The Quest for North Central Presidency Gathers Steam

As many anxiously await the 2023 national elections, which might be a watershed for the Nigerian democracy, Emameh Gabriel weights the prospects for a president from the North Central region

While the South-east region has been very loud in its quest for the presidency of Nigeria in 2023, the North-central has lately come up with very strong argument. And the justification for a North-central presidency is gathering steam, especially with the recent open declaration of interest by the Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, and the push by forces in the region for a single voice to capture the Number One political seat in the country.

Politics of Zoning

Since the return to democracy in 1999, politics of zoning has become the norm, as different geo-political areas put up a stiff argument to justify demand for any public office that is open for contest.
Although, it is not in the Constitution, zoning has been tacitly adopted to address the peculiarities of a multi-ethnic society with diverse religious leaning. The concern over domination by one section of the country is not only harboured by the three major ethnic groups-Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo-who are perpetually at war with each other, but the hundreds of minority ethnic groups that fear being subjugated or permanently obliterated from holding top political offices. Every zone in the country stands up to be counted and makes a strong case for the suitability of their zones to produce the President, Vice President, the leadership of the National Assembly and even the National Chairman of the dominant political parties in the country in every election cycle.

Zoning of public offices has been compelled by the ethnic colouration of the country’s politics, the political alignments and re-alignments since 1999. The practice continues to gain traction in every election cycle, with certain regions predominantly and consistently holding sway over others when it comes to which region produces the occupants of the two most coveted offices in the land.

This imbalance has over the last few years triggered the sudden agitation by the political bigwigs in some parts of the country and most recently, the North-central, for the presidential ticket of the two major political parties in the country; the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which analysts say might alter the ‘gentleman’ arrangement on zoning between the North and the South

Analysts have consistently criticised the idea of zoning, giving reasons why it should be jettisoned. But others have argued that such political answers is the only way to give every region in the country a sense of belonging, especially at a time like this when the country’s politics has become riddled with agitations for self determination by many ethnic groups as a result grievances over marginalisation.

In June this year when members of the Kogi State House of Assembly visited Kwara State, Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, he called for better political representation of the zone at the federal level, and opined that it was alarming that the North-central region, with its huge human and material resources, has never produced the President or Vice-President since the nation’s independence.

Presidential Hopefuls from North-central

This came just few days after posters of erstwhile Kwara State governor and former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, flooded the streets of Abuja. Saraki. Since he left the Senate, Saraki has put himself up as a possible face of a North-central presidency. Respected across the country for his youthful and cosmopolitan mien, he has shown no sign of taking a break from politics and would most likely take another shot at the presidency in 2023. Saraki is optimistic that his drive for the PDP presidential ticket will yield positive result.

In the APC, the Kogi State House of Assembly have already resolved formally to compel Governor Yahaya Bello to seek the party’s presidential ticket. Bello who is rumoured to be the brain behind the change of political party loyalty by some PDP governors who embraced APC is said to building a strategic network of sympathizers within the party.

But the Kogi Governor will have to slug it out with the successful businessman, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, another strong contender from the region who is eminently qualified to fly the APC presidential flag. Olawepo-Hashim, a former gubernatorial candidate in Kwara State and the pioneer Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, tested the waters of presidential race in 2019 on the platform of the Peoples Trust. He was the official candidate adopted by the Middle-belt Elders Forum for the 2019 presidential race. He candidacy is said to attract a lot of fascination as a unifying personality because of his interesting heritage as the son of a Prince from Yauri in Kebbi State and a mother from Kwara State.

Prof. Jerry Gana, one of the founders of the PDP, from Niger State is a veteran of presidential races. Over time, he has built an intricate network of friends and associates across the country. He became a national figure as Director of MAMSER under the military presidency of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. He later became a Senator. He has also served the country as a Minister under Gen. Sani Abacha, the Interim National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan and President Olusegun Obasanjo. He is a scholar.

