A few days ago, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo stoke controversy when he charged the Yoruba nation to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari for a possible return of the power baton to the South West geopolitical zone in 2023.
Osinbajo was quoted as saying that a vote for Buhari would guarantee the return of power to them next year.
His statement expectedly drew flaks. He received scathing criticism from the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and many other Nigerians.
Critics observed that the same promise had been made to the Igbo nation of the South East geopolitical zone, who has not “tasted” power since the return of the country to civil rule in 1999. It would be recalled that sometime this year, Ken Nnamani, a former Senate president, who decamped to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the PDP, had led other Igbo politicians in the APC family, including Jim Nwobodo, to see President Muhammadu Buhari in the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.
It was said that the essence of the meeting was primarily to extract a promise from the chief occupant of the villa, what the fate of the Igbo would be after their support in 2019. Buhari was said to have given his word that he would ensure that power moves to the South East in 2023.This promise has been re-echoed at various for a by many APC apparatchik in desperation for a block vote of the South East.
It was also on this basis that Atiku profusely promised to do only one term of four years to enable the Igbo nation have a bite on the apple in 2023. Atiku had reasoned that he needed to make it a campaign point by stating it clearly, to erase any doubt that he would play the monkey after he must have done four years.
It must be stated that power shift is alien to Nigeria’s constitution, but a gentlemanly agreement put in place by the PDP government that ruled the country from 1999 to 2015. The aim is to accommodate the interest of heterogeneous people of Nigeria, to avoid maginalisation of any part of the country. Under the power rotation arrangement since 1999, it is only the South East geo-political zone that has not had the opportunity of presiding over the affairs of the country as President. It is against this backdrop that the two major parties now court the Igbo nation.
It was equally against this backdrop that the statement credited to the Vice President annoyed many Nigerians.
Already, there are subtle battles within the APC over which of the ethnic blocs in the south would take the presidency in 2023. While the south-east is angling for it on the basis of equity, having not produced a president for the country since the return to democracy in 1999, the south-west, it was learnt, would leverage on its dominance and influence in the party, and would be seeking the support of the south-south to get the APC’s presidential ticket.
Chris Ngige, minister of labour and employment while addressing a meeting of the APC stakeholders in Enugu, August, this year, had said that Ndigbo needed to vote for President Buhari to brighten their chances in 2023.
“I am over 67 years and getting to 68. I cannot deceive myself at this age. President Buhari will win the 2019 election. There is no doubt about it. Our people (Ndigbo) should vote for Buhari so that we can produce the Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2023.”
But speaking thereafter in October during a town hall meeting on infrastructure in Ibadan, Oyo State, Fashola, charged his kinsmen to vote to return Buhari to power in 2019 in order for the presidency to return to the south-west in 2023.
The minister had addressed the people in a Yoruba language which was translated thus: “Your child cannot surrender her waist for an edifying bead and you will use the bead to decorate another child’s waist. A vote for Buhari in 2019 means a return of power to south-west in 2013.”
Meanwhile, the former Lagos State governor is intensifying campaign for Buhari ahead of the 2019 presidential election with the setting up of a campaign group to secure at least 4.5 million votes for Buhari.
A source told our correspondent that although the campaign group known as ‘PMB 2019,’ is canvassing support for Buhari’s re-election; it is also a grand political platform with an ambitious post-2019 plan.
Leading the group in Lagos is Oyinlomo Danmole, a former commissioner for home affairs. It is being set up in the 20 local government areas, 37 local council development areas, and 347 wards across of Lagos State.
Accusing Osinbajo of mischief, members of the PDP Presidential Council and the Director of the Campaign’s CUPP/Inter-party Directorate, Sen. Ben Obi, said the statement credited to the Vice President was insensitive.
Osinbajo had in Ibadan recently postulated that President Buhari will hand over the presidency to the south west after completing his two terms of eight years in office. Obi in a statement in Abuja, berated Osinbajo for asserting that the presidency will revert to the South West after Buhari in 2023, saying, “the PDP will win the 2019 presidential election in which case Osinbajo’s reckless and morally outrageous scenario will never come to pass.”
He said: “The mere thought of making that insensitive declaration after Obasanjo’s eight-year presidential tenure and Osinbajo’s four years as vice president, in the context in which power is yet to rotate to the South East, is the height of political intolerance and mischief-making”.
Also reacting, the Eastern Peoples Front (EPF) described the statements coming from the top echelon of the South West as “vexatious, provocative and an affront to the people of the South East whose turn it is to produce the president of Nigeria when power returns to the south.”
Ken Emechebe, national coordinator & leader, EPF said: “We are not unaware of what this insidious campaign is all about. It is a devious blackmail aimed at arm-twisting the Igbo into voting for Buhari. But the plot is dead on arrival.
“Osinbajo’s revelation that Buhari promised to hand over power to the Yoruba is instructive. The implication is that any Igbo vote for Buhari is a wasted vote.
“We want to make it clear to the day dreamers from the south west that the political destiny of the Igbo does not rest in the hands one man or any individual, be it Buhari or any other person. The Igbo know what is best for them and will make their choice without intimidation or blackmail from the Osinbajos and Fasholas of the South West.”
In its reaction, the PDP, through Kassim Afegbua, its Presidential Campaign Council spokesman, said the APC was engaging in “power-hawking” and that the promise by the Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to both the South East and South West that they would produce the President in 2023 had exposed the “insincerity and desperation of the ruling party in the run-up to the 2019 general election”.
It recalled that the Vice President had charged leaders of the South West to support Buhari’s re-election so that the Presidency could return to the zone in 2023. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, had also recently told the APC members in the South East that President Buhari would hand over the reins of power to the South East, if it supports his re-election bid.
And that some months ago, Raji Fashola and Chris Ngige, at separate town hall meetings, also assured Southwest and Southeast of the presidency diadem in 2023. But Afegbua said with the doublespeak by the Presidency and the ruling party, it was obvious that Nigerians cannot take President Buhari and his party seriously ahead of the February 16 election.
According to him, “In its desperation to hang on to power despite its abysmal failure so far, the APC and the Presidency have resorted to trading with the lure of 2023 presidency, promising both the South East and South West, respectively, the 2023 presidency in exchange for votes.
“Giving out two promises has exposed the insincerity and dubious intention of the Buhari-led Federal Government with the people of the South East and South West geo-political zones, with empty promises of bequeathing power to the two zones at the same time in 2023.
“Two principal officers of the same government cannot be fooling Nigerians with vainglorious promises all in the name of re-election. Such discordant tunes by the first and second citizens of our dear country have exposed lack of synergy, and display of double standard and doublespeak by chieftains of a government that has continued to display wanton desperation to hold on to power at all cost in the face of monumental failure.”
“How can the President be promising south-easterners the Presidency when his Vice President is also promising south-westerners same position in 2023, all in the name of 2019 re-election?” Afegbua queried.
He alleged that “This is a clear show of deceit, desperation, crass insincerity and hypocrisy of the highest order. This is a clarion call on south-easterners not to trust such carrot being dangled before them as it has become obvious that this government neither fulfills promises nor keeps any covenant.
“The president cannot, on the one hand, be playing God by decreeing which zone he intends to bequeath the reins of power, while his Vice President, on the other hand, is also promising his South West zone of same position.
“This is a typical feature of power-hawkers, in their desperation to hoodwink buyers to patronise their morbid products. The Nigerian public must wake up to this doublespeak and vote out this inconsistent government in 2019.”
