How the zones will vote in March and why By Azuka Onwuka

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.