From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Apart from the three ministerial nominees screened but denied confirmation, the inclusion of only five nominees from the entire South East geopolitical zone has generated more concerns and dominated discussion about the list of 48 nominees President Bola Tinubu sent to the upper chambers of the National Assembly.
The breakdown of the ministerial nominees shows that the other five geopolitical zones apparently got more ministerial slots than the five President Tinubu allocated to the South East zone.
While North West has 10 nominees with Kano, Kebbi, Katsina enjoying two slots each, South West with nine slots comprising Ogun three, Lagos two, and North East got eight with Taraba, and Bauchi given two slots each.
Others are North Central enjoying seven slots, with Niger state having two and an additional one for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). South South was given seven slots with Cross River and Delta states having two allocations while the entire South East disappointingly got five, picking just one from each state that made up the zone.
For the sake of emphasis, confirmed ministerial nominees by geopolitical zones showed that North West has nine, South West has nine, North East has eight, North Central has eight, South South has six, while South East has only five.
Breaking it down further, according to statistics of the states with more than one slot, Ogun has three, Lagos has two, Niger, Katsina, Kano, Bauchi, Kebbi, Taraba, and Cross River all have two allocations each.
Expectedly, the statutory slots President Tinubu gave to the five South East states have continued to generate public debate and protest from regional stakeholders and other concerned Nigerians for understandable reasons.
In fact, as far as the ministerial list is concerned, the statutory slots to the South East have competed for media headlines only with the rejection of nominees like the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, former National Women Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Stella Oketete from Delta State, and Abubakar Sani Danladi from Taraba State, allegedly dropped based on security reports and petitions against them.
Curiously, the unanswered questions have been the real motive and rationale for President Tinubu taking such a jaundiced decision. In trying to hazard possible reason, many have asked whether the criteria were based on the number vote of votes Tinubu got from the zones or a lack of capable persons in the zone.
As part of the orchestrated efforts to exact pressure on President Tinubu to change his mind and do the needful, many stakeholders and even social media commentators have cried blue murder but to no avail.
Only recently, Deputy Speaker, Ben Kalu, who has consistently been in the vanguard of demanding more slots for the zone made a passionate appeal, plea to Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the National Chairman of the ruling party, during a courtesy visit, pressing further his case for drafting more Igbo into Tinubu’s cabinet.
His words: “We came to also discuss pertinent issues that will affect the growth of our party, the nation, as well as my region. We had a good time discussing those issues,” he told newsmen after the closed-door meeting at the party’s headquarters in Abuja last week.
Giving further details of their discussion, Kalu said: “We also deliberated on the issue of national balancing, loyalty and cohesion in the country in the spirit of the Constitution with regards to federal character, the way and manner appointments and projects are done, to see that balancing will increase national cohesion.
“We, as well, increased lobbying for the inclusion of more South East in the ministerial nominees. You know, we are like Oliver Twist. While thanking Mr President for remembering us despite all odds and despite our contributions during the last election, including ensuring that I emerged the Deputy Speaker of the House, for which the region is very grateful.
“We are also asking him for more because as a man that we know he is magnanimous, we want him to look into the possibility of increasing the number of ministerial positions for the region,” he said.
Equally expressing dissatisfaction over the five ministerial slots President Tinubu allotted to the South-East region, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, complained bitterly and described the number as unfair and unjust.
President-General of the socio-cultural organisation, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, in a statement he signed last week decried that the zone short-changed with five states while other zones have a minimum of six states should not continue to suffer marginalisation.
Demanding justice and fairness, the President-General lamented that lack of equity in the state creation placed the South-East in a very difficult position, politically, economically, and socially.
The statement read; “the South-East was short-changed with five states while other zones have a minimum of six states. This situation has placed the South-East in a very difficult position, politically, economically, and socially. Our political power has been reduced as we have a few senators and also in the House of Representatives; governors, House of Assembly and local governments.
“In federal revenue allocation, the South East is denied the revenue that comes on the basis of states. In federal board appointments and other resource distributions, we are strategically short-changed.
“We wish to observe that this situation was not caused by the current administration but we however appeal to President Tinubu, to help us remedy the situation and restore justice, equity and fairness in Nigeria,” the Pan socio-cultural organisation said.
Unfortunately, the appeals and requests from stakeholders like the Deputy Speaker, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, chieftains of the ruling party among other concerned Nigerians for more ministerial slots for the South East states, seem to have all fallen on deaf ears.
But, Tinubu’s action apparently will not come as a surprise to many followers of the political dynamics in the country. As many pundits observed, his action, perhaps, may have been another confirmation of where the leaders of the ruling party placed the South East geopolitical zone in the scheme of things in the country.
There was visibly no significant departure from what transpired under the eight years of then President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration when he emphatically side-lined the regions based on his professed popular five per cent vote contribution mantra.
President Buhari had bluntly, during a press interview in the USA, said: “I hope you have a copy of the election results. The constituents, for example, who gave me 97 per cent (of the vote) cannot in all honesty be treated equally on some issues with constituencies that gave me five per cent. I think these are political realities.”
And using that past agonising experience under Buhari and what has transpired under President Tinubu’s government so far as parameter, it appears that there is still no light at the dark end of the tunnel in the travails that the South East zone will continue to face.
From all indications, thunder is about to strike twice at the same spot, considering the bias in the appointments President Tinubu has announced so far.
