of this nation, i.e. whether we will advance as a nation and as a people or will remain divided and await our own full blown crises like Kenya and Rawanda.