|
Nigeria
Will the minorities ever rule?
Will the minorities in Nigeria’s South-South political zone get their wish? They have certainly served notice that equity demands that one of their own should take a turn in ruling the country, and God, it would seem, has endorsed this by unexpectedly thrusting one of their sons, Goodluck Jonathan (pictured right), into a position where this can be realised. But will Jonathan still be there after next year’s elections? Our cover story this month looks at the minorities question in Nigeria. Adewale Maja Pearce sets the ball rolling.
One of the curiosities of Nigeria is that those who long to be president never make it; and this is true whatever the merits of the hopeful candidate who would be the Messiah the country continually hopes, believes, or prays will come to its rescue. The late “sage”, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, for instance, one of the so-called founding fathers of the nation, who is generally reckoned to be the best president Nigeria never had, tried and failed on two separate occasions, leading former President Olusegun Obasanjo – a child of fortune if ever there was one – to mock him for desiring what he (Obasanjo) was gifted twice, first as military head of state in the late 1970s, and then as civilian president from 1999 to 2007.
And now, with the 2011 elections “around the corner” (as they say in Nigeria), the race is on again. The twist this time is the unexpected emergence of Goodluck Jonathan following the death of President Yar’Adua, another fellow who never sought the highest office in the land but suddenly found himself the Number One Citizen at the behest of the same Obasanjo, who is alleged to have known at the time that the man was unlikely to survive even his first term in office.
In a sense, then, Jonathan can be said to owe his current position to Obasanjo, which may or may not put him in a quandary. It may be that Obasanjo, as some people have speculated, was deliberately trying to foment a constitutional crisis, except that no crisis emerged – or at least, there hasn’t been one, not yet. But, according to the thinking in the North, the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) entrenched the principle of rotation between the North and the South, with each having two terms in the interests of what they seem to regard as equity. The immediate past president, Yar’Adua, never got to finish his first term and so, in principle, Jonathan is simply to hold the fort while a suitable northerner is picked to be his deputy ahead of the elections, whereupon Jonathan will be expected to step down.
|
SITE EN FRANÇAIS
print story