Gen. John Gbor from Benue State was the presidential flagbearer of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the 2019 national elections. He is a retired Nigerian Army officer from the Tiv ethnic group. Another presidential prospect from the North-central is Mr. John Dara from Kwara State. In the 2011 national elections, he contested the presidency on the platform of the National Transformation Party. A known ally of Gen. T . Y. Danjuma, he sought the presidential ticket of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for the 2019 general election.

Is the North-central Marginalised?

Speaking on the clamour for the presidency by the region, the Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Matthew Kolawole, said the zone has been relegated in power-sharing agreement in the country under the current dispensation.
The North-central region comprises six states (and the Federal Capital Territory is often added to make it the zone with the largest number of states). The zone includes Niger, Kogi, Kwara, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa and the FCT.

Last week, a group, under the aegis of North Central Renaissance Movement (NCRM), said the North-central zone was tired of producing political party chairmen, saying that it wanted the presidency zoned to it in the 2023 general election.

The group lamented that the North-central has been merginalised in the last 60 years of Nigeria’s independence, having not produced a democratic President since then, calling on the ruling All Program Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to secure their 2023 Presidential ticket for the zone, while insisting that nothing short of the presidency would be acceptable by people of the region.

This came few days after another group, North Central Network for Better Nigeria (NCNBN), asked all the registered political parties in the country to pick their presidential candidates for the 2023 presidential election from any of the states in the North-central geo political zone of the country in the spirit of equity fairness and unity of the country. The group claimed that its request was based on the fact that the North-central geo-political zone of the country has not produced the president of Nigeria since the country returned to civil rule in 1999.

At a press conference in Minna, Niger State, the Director General of the NCNBN, Mr. Abdullahi Jibrin Muregi, said:, “The demand is coming at a time that leaders of other zones are scheming to produce the president come 2023, but we appeal to their collective consciousness for equity, justice and fairness to drop their ambition and rally round the North-central zone in its justifiable bid to produce the successor to President Muhammadu Buhari come 2023

“We believe that our demand is not out of place having painstakingly worked for other zones in the past to produce the presidency or to emerge as the Vice President of Nigeria through the large block of votes we always deliver to the winning political party in all elections since 1999,” he said.

In 1999 for example, Olusegun Obasanjo from the South-west became President, with Atiku Abubakar who is from the North-east as his deputy, and they were succeeded by Musa Yar’adua and Goodluck Jonathan, who were from the North-west and South-south respectively. Jonathan later picked Namadi Sambo as Vice President when Yar’adua passed on and he became the President.

Sambo who hails from Kaduna State, is also from the North-west like the late President Yar’adua. The Jonathan and Sambo presidency was succeeded in 2015, by Muhammadu Buhari and Yemi Osinbanjo of the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC), who arre also from the North-west and South-west geo-political zones.

Going by the region from which Nigeria’s president have emerged since 1999, the South-east and the North-central have not been privileged to occupy either the Number One or Number Two public office in the land. It is on this premise that the South-east and North-central have hinged their claims for the presidency to be zoned to their region come 2023.

Agitation for a North-central presidency have even gone farther. Their case, in many instances, has taken greater precedence over that of the much and aggressively touted Igbo presidency because in the history of Nigeria’s democracy they have not had that privilege. According to this school of thought, even the Igbos have had the good fortune of producing a ceremonial president in the person of the Great Zik of Africa, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in the First Republic and an Executive Vice President, in the person of Dr. Alex Ekwueme during the Second Republic.

North-central Has the Numbers to Win

According to advocates for a North-central presidency, the North-central also referred to as Middle-belt is divinely placed to lead the country, judging by its connecting position between the Moslem dominated North and the Christian dominated South. Some extremist even attribute the victory of the federal troops in the Nigerian Civil War to the bravery of indigenes of the Middle-belt region on the side of the Nigerian Army. In the current political dispensation, the North-central is largely considered a swing region, with the propensity to go either with the South or North in presidential elections; depending on the interests and the mood of the nation.

