Who Cares About The Kaduna Pact?

Senator George Akume, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), was clearly flying a kite when he invoked an alleged North-South power-rotation pact to argue that no northerner ought to contest the 2027 presidential election.

Speaking to supporters of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on the occasion’s zonal rally in Lafia final week, Akume mentioned the North and South agreed in 1999 to rotate the presidency between them.

“I want us to consider one thing – that we agreed in Kaduna in 1999 to ensure that power rotates between the North and the South – eight years in the South and eight in the North. In 2031, northerners can field over 1,000 candidates. So, anyone from the North running for President today is not sincere. Let’s reject him 100 per cent, and I urge you not to accept him,” Akume mentioned.

By weaponising this unwritten zoning settlement, Akume is gauging the political waters.

In 1999, after a distinguished civil service profession that noticed him rise to the head as Permanent Secretary, Akume assumed workplace as governor of Benue State.

Applying the logic of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai, who famously declared sitting governors the true “Dattawan Arewa” (elders of the North) in a determined bid to justify his 2023 help for Tinubu, Akume undeniably certified as a regional chief. As a sitting governor at that pivotal time, his standing would have assured him a front-row seat at any high-level assembly of northern stakeholders, together with the gathering he now references.

What’s within the pact?

I feel the SGF ought to present additional particulars on the shape and construction of this pact. Assuming, with out conceding, that such an settlement existed, on whose mandate did the authors act? Should a nation with a structure and a functioning National Assembly be reminded of a pact made by self-proclaimed leaders? Why was this settlement not integrated into the 1999 Constitution by modification?

In defence of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid, Akume declared that any Northern challenger lacks political sincerity. He argued {that a} foundational pact requires the presidency to rotate between the North and the South, making any try and bypass this settlement an act of unhealthy religion.

If the association had been strictly based mostly on eight-year phrases, the South would have held the presidency from 1999 to 2007, the North from 2007 to 2015, and the South once more from 2015 to 2023. The North would then have had its flip from 2023 to 2031. But that isn’t how the association has performed out. Across these election cycles, candidates from each the North and the South have contested the presidency.

From the daybreak of the present republic to this point, Nigeria has held presidential elections in 1998, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2023. Was the North-South power-sharing association a decisive consider figuring out who may contest these elections? We all know the reply!

I recall that the 2003 election was fiercely contested between President Olusegun Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), with greater than 15 different candidates additionally within the race.

If Akume’s competition implies that presidential contests must be restricted to candidates from the area whose flip it’s to provide the president, the 2003 election ought to have been contested solely by southerners, given Obasanjo’s southern origin. However, that was clearly not the case.

We had twenty candidates within the 2003 election, together with Obasanjo, Muhammadu Buhari, Odumegwu Ojukwu, Gani Fawehinmi, Jim Nwobodo, Sarah Jibril, Balarabe Musa, Chris Okotie, Ike Nwachukwu, Arthur Nwanko, Emmanuel Okereke, Muhammad Dikko Yusuf, Kalu Idika Kalu, Yahaya Ndu, Tunji Braithwaite and Pere Ajuwa.

That was solely 4 years after the 1999 pact Akume alluded to. Yet a number of northern candidates ran to succeed Obasanjo, a southerner. Why didn’t Akume and different supposed witnesses to the settlement demand that they shelve their ambitions till the next election cycle?

A Pact no one noticed

During the 2007 presidential election, which, underneath the alleged Kaduna Pact, was speculated to usher in eight years of northern management, 25 candidates contested the presidency. Were all of them from the North? No.

We had President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Attahiru Bafarawa, Patrick Utomi, Chris Okotie, Pere Ajuwa, Odumegwu Ojukwu, Muhammadu Buhari, Atiku Abubakar, Orji Uzor Kalu, Habu Fari, Arthur Nwanko, Sunny Okogwu, Olapade Agoro, Ambrose Owuru, Maxi Okwu, Asakarawon Olapere and Mojisola Obasanjo, amongst others.

