The Director, Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts, Dr Sam Amadi has called on Nigerians and all Political parties to micro zone 2023 Presidency to the South East region.
He said the call became necessary to draw the attention of all good spirited Nigerians, especially the elite class on the need for equity and justice to be done to the marginalized zone of the country.
According to him, any attempt to zone the Presidency to another region in the South other than South East will amount to fraud and unacceptable to every rational thinker.
He pointed out that the South have not been marginalised in presidency as a region, but South East has been marginalised as a zone since 1999 and urged all well meaning Nigerians to rally round the clamour for the actualisation of a Nigerian Presidency of the South East extraction.
Dr Amadi, who was a former Chairman of Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), challenged the advocates of zoning to other Southern regions to justify the agreement of the political elites who were unanimous in zoning presidency to South west in 1999 as a way to respond to the 1993 crisis, urging the elites to equally agree to micro zone to South East in 2023, if they truly acted in national interest.
For him, if the elites feel that there is no crisis to address in the South East, hence the decision of zoning to the region is not needed, the 2023 presidential election should be thrown open for all qualified Nigerians to participate.
His words: “In our conversations, we have been reviewing how the process of zoning is playing out, and we have few concerns, number one is that we just realised that this politics of zoning has taken a dangerous turn as a result of response to the last 6 or 7 years of this administration which many groups feel marginalised.
“Zoning should be properly understood, ideally, elections should be open competition. The notion of zoning grew as a response largely during the June 12 election when the election was annulled, and the political elites as a matter of consensus agreed that there was the need to deal with the crisis of confidence in the South West.
“Our view in Abuja school is that you don’t need to zone anything if you don’t think that there is a clear present danger. Zoning is affirmative action, if you see a crisis that you need to respond to, and then everybody can decide to agree on zoning.
“Zoning is an abstraction from normal politics which is a need to solve a problem, so our view in Abuja school is that if you want to zone, then the zoning should go to the South East straight, not South-South.
“We reject the notion of zoning to the South for the clear reason that the South has suffered no peculiar and aggravated damage in Nigeria politics in terms of representation viz-a-viz the North”.
The Don’t, who further advanced his argument said, “that there is no basis to zone presidency to the South, because since 1999, the South has been in power more than the north.
“Since 1999, the South has suffered no peculiar damage in terms of political representation for us to trigger zoning to the South. The only place where a national consensus for zoning is agreed is the South East. It is a place that has not held presidential power.
“Our view is that if the Nigerian elites think there is a crisis that needs affirmative action, it is South East, not South, if they don’t think there is a crisis, then it should be open competition to give all Nigerians the right to participate.
“Since 1999, the South has held office more time than the North, If President Buhari finishes his tenure that will be 10 years of Northern President, two years under PDP, eight years under APC, Obasanjo did Eight years plus Jonathan’s six years, that means the north has ten years while the South has 14 years, there is no equity or justice zoning to the South.
“We reject a zoning campaign for the South, because there is no justice for it. We are saying that what Nigeria needs now is power sharing, an arrangement in which, just like Abacha Constitution that was cancelled, proposed where the major offices in the Federal executive are shared among all the various ethnic and socio-groups so there will be a balance.
“But if the Nigeria political elites thinks that because of the crisis they think the South East has not held this position and the issues of separatists then they can zone specifically to South East just like it was done in 1999 to South West to respond to 1993 crisis, that is the only way we can have peace”, he added (Vanguard)