The region has a large population estimated at over 45 million people with a predominant Christian population of 65 percent Muslim population of 25 percent and traditional religionists population of 10 percent, spread into over 230 language groups. But the Tiv and the Nupe are the most prominent. This is how the Middle-belt has voted since the advent of this enduring season of democracy. It came third place in 1999, 2007 and 2011; fourth in 2003 and 2015. Observers opine that before the formation of the APC, any presidential candidate who won the North-central zone wins the election because the South-west always voted its own regional party. The voting equation changed with the formation of the APC.

However, it is difficult to understand the direction of this change because even with the 2015 and 2019 presidential elections, the winner still won the zone. While in 2011, Goodluck Jonathan scored 3,376,570 (61.69%) as against Buhari’s 1,744,575 (31.87%), in 2015, Buhari scored 2,411,013 (56.24%) against Jonathan, 1,715,818 (40.03%) and in 2019, Buhari scored 2.4 million as against Abubakar Atiku’s 2.02 million in the North-central.

A Region of Historical Relevance

Despite the strident advocacy by parts of the country like the North-central that feels marginalised, the fact remains that the Middle-belt has had its fair share of representation and opportunity in national politics and governance, particularly during military rule. Some of Nigeria’s best known leaders during the various military administrations were from the North-central. They include Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, Gen. Domkat Bali, Gen. Mamman Vatsa, Gen. Joseph Garba, David Jemibewon, Tunde Ogbeha and Gen. Salihu Ibrahim among others.
Similarly under the democratic dispensations of the first, second and third republics, the Middle-belt has also produced heavyweight politicians, like Sunday Awoniyi, Solomon Lar, Ayorchia Ayu, Audu Ogbe, Barnabas Gemade, Silas Daniyan, Ahmed Attah, Peter Achimugu, George Ohikere, David Mark, Joseph Tarka, Patrick Dokotri, Ameh Ebutte, Prof. Jerry Ghana, Isaac Shaahu and Dr. Olusola Saraki; some of who were instrumental to the formation of the PDP in 1998 and went on to play illustrious roles in the nascent post – 1999 government of Olusegun Obasanjo. As Senate President, Ayu, Ebutte and Mark became Number Three in Nigeria’s ruling hierarchy at different times.

With Lar, Gemade, Ogbeh and Ali becoming chairmen of the then ruling party, and another Middle-belter, Ibrahim Mantu emerging as Deputy Senate President, between 2003 and 2007. Even under the subsequent government of Goodluck Jonathan, the North-central had its fair share of recognition in the scheme of things, grabbing the position of Senate President, in the person of David Mark, a position succeeded by Bukola Saraki; from Kwara, another state in the North-central.

Some observers have even contended that though the zone has not clinched the two most coveted public offices, it has indeed had a good run in politics. The seeming nosedive in its political fortune happened Buhari’s second term, in which the APC zoning arrangement gave the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, in Hon. Ahmed Wase, to the North-central.

Dearth of Consensus

The cry for the presidency to move to the North-central has been in the offing since the end of Obasanjo’s tenure in 2007. There have been ensuing consideration for re-zoning of major public offices. However, unlike other regions of the country, that are mostly ethnically monolithic, the North-central has an extraordinary array of tribes, from the Jarawa and Birom in Plateau, to the Nupes in Niger State, the Igalas, Igbiras and Okuns of Kogi state, the Madas, Kuru and Gbagyis in Nassarawa and the FCT, which has made arriving at common political positions or building consensus around regional interests difficult.

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Although, it is not in the Constitution, zoning has been tacitly adopted to address the peculiarities of a multi-ethnic society with diverse religious leaning. The concern over domination by one section of the country is not only harboured by the three major ethnic groups-Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo-who are perpetually at war with each other, but the hundreds of minority ethnic groups that fear being subjugated