“Nigeria’s main opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), ahead of its primaries, has decided to throw open its 2023 presidential ticket to all zones of the country” – not a bad outcome. The only interesting thing now is that even APC may abolish zoning. But let me tell people to relax. Nigeria’s problem will not be fixed by any human without a reform. That reform must position the nation to become a true federalism with fiscal autonomy.
No country in human history has succeeded on the structure Nigeria is running at the moment. Europe is a continent of “countries” with some of them a few million people: Finland (5.5m), Iceland (400k), Czechs (10m), Latvia (1.9m), etc. There is a reason for that: no European “tribe” will ever yield to be controlled by another. To overcome that, they were structured around “tribes” of nations (sure, countries) but unified at the top, at EU.
Where that is not possible, they have the structure like the one in the UK with Scotland, Ireland, etc as quasi nations within the Kingdom.
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But in Nigeria and most parts of Africa, that has not happened. Lagos is bigger than most countries in Europe. Southeast Nigeria is a big country when you look at the geography of Europe. I mean, I studied human and physical geography in Geography in secondary school, and mastered those small “tribes” of nations in continental Europe.
If northern Nigeria should produce the next President in Nigeria, it may be a turning point for that endpoint which Nigeria must reach. My fear is that we may not even have 5-6 federating nations, it may get out of order. 2023 may indeed be a consequential year in the modern history of Nigeria.
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Comment: What about US and India?
Response: US runs like the UK model actually – fiscal autonomy. California sets it emission standards, etc. New York does it owns financial things. Alabama holds its Bible amazingly: no liquor store can open until after 12 noon on Sunday. Move to South Dakota, you see different things.
India is still developing and not yet there. Even on that, its model is closer to US and UK. Nigeria’s has no basis in modern economic system.
Nigeria 2023: PDP Throws Presidential Ticket Open, No Zoning
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The PDP’s ineptitude is such that it does not see any other path to Aso Rock except via Atiku, all the political acrobatics about throwing the contest open is about one person: Atiku. Remove Atiku from the equation and PDP will zone to south, without thinking twice, because no other aspirant in that party from the north can finance or win national election presently, except Atiku.
But the big question for PDP remains, what happens in the event you field Atiku and still lose the presidential election in 2023, how are you going to explain it to disgruntled party members and generality of Nigerians who longed for a better alternative to APC? This is what could finally bury PDP, because there will be no road to recovery, since it has amply demonstrated it lacks credibility and honour.
Political exigency makes winning election the most important thing, because you cannot govern from outside, so looking for who can guarantee victory trumps performance, since delivering on promises is only possible if you win, therefore winning takes precedence. But the problem is that, in the event where you fail to win, you still need to make sure that you remain in the good book of the general public, so you must thread carefully.
APC, over to you.