Soludo, how long will Igbo serve before being settled?

The illogicality spread on the Nigerian political terrain is so exhausting that most times, one feels it is safer not to waste one’s breath discussing politics. But occasionally, somebody stretches one’s patience beyond its limit. This time around, it is Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s recent argument that has drawn me out.

According to Soludo, the Igbo should support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027 because power is currently in the South. That way, when the presidency moves to the North and eventually returns to the South, the Igbo can expect the support of other Southerners and Northerners for an Igbo presidential candidate.

Soludo worked in the presidencies of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Therefore, one expects him to know the recent political history of Nigeria not to make such a comment. Or should Soludo claim not to know the voting history of the Southeast since 1999? If he does, why is he talking as though the Southeast has a debt to pay before it can expect support from others? Let us go through the elections and jog the memory of those who have forgotten or have chosen not to remember.

In 1999, the country was still dealing with the injustice of the annulled June 12, 1993 election, widely believed to have been won by Chief MKO Abiola. Dr Ogbonnaya Onu had emerged as the presidential candidate of the All Peoples Party (APP). But he eventually had to step down for Chief Olu Falae of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and forgo his ambition. This was because of an alliance between the APP and the AD and the decision of the APP to compensate the Southwest for the injustice done to Abiola in 1993. Because of that, an Igbo candidate did not fly the presidential flag of the APP. The flag was handed over to a Yoruba man in the interest of peace and to give the Southwest a sense of belonging.

Something similar happened in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), although through a different process. Dr Alex Ekwueme, a former vice president and leader of the G-34 that helped give birth to the PDP, was a formidable contender. It was seen as a fait accompli that he would be the presidential candidate of the PDP. But powerful generals and political figures from the North rallied behind Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who had recently been released from prison. Obasanjo was not a founding member of the PDP. But they got him into the PDP and mobilised resources and forces for him to defeat Ekwueme at the party’s presidential primary.

The argument in the PDP was the same: The Southwest needed to be compensated for the June 12 injustice. Again, it was an Igbo man who paid for that compensation. Despite the disappointment of not having their son as the presidential candidate of the PDP, all the Southeast states voted overwhelmingly for Obasanjo.

In 2003, Obasanjo sought a second term. Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu contested on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), while General Muhammadu Buhari ran under the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) with Dr Chuba Okadigbo, another Igbo man, as his running mate. Here were two prominent Igbo figures on opposing presidential tickets. Yet the Southeast again voted overwhelmingly for Obasanjo, a Yoruba man.

Ojukwu contested again in 2007 under APGA. Buhari also returned to the race, this time with Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, an Igbo man, as his running mate. The PDP presented Yar’Adua, a Fulani from Katsina State in the Northwest. The Southeast gave its overwhelming support to Yar’Adua, rather than Ojukwu or the ticket featuring Ume-Ezeoke.

In 2011, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, an Ijaw man from the South-South, faced Buhari and other candidates. The Southeast voted massively for Jonathan. In 2015, Jonathan sought re-election against Buhari, and the Southeast stood firmly behind him again.

The Igbo support for other regions continued in 2019. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, a Fulani man from the Northeast state of Adamawa, received the overwhelming support of the Igbo states.

Count them: 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. Six consecutive presidential elections in which the Southeast overwhelmingly backed candidates from other zones. Twice it backed a Yoruba candidate from the Southwest; twice it backed Fulani candidates from the Northwest and Northeast; and twice it supported an Ijaw candidate from the South-South. In some of the cases, it voted against its own sons who were presidential or vice-presidential candidates. How does that record fit Soludo’s suggestion that the Igbo must first support another Southerner to earn future support?

Related News

• Pre-election borrowings suspicious, not absolute nonsense
• Tinubu ends Umrah, prays for wisdom, resilience to govern
• DICON renews push for military equipment self-sufficiency

Then came 2023. After eight years of Buhari’s presidency, there was a strong argument that power should return to the South. But if equity and rotation were the principles, surely the next question was which part of the South had waited longest. Since 1999, the Southwest had produced Obasanjo as president for two terms of eight years and Yemi Osinbajo as vice president for another eight.

The South-South had produced Jonathan, first as vice president and then as president. The Southeast had produced neither president nor vice president during the Fourth Republic. It was, therefore, reasonable to argue that the Southeast had the strongest claim among the southern zones. It was an argument about fairness, not constitutional entitlement. That was the same argument that was used in 1999 for the Southwest.

There was even an opportunity for the APC to acknowledge an old political debt. Onu, whose presidential ambition had been displaced during the APP–AD arrangement of 1999, was now an APC minister and presidential aspirant. Would those who had defended the Southwest’s claim in 1999 remember what happened to him? Would anyone say that it was time to return the favour?

Instead of requiting Onu for forfeiting his ambition in 1999 for the Yoruba, Tinubu announced that it was the turn of his people, and among his people, it was his turn. Onu lamented at the APC convention, but the powerbrokers paid no attention to him. He died the next year, taking that disappointment to the grave.

Tinubu eventually won the APC presidential primary, contested the general election and was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission. The election was followed by bitter disputes, including controversy over INEC’s failure to upload presidential polling-unit results promptly to its viewing portal. The Southeast’s appeal to equity was dismissed.

In the 2023 election, the Southeast, meanwhile, overwhelmingly supported Peter Obi, whose record as governor of Anambra State and reputation for personal integrity attracted supporters well beyond Igboland. After repeatedly backing candidates from elsewhere, Igbo voters finally rallied behind a presidential contender from their own region. And what are they being told now? Support Tinubu so that, someday, other people might support you.

What happened to the support given to Obasanjo in 1999 and 2003? What happened to the votes for Yar’Adua in 2007, Jonathan in 2011 and 2015, and Atiku in 2019? Do those votes no longer count because they were cast before Tinubu became president? Must the Southeast start proving its goodwill all over again every time a new politician asks? Which other geopolitical zone has supported other regions the way the Southeast has done?

Politicians like Soludo and Dave Umahi are free to support Tinubu. What they should not do is dress their political preference and agenda as “Igbo interest.” Why should people who have supported candidates from different parts of Nigeria now be lectured about the need to support others? Even in the Igbo apprenticeship scheme, when a boy serves his boss for seven years, the boss settles him, and he starts his own business. Why should the Igbo perpetually serve other zones, with the goalpost shifted after each term?

If Soludo believes Tinubu deserves another four years, he should tell Nigerians what Tinubu has done to deserve their votes. He should not promise the Igbo that support today will somehow be repaid when the presidency next comes South. We have heard that promise of a future turn for too long. How many more elections must the Southeast wait before yesterday’s support is remembered?

– X: @BrandAzuka