It is time we put on our thinking and bargaining cap, to begin to ask, what is in an Atiku presidency for the South East?

Okey Nsorigwe

Before I am accused of belittling the office of the Vice President of Africa’s most populous democracy, permit me to state categorically from the outset that it is a great honour to be a Number Two citizen in a country surging to 200 million people.

READ ALSO: UN puts Nigeria’s population at 195.9m

It comes with personal benefits to the individual so elected and group benefits to the people who produced such a VIP. So, I join the rest of the South East to thank Alhaji Atiku Abubakar for picking Peter Obi as his running mate in the 2019 presidential election, the controversial way he went about it notwithstanding.

However, as the South East’s euphoria over the nomination of an Igboman as vice presidential candidate fades away, I feel it is time we put on our thinking and bargaining cap, to begin to ask, what is in an Atiku presidency for the South East? It cannot be just the vice presidency, otherwise, we are virtually empty-handed like Aaron.

I have heard many of our people enthuse that Obi, as VP, will run the economy. It smacks of living in a fool’s paradise to take such for granted. Our Constitution has no such or other specific roles for the VP except as delegated by the President. The President has the yam and knife and Atiku doesn’t appear to me as someone who would delegate the economy to his VP.

Section 5(1) of the 1999 Constitution provides: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the executive powers of the Federation: (a) shall be vested in the President and may subject as aforesaid and to the provisions of any law made by the National Assembly, be exercised by him either directly or through the Vice-President and ministers of the Government of the Federation or officers in the public service of the Federation.” Section 130(2) further provides that: “The President shall be the Head of State, the Chief Executive of the Federation and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation.”

Little wonder VP’s office or Deputy Governor’s office always appears like a ghost town. We play crude politics in our clime and there is always a tendency to undermine the office and person of the vice with the outright or tacit approval of the President. Members of the President’s “kitchen cabinet” take it upon themselves to undermine and cut the VP to size.

Furthermore, most Ndigbo erroneously believe that, with an Atiku/Obi presidency, the Igbo are a step away from the presidency. Sadly, this is not entirely true. Except Jonathan, who succeeded Umar Yar’Adua due to the latter’s death, no VP has succeeded the President since 1979. And given the power play around the Yar’Adua/Jonathan presidency (which clearly showed in every effort to prevent Jonathan from emerging an Acting President during Yar’Adua’s sickness), it would have been easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for Jonathan to succeed Yar’Adua after the latter’s full tenure.

That is assuming he even made it as running mate in Yar’Adua’s second term.

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At the state level, only two deputies have succeeded their bosses, Aliyu Shinkafi, who succeeded Sani Yerima in Zamfara (2007), and Abdullahi Ganduje, who succeeded Rabiu Kwankwaso in Kano (2015). And they all fell apart almost immediately. The story of governors and their deputies have been that of cat and mouse, impeachments and recriminations. Meanwhile, Socrates advises: “Man, know thyself”, while Bob Marley says: “If you know your history, then you will know where you are coming from.” Ndigbo, have we suddenly forgotten our chequered history. Those, who pin us down are brutal and futuristic. We can’t let down our guard to think that Igbo presidency is as simple as Obi or any Igbo becoming VP.

In a detailed interview in the twilight of his life, the late Chief Alex Ekwueme, Ide Oko, explained that the 1983 coup was mainly to subvert Igbo presidency: “I was Vice-President for four years and three months and under our zoning system in the National Party of Nigeria, chances were high that in 1987 that I might have been the candidate of the party for the presidency. Umaru Dikko gave a press interview in London after the coup of December 31, 1983, that all the talk about corruption was just hogwash; that the coup took place because they wanted to stop me from being President in 1987; and that they didn’t want to wait until it was too close; that it would be too obvious.”

Also, the same forces rallied to subvert Ekwueme/Igbo presidency in the party he formed, and imposed Chief Olusegun Obasanjo at the Jos PDP convention in 1998. Thousands of Ndigbo, who stormed Jos in chartered and freely donated luxury buses in a trance of ecstasy such as we currently swim in over Obi, went home disappointed and dejected.

That is why I repeat that our share in Atiku’s presidency cannot just be just a VP slot. From the earlier revelation by the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, and recent statement by Babatunde Fashola, it is obvious that the South West already has a deal with the President Muhammadu Buhari/APC for 2023 presidency. So, what is our own deal with Atiku/PDP?

Several reports indicate that Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu downplayed the VP slot to the South East even when offered to him over a year ago and days to the convention, preferring instead that whatever position offered to the South East should be secondary to PDP victory, restructuring, and Igbo presidency in 2023. These, South East leaders consider primary to our region and the cardinal understandings with Atiku that earned him South East delegates’ block vote.

With Atiku’s reported equivocation over the 2023 pact, coupled with his vagueness and sudden silence over restructuring, the concerns by South East PDP leaders over how he has allegedly avoided them post-Port Harcourt convention to the extent that they read about his running mate’s nomination in the media is now making sense to me and many others. I am beginning to believe that seeing through the smokescreen of mere VP slot without corresponding commitments (possibly a written pact) on restructuring and Igbo presidency 2023, as reported in the media, must have counted heavily against Ekweremadu as a VP pick.

All said, Atiku needs the South East to win and we must assert ourselves and cut our own deal. The South East has given its all to the PDP since 1998. We became its lifebuoy in the past three years. We have been scorched; our leaders like Ekweremadu, Enyinnaya Abaribe, etc, have been visited with scorpions and snakes for the sake of the PDP.

We have loved the PDP. The PDP should love us back. Playing hide-and-seek over restructuring (including the nature of it) and Igbo presidency 2023 will be in bad faith.

READ ALSO: South East/South West battle over 2023 Presidency

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Nsorigwe lives in Onitsha, Anambra State