Under the identical association, the 2011 election fell throughout the North’s supposed eight-year flip. Yet, there have been 17 candidates, together with Dele Momodu, Nuhu Ribadu, Ibrahim Shekarau, Peter Nwangwu, Iheanyichukwu Nnaji, Chris Okotie, Ambrose Awuru, Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari, Chris Nwaokobia, John Dara, and Nwadike Chikezie, amongst others.

The same state of affairs unfolded in the course of the 2015 normal election, when fourteen candidates from each the North and the South competed, together with Muhammadu Buhari and Ambassador Mani Ahmed from the North, though it ought to have been the South’s flip underneath the alleged zoning association. Ultimately, Buhari gained, defeating the incumbent President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, a southerner.

From the primary election that ushered within the Fourth Republic to this point, presidential contests have by no means been restricted solely to candidates from both the North or the South. Strangely, all through these election cycles, Senator Akume has by no means raised the alleged pact as a problem. He instantly felt the necessity to remind Nigerians of it whereas addressing APC members at a rally in Lafia. If hypocrisy had a reputation, this may be it.

Senator Akume was additionally silent, or appeared to have forgotten, that Obasanjo served eight years in workplace, after which the North didn’t take pleasure in eight years of uninterrupted presidential tenure. Goodluck Jonathan, additionally from the South, served from 2010 to 2015, following Obasanjo’s eight years. Why ought to the argument about rotation instantly develop into so pressing and be used to discourage northern aspirants from difficult Tinubu?

Those in energy can’t instantly rebrand a uncertain settlement as an unquestionable legislation. If an association lacks clear phrases, legit authority, and constant enforcement, it isn’t a rule; it’s a instrument of comfort. Even the very thought of such a pact raises questions on equity.

An settlement to rotate the presidency between the North and the South is totally meaningless if the place repeatedly eludes the South East and the North Central. By attempting to revive this flawed argument on the Lafia rally, the SGF uncovered a obtrusive contradiction: the association raises much more questions than it solutions.

Endorsing Failure?

Shortly after the rally, it was introduced that the North Central area had unanimously endorsed President Tinubu. An administration that has failed the basic take a look at of governance, specifically securing lives and property, doesn’t benefit endorsement. To endorse it’s to reward mediocrity and to sanction ongoing abductions for ransom, relentless banditry, excruciating financial hardship, and the day by day struggling of the Nigerian folks.

I don’t even need to speak concerning the Borno kids who’re nonetheless being held captive. I don’t need to speak concerning the viral video displaying kidnappers pointing a gun at a mom, father and child kidnapped at Millennium City in Kaduna, with a reported ransom demand of N300 million. I don’t need to speak concerning the killing of greater than twenty merchants, together with some troopers, in Zamfara by terrorists who attacked their car whereas they had been travelling with army safety. It is horrifying.

Millions of Nigerians are trapped in a brutal cycle of starvation, unemployment, insecurity, and deep financial hardship. In the face of this widespread nationwide struggling, the precedence must be to vote for a candidate, whatever the area he comes from, who would handle the nation’s challenges. Dusting off a 1999 casual pact to insist that no northerner ought to contest the 2027 presidential election is definitely not the best way to go.

It’s unhappy that whereas residents clamour for fast aid and governance, the political class stays obsessively targeted on zoning energy. The SGF must be extra involved with the administration’s document than with invoking a questionable power-sharing pact to exclude potential challengers. Who actually cares concerning the Kaduna Pact?

Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway

Many Nigerians had been alarmed when the federal authorities introduced it was rerouting the Lagos-Calabar coastal freeway. With hundreds of thousands trapped in multidimensional poverty and going through crippling financial hardship, the federal government’s resolution to sink N15 trillion right into a street undertaking solely to reroute it, regardless of an enormous international debt, raises severe issues. The authorities have to be reminded that this rerouting suggests it did not train due diligence earlier than speeding to award the contract. Was there an environmental impression evaluation and an accredited engineering design? Perhaps we must always ask once more: what’s the price per kilometre?