2015: FOR THE FIRST TIME YORUBA ARE ROOTING FOR NORTHERN PRESIDENCY

I don’t know how many people missed the report in the Northern leaning Peoples Daily Newspaper on Tuesday, June 18, that the yet to be registered All Progressives Congress (APC) has finally zoned its presidential slot to the North. The paper went further to state that already former head of state and the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) in the 2011 election, General Muhammadu Buhari, the governor of Kano State, Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso, the governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Tambuwal, among others have been shortlisted by stakeholders to pick the slot allocated to the zone. The national publicity secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN),  Alhaji Lai Mohammed, when contacted in the course of putting the report together by the paper denied the report, yet the paper went ahead with their story which apparently was gotten from a reliable source. In any case one never expected Lai Mohammed to be very categorical that the APC has zoned the presidency to the North, at least at this stage when the new party’s registration is yet to be concluded. But one thing is certain, the zoning of the APC’s presidency to the North is the worst kept secret among the followers of the APC strategic emergency in the polity to challenge the dominance of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

However, what is much more intriguing in the unfolding events in APC which is dominated by the Yoruba of the South West Nigeria, at least given that its main political party the ACN brought on the merger table with the other political parties that formed APC, six governors, many senators and house of representatives members, while the Northern dominated CPC brought only one governor and a couple of house of representatives members and perhaps one or two senators. The ANPP, another Northern dominated party that formed the APC has only two governors and a few senators and house of representatives members. Despite its dominance of APC, the ACN it seems has decided that it would be in its interest and the interest of the country to zone its presidency to the North.

This development shows that the mutual dislike of the Jonathan’s administration by the CPC and the ACN has succeeded for the first time in the history of political development in the country in uniting the  North and the Yoruba in a way never done before. This is not however ignoring the importance of the 1993 presidential election in which the north and the rest of the country voted for Chief M.K.O. Abiola, a Yoruba man, as president. But this development if it succeeds will be the first time the Yoruba “mainstream” or establishment would be willingly ceding power to the North. Anyone conversant with the pre and post independence power game in the country would note that the Yoruba and the North are never in the same page. The Yoruba are always very wary of the dominance of the North since independence even though it was the North that out of its “magnanimity” allowed a Yoruba, General Olusegun Obasanjo, to be president between 1999 and 2007, ostensibly to assuage the Yoruba anger that one of their own, Abiola was denied the coveted seat in 1993.

It is also common knowledge that the greatest political leader the Yoruba has ever produced in modern times, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was denied the country’s presidency because that was the way the North wanted it. Awo, as he is fondly called tried to break the North’s hegemony by putting a knife in the things that united the North, using Northern minority leaders like Joseph Tarka and others. He did not succeed.

Today a new leadership has emerged in the Yoruba heartland lead by the former governor of Lagos State and the national leader of the ACN, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, who apparently is not encumbered by the politics of the past and is determined to work with the North to produce a president for Nigeria. Has Tinubu the pan-Yoruba mandate to support the APC’s zoning of its presidency to the North? Has Tinubu built enough confidence in his leadership of the Yoruba, that this highly cerebral people are ready to follow him in 2015 presidential election? There are many, especially those who want power to return to the North, praying for Tinubu to succeed in his realignment of Yoruba’s place in Nigerian politics: from perpetual opposition leaders to kingmakers. To supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan, this is a nightmarish situation they wish never to happen. Bring on 2015, a lot is set to happen! God save Nigeria!