Abdulrasheed Akere Abdulkareem
As the Nigeria general election drives closer, as usual, the individual contenders and political parties are already getting set for what we know as seasonal battle. In fact, a more appropriate definition for a time like this would be: Time for seasonal selection and rejection of representatives. This crucial time that determines the future of our nation is fast approaching.
In a country like Nigeria practicing a multiparty system, there are numerous qualified and unqualified contestants from different parties running for a single political office. No one can boldly signify the best among them because they all utter unreliable promises coming from their sugar-coated lies-soured mouths.
According to the modus operandi of Nigeria election technique, there’s always controversial trends on some notable circumstances. One of them is the controversy that always surrounds which part of the country the next president should come from. As a large country with six geopolitical zones, this makes people to speculate that presidency should be rotational among the six zones.
No doubt this continues to trigger arguments. And as we have noticed in the ongoing political activities, the tunnel is dropping the same fluid ahead of the forthcoming 2023 presidential election. For instance, some southerners would only support a party whose nominee is a member of their region while the Northerners claimed nobody can win election without their support.
Due to the long time ruling by northerners for two consecutive terms — eight years, there’s high proportionality of the president to come from the south.
Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba amongst others are the fountain lineage in Nigeria. The reason lofty political positions like president, vice president, senate president and speaker are often revolved in between them which, I believe, has caused more harm to our political system.
It always corroborated the controversy of where representatives should come from ahead of the election. Some Nigerians believe that the next president should be a Yoruba man because the current government is led by a Hausa man, and a prior president is an Igbo man—Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
“The next president should be Yoruba and I will support Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” said Wasiu Ayinde, a popular Yoruba musician.
But the Igbos disagreed vehemently with the musician and contended that Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is an Igbo man, by saying he is from Bayelsa state of south-east not from south-south where pure Igbo are domiciled.
Though it is yet to become a political mess, the political controversy could once again dictates the kind of leaders we elect. While it is good to adore ones tribe, tribalism paints nothing but bad to our national politics. No wonder why Nigeria has been suffering of retrogression.
If there is still any iota of sincerity in our intention to drive the country forward, then competency regardless of tribe should be our priority. Unfortunately, I’m afraid, the word “sincerity” might have been expunged in our political dictionary.
Abdulrasheed Akere Abdulkareem is a campus journalist at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto (UDUS) he can be reach via rashworld2000alive@gmail.com, 09137208766
