Let’s begin with a quick question: Was there anything that could have been done as far back as 1999 to douse the National Restructuring tension that has gripped Nigeria recently? Why did I choose the year 1999? Well, Chance handed us that year to begin afresh.
Remember that the regional leaders attended Constitutional Conferences in London prior to our becoming an independent nation. Thus even before independence Nigeria had become a Federation with very strong Regions – regions that had representatives in the UK, though the central government had a High Commissioner there.
The military changed that regional arrangement in 1966, to a unitary government – with the so-called group of provinces. The leaders then might have thought that Nigeria’s glaring disunity of 1966 was caused by the acrimony between the regions and the discord among the leaders and members of the different regions. But the discord turned into a dissonance that led to a bloody civil war.
In 1979, as Nigeria prepared to return to civil rule, a chance came and was seized to write a new constitution and was approved by a Constitutional Assembly. The second chance to make amends came in 1999. But the resultant constitution was a hush-hush affair. Nigeria was really disunited then as Gen Ibrahim Babangida’s annulment of the June 12 1993 election had set Nigeria on the precipice. And an insensitive Gen. Sani Abacha, who succeeded Babangida thought his strong arm tactics was enough to bring Nigeria under his jack boots. He died in the attempt!
So, when the 1999 return to civil rule came, a group of politicians had for the first time attempted to think like nationalists. A few leading lights formed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and planned it to be so national that it could not by any flight of imagination be accused of being a sectional party. From this, it was also a given that only a modicum of a national party could ever snatch power from it.
That brings us to the road not taken. Even as the party primaries had yet to start, the PDO had a gentlemanly leader who had guided it to assume a nationalist philosophy; Dr. Alex Ekwueme (of fragrant memories) a former Vice President. But just as some soldiers had THOUGH in 1966 that they knew what was best for Nigeria, and refused to organize a constitutional talk before changing the erstwhile regional constitution to a unitary one, a few Generals decided that they would not allow Ekwueme to be President. One may not blame them a lot because they had a point in believing that allowing a Yoruba to emerge President would assuage the feeling of the Yoruba for the presidency that was denied M K O Abiola. So, Obasanjo became President.
Then another opportunity came in 2003. By then four Governors, Delta’s Chief James Onanefe Ibori, Bayelsa’s late D S P Alamieysegha and Akwa-Ibom’s Dr. David Attah and Edo’s Lucky Igbenedion called for restructuring. Their two other South-South colleagues – Rivers’ Dr. Peter Odili and Cross-Rivers’ Donald Duke – could not be bothered. They were Obasanjo’s blue-eyed boys and they the beloved of the crusading-for the worst-reasons journalists who demonised Ibori, Attah, Igbenedion and Alamieyeseigha and reduced their reason for the struggle to Resource Control. They were lambasted at every point. They gained no support whatsoever. Today, the same journalists are busy writing nonsense as though they didn’t support a “hurricane Obasanjo”, who was obdurate to such calls. Now, they have “hurricane Mohammadu Buhari” to contend with. Just like Obasanjo, Buhari believes that he who has the power of coercion is right.
2003!!! That was when there would have been a paradigm shift. Chief Ibori did something audacious; he moved to make Ekwueme President. No Governor of the Igbo states supported him. On Sunday 6th January 2003, he beckoned on me at the Eagle Square PDP National Convention venue, Abuja and said, “Tony, see the text message I sent to your Igbo brothers, the governors of the South- East States concerning Ekwueme, on the need not to disgrace him, but none has replied. I know some of them must have shown it to Obasanjo by now. Tony, you and your Igbo brothers and sisters will wipe a lot of sweet from your brows before you get the Igbo President. That was in 2003. Had Ekweueme become President then, talk of Igbo maginilisation would not be coming up now.
When Ibori visited the Villa and congratulated Obasanjo for the victory, Obasanjo told him: “you had said I was unelectable, unmarketable and unsaleable; all your days I will make you unelectable, unmarketable and unsalable”.
A few days later, an Igbo state Governor said triumphantly concerning Ekwueme’s defeat; “when it is time for an Igbo President, we wouldn’t need a non-Igbo South-Southerner to tell us. He was referring to Ibori. Some people are far sighted; some are myopic.
