News Comments

Another politician decamps to the PDP.

This time its Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State, who is decamping from All Peoples Grand Alliance (APGA) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Governor Orji had previously decamped from the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) to join APGA. And before that, he had jumped from the PDP to join the PPA. Perhaps bookmakers in Las Vegas and Macau should give odds and take bets on where Theodore Orji will be next year.

Elsewhere, the publication NEXT reports the newly renamed "Action Congress of Nigeria" (it used to be called "Action Congress") will annoint former EFCC boss Nuhu Ribadu as its presidential candidate for the 2011 (s)elections. It will be interesting to see Ribadu insisting he will fight corruption, while standing side-by-side with the ACN's sole shareholder, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. A bit like calling yourself a vegetarian while you are consuming copious amounts of meat, but that sort of hypocrisy is the defining characteristic of Mr Ribadu.

And Vanguard reports the PDP has decided to keep the Regional Zoning phenomenon peculiar to the Fourth Republic, but will allow current President Goodluck Jonathan to seek the party nomination even though he is not an indigene of the region whose turn it is right now.

I have frequently said on this blog that Nigerian politics is empty, hollow and lacking in substance. The fact that the argument over "zoning" is the dominant issue of this (s)election campaign is basically par for the course. Even if we took the rubbish of "zoning" on its own merits, there sure is a lot of hypocrisy going around. In 1999, all we heard was "power shift" to a specific region, and I guarantee in 2015 an "apex socio-cultural group" from another specific region will insist it is now their turn because the last time a man from their region held the president's chair was 44 years ago. Today, the people who benefitted from the rubbish of zoning, and the people who hope to benefit in the future from the rubbish of zoning ... are criticizing zoning, so as to block yet another specific region from keeping the presidency for another four years. Today they criticize it, tomorrow they will demand its reintroduction -- why criticize Theodore Orji for jumping around like a grasshopper, when all of our politicians are all clones of Theodore Orji?

Personally, I have never bought into the belief that there is a qualitative difference between "Northern" politicians and "Southern" politicians, between Christian politicians and Moslem politicians, between civilian politicians/plutocrats and militicians/plutocrats from the army. The rubbish of "zoning" and "power shift" extends even to the states, where senatorial zones are supposed to take turns in filling political positions with corrupt men that have no ideals and no plans for societal progress or economic development.

If we don't change is the fundamental, substantive nature of our society, then it doesn't really matter which region produces the president, because that president will just do the same ridiculous things that were done before him, that will be done after him, and that would have been done if one of his rivals had "won" instead. It has been over 50 years since the march to Independence in the 1950s, and we have consistently produced the same type of politics and the same type of leaders pursuing self-defeating policies and lacking in any type of vision of what our federal republic should be, and bereft of any comprehension of what our real long-term strategic interests are. Yet, it is a question of demand and supply, and the politicians definitely supply our insatiable demand for rubbish conversations about rubbish topics like zoning.

Look, it just doesn't make a difference to me if my country is mismanaged and maladministered by a man from Badagry, Maiduguri, Oloibiri, Sabon Birni or Awka-Nri.

What the heck is the difference?

When are we going to talk about issues, and measure candidates based on their ability to deliver on the issues?

When will our politics be relevant to real life, and not to this cartoon existence we seem unable to escape?