This chapter focuses on rotational presidency in Nigeria. The phenomenon is also referred to as zoning within the Nigerian context. It sheds light on how zoning has been practised in the country and the political intricacies surrounding it. This is important because the issue of who becomes the President has at different times punctured the peace of Nigeria. Succinctly, the chapter explores the extent to which rotational presidency has fostered national integration in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. The chapter argues that rotational presidency has positive and negative effects on the Nigerian political and economic systems.
This chapter is presented in six sections. The first section focuses on the meaning of rotational presidency as an elites’ arrangement and why it has become an object of emphasis in contemporary Nigeria. The second section touches on the constitutionality of zoning and argues that though the practice is not in the constitution, it has positioned some ethnic groups to produce the President. The third section emphasises the history and politics of rotational presidency from 1959 till the Fourth Republic. The fourth section argues that rotational presidency has made minority ethnic groups to have a sense of belonging in the country through producing the President. The second part of this section explains that rotational presidency has bolstered stability in the country. The fifth section establishes that rotational presidency may jettison the emergence of a leader based on popular vote and those with good skills who will promote development. The sixth section focuses on how rotational presidency is used as a tool to manipulate the masses. This section also dwells on rotational presidency as a tool for ethnic and religious manipulation, which makes political elites whip ethnic and religious sentiments to get the support of the masses. The chapter ends with a conclusion that identified poor leadership, weak institutions, and poor development as the challenges of the country. The suggestion is that if these three are fixed, rotational presidency may still be practised, but it will no longer be an elitist tool to manipulate the masses.
173 8.2 Rotational Presidency as an Elites’ Agreement
As earlier explained in this study, power sharing in Nigeria takes different forms. This chapter interrogates the extent to which rotational presidency fosters national integration. It is important to reiterate that rotational presidency is an aspect of consociationalism. As it will be made clearer below, it is a form of grand coalition where different segments share executive power. Rotational presidency also encompasses centripetalism, which provides that the vote spread required to emerge as Nigeria’s President is wide enough to include different parts of the country. Rotational presidency has become an integral part of Nigeria’s political system. Eborka defines the concept below.
For the sake of clarity, a definition of rotational presidency is proposed here to mean, a situation where people from the different regions that constitute a particular socio- political formation shall in the course of time alternate the position of the President in an ordered sequence among themselves (Eborka, 2016: 35).
In taking cognisance of the regions, the six geo-political zones, the ethnic groups and religion are factored in. For this study, rotational presidency is taken to mean alternating the office of the President among the six geo-political zones and between the two major religions to ensure that no single ethnic or religious group monopolises the President’s office. However, rotational presidency has implications for ethnic, religious, and geo-political zones of the Vice President and the first four principal officers of the National Assembly. Thus, power sharing in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic means rotating the presidential, governorship, ministerial positions, and it is beyond ethnic balancing but also involves regional balancing (Asogwa, 2018: 5).
Several reasons have made rotational presidency to be an important factor in Nigerian politics. One of the reasons is that the North has dominated the Office of Presidency from independence until June 12, 1993. The Northern elites have also frequently issued inflammatory statements that imply that the North will always rule Nigeria. The North right from independence had always embraced the slogan ‘born to rule’, but ironically, the region is less economically developed than the South (Ademiluyi, 2019). In addition to this political reason, the issue of resources also comes to the fore. Hence, it is important to note that the push for rotating the presidency came from the Southern (Yoruba, Igbo, and Niger Delta elites) region. Elites from the South feel that being the goose that lays the golden egg, they
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should have more years in occupying the seat of the President. Nevertheless, beyond the North-South dichotomy of the phenomenon, elites from the minority folds (Niger Delta and Middle Belt) support sharing powers at different levels. Minorities are in support of rotational presidency and zoning of other key positions at the state and local government levels (Egbefo, 2014: 260). This ensures that minorities are not disadvantaged because of their small population. The 1994/95 Conference also greased this awareness because it recommended rotating key political positions. The elites believe that the idea would bring equity because majoritarian democratic principles will always electorally disadvantage minorities (Omololu, 2012).
Rotational presidency aligns with Lijphart’s (2012: 2; 2018: 1) view on consociational democracy that there is a need to share power through consensus. Political elites agree on presenting a candidate by considering factors like ethnicity and religion. PISSOL saw rotational presidency as purely elites’ cohabitation. The participant felt elites use it to appease themselves with less concern for national integration and stated thus:
The issue of arrangement for national integration goes beyond just rotational presidency. Rotational presidency is an elites’ phenomenon. I mean elites’
arrangement for political accommodation. If you pose the question that rotational presidency is elites’ arrangement for elites’ integration, not national integration, we could nod and say somehow it helps, at least there is peace, relative peace among the elites. They can organise themselves hoping that the next time it will come to the South, the next time it will go to the North and so on. This is a very important point because you cannot simply say rotational presidency will help in national integration;
it may help in elites’ integration. I even doubt that it will help in elites’ integration.
It will help in elites’ cohabitation, elites’ political accommodation; they are able to accommodate themselves and manage themselves, bury some of their differences because of their joint interest of sharing of political power over a time horizon (PISSOL, December 2018).
However, ordinary people are not beneficiaries of this arrangement. The fact that certain regions have produced presidents has not translated to social and economic development.
There are still bad roads in the South West and other parts of the country. There is high level of poverty in Northern Nigeria, and there are environmental issues in the South South despite political elites from the Yoruba, Northern and Niger Delta elite groups having ruled the country from 1999. Factually and nationally, 14.3% of people aged five and above have never attended school (National Bureau of Statistics, 2020: 13). The percentage of the poor in the country is 53.7%, with Sokoto being the highest at 89.9% (National Bureau of Statistics,
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2018a: 18). These point to the fact that the economic conditions of the masses have not changed.