He may not have spoken out openly as Buhari did, but apparently hoodwinking the region with the appointment of an Igbo Naval officer as one of the Service Chiefs, he may have felt that he can apparently skew other subsequent appointments against the geopolitical zone without complaints.
And probably hiding under the shadows of the danger of empowering an enemy, Tinubu’s successive appointments may have confirmed his disdain for the zone. His appointments have indicated a hostile impression of his discomfort with having many Igbo people in his cabinet.
But, in the calculations of many political watchers, his action is understandable; especially happening in a country with Nigeria’s brand of democracy with a political culture of winner takes.
His action, according to many pundits, is a confirmation of the refrain and mantra in the popular Nigerian Palace that the Igbo cannot work for Julius Berger Construction Company and expect to receive salary from John Holt.
In the words of an APC chieftain, who spoke to Daily Sun in confidence; “the South Easterners are the architects of their own misfortune. They should not blame anybody or complain too much because it is anticipated. They made choices that turned out counterproductive. And having goofed with the conscious choice they made, they should be ready to bear the consequences of their decisions.
“In failing to sacrifice anything against their son, Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, obviously in compliance with the biblical injection that obedience is better than sacrifice, why should they transfer the unfavourable outcome of their decision and choice on Tinubu? Let the Igbo continue to be Obidient as they opted for,” the APC chieftain joked.
Good enough, to most students of history, Tinubu’s decision to sideline the South East did not start with the ministerial list. Historians cannot forget in a hurry that in the build-up to the APC presidential primary election, and in his desperate determination to lobby for delegates’ votes, he physically visited all the other geopolitical zones and some states repeatedly, but never attempted to step his feet in any part of the South East states.
His coasting to victory, emerging as the party’s presidential candidate with insignificant votes from the Igbo delegates, according to political thinkers, confirmed that despite his disregard of the geopolitical zone, side-lining them does not matter or does it have any impact on his political fortune to occupy the seat of government at the Aso Rock Villa.
Again, Tinubu also reluctantly struggled to visit all the five South East states once during his presidential election campaign in an attempt, perhaps to fulfill all righteousness, as he was convinced that nothing favourable to him will come from the zone.
Although his calculations did not fail him, he perhaps must have felt very hurt that his little efforts to campaign in the zone did not translate into any tangible and appreciable votes during the elections as he, expectedly, could not garner the needed 25 per cent votes in any of the South East states.
And possibly miffed by the painful total rejection in the South East zone, he may have resolved to reciprocate by paying the zone in its own coins. Little wonder therefore why he blacklisted the zone almost completely in the initial appointment of his aides.
He even went a step further to shock those defending what he considered the indefensible that the initial appointees were his personal aides and as such no Igbo is qualified to be in his inner caucus and circle for fear of sabotaging him.
Interestingly, to confirm that his initial appointments were no fluke but a deliberate action, he sent a scary signal with his ministerial nominees that the Igbo would have been totally excluded if not for the Constitutional mandate that compelled him to do so.
According to an aggrieved Igbo APC chieftain who spoke to Daily Sun on condition of anonymity; “although President Tinubu is entitled to savour all the euphoria of the moment of his victory, he must however understand that triumphalism without conscience is ultimately pyrrhic. He must also know that his government is making our party, the APC, too toxic for South East party members.
“If you ask me, what happened should be early warnings to the South East not to expect much from this administration. Don’t forget that President Tinubu promised so much during his campaign and consultations with stakeholders in the South East.
“He had specifically reiterated his determination to make the region the commercial and industrial hub of the country, but what has been his administration’s intervention in the pugnacious and obnoxious sit-at-home policy that has almost crippled the economy of the South East?
“We are expressing bitterness over the ministerial list, but many of us knew that our zone has more challenging problems than the ministerial list we are bickering about unnecessarily. It will be more beneficial for President Tinubu to solve that problem than to increase the number of ministerial nominees.
“For instance, we expected him to adopt diplomatic and kinetic approaches, especially in exploring the bilateral relationship between Nigeria and Finland to bring the orchestrator-in-chief, Simon Ekpa, to his senses. I also think that he should consider the several appeals to release IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, under the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) even against court rulings, as possible pragmatic measures towards solving the insecurity menace in the zone. But it has been a show of disinterest from him,” the APC chieftain lamented.
But, the extreme position of enjoying the ultimate pyrrhic victory and making the APC too toxic for South East party members may not gain general acceptance as a founding member of the party and Director General, Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, argued that political leaders in the South East ought to have greater share of the blame for Tinubu short-changing the zone.
According to him; “I am not President Tinubu’s apologist. However, we must be diligent in adopting pragmatic analysis. We should blame APC leaders from the zone who, instead of genuine advancement of South East interests, were more or less petty in their lobby strategy. After all, one chairs the APC Governors Forum, a foremost power bloc, and the other was already in the Senate.
“To be honest, I was worried when I noticed them blocking our first eleven, and one was ridiculously busy routing for himself as if he is the only qualified person from his state. Their strategy was akin to chasing rats, while others were bidding for elephants,” he claimed.
Accused of playing blame games to gain favour, as Tinubu does not need any lobby strategy to give the region its due, Okechukwu reminded newsmen that; “it is on record I was the only one who, in December 2021, publicly appealed to Tinubu to support an Igbo in the race. Accordingly, his men replied instantly that the kingmaker wants to be king.”