I must first of all admit that I went over the bar in calling an elected state governor a demagogue. We were trained to be restrained, whatever the provocation, in our public utterances, especially when handling public officers. Johnathan Ishaku, Emeka Omeahei and Goddy Ike were with me in the last class that the late Professor B. J. Dudley graduated at the University of Ibadan in the late 70s; they have also spent all their post graduate lives in the media like me and will bear me witness. But I have considered his public utterances after he was sworn in as Governor and for want of better word, I call him a demagogue.
“In about two or three meetings, we have come out and declared that power must move to the South. Only a party that is determined to lose will field a northern candidate”
I consider this latest statement coming from the Governor of Ondo State Chief Akeredolu not only outrageous but provocative. It was made while welcoming to his office the Leader of Middle Belt Forum Dr. Pogu Bitrus who is also the leader of Presidential rotation movement.
There has always been a debate in Nigeria which part of the country, broadly speaking, north or south should provide a national leader. As the country moved towards democracy in 1999, this debate resurfaced. Given the harvest of our experience in national political leadership then – three successive military leaders all Muslims from the north – the rise in corruption, June 12 and so many other anomalies’ which appeared to be defying any solution, there was a general consensus among northern elites that let us allow southerners produce the next President. A prominent northern elite who was at an all-night meeting where the decision was finally taken to allow the southerners have it, says it was heated and emotional. When Alhaji Abubakar Rimi of Kano state remained intransigent, arguing that zoning was undemocratic and insisted on contesting the presidency, Mr. Sunday Awoniyi a northern leader of note, broke down and wept most bitterly.
It was finally resolved amicably and by the northern political elite: All the major political parties that year who had any chance of winning the presidency sponsored only southern candidates for the presidency. There were no threats and arms twitting by anybody. The PDP produced Olusegun Obasanjo who won in 1999 and won again 2003 and only failed when he fiddled with third term. In 2007, the PDP felt it was the turn of the north and produced Umaru Yaradua who went ahead to win the presidency. On his death, some politicians of the north felt the north had not completed its eight year term like the south and there was a minor political scuffle after Goodluck Jonathan who was from the south and Yar adua’s vice was allowed to take over. The PDP appears to be happy with this ‘turn by turn’ presidency. They even encoded zoning and rotation it in their constitution.
Not so their main open the All Progressive Congress APC, their main opponent. There is no provision for zoning in the APC constitution. This is the same with the 1999 constitution which while emphasizing federal character in the distribution of offices in the country does not provide for zoning or rotation of the presidency.
This appears to be the fix in which Governor Akeredolu finds himself. His party, the APC has no provision for presidency by rotation. Even the Constitution of Nigeria does not provide for it. On the other hand, the 1999 has made elaborate provisions for what qualifies a man to be elected a President of Nigeria. These include the number of votes scored and their spread in the 36 states and the Federal capital Territory that constitutes the federal Republic. It is rather odd that a state governor who is a very senior and respected legal luminary has discounted all other conditions and is saying that the only condition of somebody can become a president in 2023 is his being a southerner. What if such a candidate fails to meet all other conditions as stipulated in the Constitution? Will Rotimi Akeredolu and his bellicose Southern Governors Group in defiance and contempt of the 1999 Constitution impose such a failed candidate as our next President?
I am not a lawyer and my knowledge of the law may be limited. I have however lived in Yorubaland and among the Yorubas for five years, long enough for me to have taken a degree in law (I had the entry qualifications anyway) and be called to the bar. My last year in Yorubaland was between 1979 – 1980 when as a member of the NYSC I had the privilege to serve to in the Governor’s office in Akure where Akeredolu presides today as Governor. I went there when General Sunny Tuoyo was the Administrator of the State. He was soon moved out on military posting and the venerable Adekunle Ajasin elected to be the first elected Governor of the State. The man liked me so much he used to say at each encounter in the governor’s office that I reminded him of Joseph Tarka who was in his early 20’s like me when the Action Group took him and mentored him politically. In Owo his home town on weekend, he often took me on a guided tour of the house, his country house, where the decision was taken for the Egbe Omo Oduduwa to be transformed from a cultural group into the Action Group, a political party. Let to him I should have been recruited into the Ondo state civil service after my service year. Something in me told me not to accept.
A few year after I left, the something in me exploded in the form of political disagreements between Ajasin and his deputy, Ekiti man, Akin Omoworiowo. It was a bitter and bloody struggle. Where was I going to hide if I found myself in such situation? When the history of political violence in Nigeria is written Ondo and Oyo state will occupy a place of pride. Operation ‘wetie’ started from there in the 60’s and the post-election violence of the 80’s also started from there too. All were responsible for the two times the military have violently overthrown our democratic systems.
Last year when Rotimi Akeredolu issued an order rusticating Fulani herdsmen from his state I was alarmed. Our construction provides that those who offend the law should be tried and punished according to the law. There is no provision of mass expulsion of Nigerians from a Nigerian state to make room for ethnic purity. This is what Akeredolu was doing. As the spokesperson Arewa Consultative Forum I disagreed with him. Now he has moved into more explosive grounds of how to elect a president.
What I know about an average Ondo man is that he is hardworking, talented, peaceloving. He is can be your commend any day. Unfortunately you won’t know when he has changed from comrade to renegade and even demagogue.
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