Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on National
AssemblyMatters, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga weekend spoke with selected
journalists on various national issues. Excerpts:
Somepeople like Orji Uzor Kalu claim President Goodluck Jonathan will
truncate the chances of the Igbo presidency if he contests in 2015. Do
you agree?
They are entitled to their opinions so far they fall within the ambit
of the law. Orji Kalu and people who share his views can also test
their popularity.
Orji Kalu can speak for himself or any platform of his, but not on
behalf of Igbo people neither can I speak for the rest of the Igbo
people. The Igbo are wise enough to cast their votes where they feel
they are best protected.
I sincerely believe that if Jonathan declares an interest to contest
for the presidency in 2015, a majority of the Igbo will vote for him
based on his scorecard in office and for the sake of continuity. It is
also in the strategic interest of Nigeria that Jonathan seeks second
term.
How strategic is it?
A convention of rotational presidency is emerging. From 1999, for
instance, it started with the South-West, where Olusegun Obasanjo did
two tenures. It rotated to the North-West. Unfortunately Musa Yar'Adua
died in office. The power automatically by law devolved to Jonathan.
Rotational presidency
He completed the tenure and ran on his own and won. The important
thing that has happened is that the presidency moved from the
South-West to the North-West and then to the South-South.
Rotational presidency is a necessary Nigerian invention to address
Nigeria's differences. It seeks to build a homogenous national entity.
If the contest is left for numerical strength as it is claimed, it
might not have gone to the South-West.
Obasanjo would not have qualified because he did not even win in his
ward as the PDP constitution stipulates. These are sacrifices that we
have to make for the national unity. When Yar'adua died, the rotation
went to the South-South which is in tandem with the rotational
principle.
When Jonathan serves his second term, it will go to any other zone
where it has not gone at least in the current democratic dispensation.
It can go to the South-East or the North-East. If rotational
presidency is adopted, the acrimony that goes with the contest will be
eliminated.
Rotational presidency will also address the issue of some people who
feel that they are entitled to some political offices in this country.
There are also some people who feel alienated from Nigeria because
they feel there is a particular limit they can aspire in the Nigerian
polity. Rotational presidency will create a conducive atmosphere where
every Nigerian can aspire to become president.
You are a lawyer. Can't rotational presidency be enshrined in the
Nigerian constitution?
It is an evolving convention. A convention is also a legal precept. A
convention practised overtime becomes not really a law in terms of
written,but acceptable by everybody.
Law-making has various stages. If something happens overtime and it is
not resisted, it becomes a convention. There are people in this
country, mainly from the North-West and the South-West, who want to
truncate the emergence of this convention.
The position of the South-West in this matter is understandable but
not excusable. The South-West, under Obasanjo, had its turn of eight
years. The South-West governors, under the platform of the Alliance
for Democracy, created an enabling environment for Obasanjo to
complete his second term.
If the rotation endures, it will return to the South-West when other
zones had done theirs. There are elements in the South-West who will
not allow this scenario to play out. They were the same people who
relinquished their gubernatorial positions for Obasanjo.
Today they have evolved from the Action Congress of Nigeria to the All
Progressives Congress. They now agitate that the presidency is up for
grabs.
They are the same persons who are putting pressures on Rivers state
governor Chibuike Amaechi to do unto Jonathan what they refused to do
unto Obasanjo.
That is the duplicity in Nigeria's political situation. But if they
help in truncating it, it will create a situation of fluidity. The
most important thing for them is that the system has been truncated,
then other factors will come into it.
Even the attack of religious politics that the APC levelled against
Jonathan is something that is in ACN or the APC as it is now called.
The APC is now trying to zone the position of the vice president to
either the South-South or the South-East.
Recall also that the days when the Igbo aligned with the North and
accepted the position of vice president, the South-West media kept
attacking the Igbo as taking the crumbs from the northern table.
Rememberingour history
But now it is the same South-West that plans to zone to the South-East
or South-West the same position which they derided the Igbo. We must
remember our history.
What is your take in the recent deportation of the Igbo by the Lagos
state government?
I have a lot of soft spot for Tunde Fashola, so I don't want to make
negative comments about him, more so with some restraints he has shown
in this matter. It is evident that he has realised that he has erred.
There is nothing in his history that indicates that he is headed in
that direction, so people are entitled to their mistakes once in a
while. It is not a reason why we should create loopholes for
rabble-rousers to begin to build mountains out of a molehill.
It is not only in the South-West that the Igbo have become migrants,
theyhave become migrants all over the world because the home
environment is no longer in consonance with their entrepreneurial
abilities and drives.
Where are the cashew industries, Niger Gas, Golden Guinea, Premier
Breweries and a host of them? They have been destroyed. Our leaders
have failed to move things to the next level.
However, some of them, like Sullivan Chime of Enugu state, are doing
wellin the provision of infrastructure. We have to build on that. We
must thank Jonathan for creating an international airport in the
South-East. Itwill boost the economy once again. The Igbo's movement
outside home is a result of home not being conducive for
self-actualisation.
Conducive forself actualisation
Even the entrepreneurs who now throw their resources towards political
contests should redirect them. It is not only in Lagos, the Igbo are
also being hounded in the North. Where is the home to run to? It is
the dilemma of the Igbo people in Nigeria. The South-East region has
buriedthe industries that Azikiwe and Okpara created.
What is your reaction to the declaration of Governor Sullivan Chime
that an Nsukka man will succeed him as governor of Enugu State?
There is also in Enugu State an emerging convention about rotation of
the gubernatorial position. It started from Chimaroke Nnamani who did
two terms for the Enugu-East senatorial district and then Sullivan
Chime, who is currently the incumbent, and about to round off his two
terms in office. He is from the Enugu-West senatorial zone.
The next place that it has not gone to is Enugu-North. It is also in
tandem with what I am saying that we should follow this emerging
convention. Things evolve. Personally the Nsukka cultural zone is
being short-changed because it constitutes over 50% of the population
of the state. Nsukka should be the one to give because they have the
numerical strength to determine where the pendulum of the state should
swing. It was done in the early 90s during the Babaginda transition.
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