Jonathan and the Azikwe Syndrome

At independence, Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, Nigeria’s foremost pre-independence nationalist and politician had the opportunity of becoming Nigeria’s first Prime Minister. At the conclusion of the 1959 federal elections, none of the major parties had enough seats in parliament to solely form government, like in the recently concluded British elections. Sir Ahmadu Bello’s Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) had the largest parliamentary contingent by virtue of the defective structure of the Nigerian federation bequeathed by the British which created a Northern region larger than the two other regions in the federation. Azikwe’s NCNC (National Council of Nigerian Citizens) and Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s Action Group (AG) were strongest in Eastern and Western Nigeria respectively. Mallam Aminu Kano’s Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) controlled the Kano/Kaduna axis of Northern Nigeria and Joseph Tarka’s United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) was influential in the non-Hausa/Fulani, largely Christian middle-belt of Nigeria.
Chief Awolowo offered an alliance as junior partner to the NCNC conceding the prime ministerial position to “Zik” (as Azikwe was popularly known) while “Awo” wanted the finance ministry. It would thus have been possible for Zik to weld together a ruling coalition involving NCNC/NEPU (NEPU was already an NCNC alliance partner) and AG/UMBC (ditto AG and UMBC). But for confounding reasons, Zik chose junior partnership in an alternative alliance offered by the NPC and became ceremonial Governor-General and later President. It would be one of the rare occasions in political history where a politician at the peak of an otherwise brilliant political career, scorns an opportunity for real political power in favour of a completely nominal and sinecure role in his nation’s affair! This must not be confused with cases in which an undisputed leader such as Ahmadu Bello or Sonia Ghandi and Ichiro Ozawa in contemporary India and Japan respectively allowed surrogates occupy political office, while they retained effective political power.
Zik would later regret his strange choice, as he struggled for influence over military command with Bello’s deputy who became Prime Minister-Abubakar Tafawa Balewa; as his NCNC turned to the AG for political coalition-United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) in 1964; and as he would later run for Presidency in vain in 1979 and 1983. Several explanations have been offered for Zik’s self-defeating choice in 1960-anger and spite at Awolowo who had prevented him from becoming Premier of Western Nigeria through the “carpet crossing” incidence; the non-inclination of NCNC leaders to go into alliance with Awo who they regarded as an “enemy”; the influence of the British who steered Zik in their preferred direction; fear of political and regional instability if the “North” was denied power etc. Whatever reason, the outcome was that Azikwe was cajoled into becoming titular head rather than substantive head of government which was well within his grasp.
It is clear that Zik made a sub-optimal choice, both in terms of personal political strategy and national interest. An NCNC/NEPU/AG/UMBC (plus Bornu Youth Movement of Ibrahim Imam) alliance would have been comprehensively nationalistic and more progressive and development-oriented than the NPC government we inherited at independence. The evolution of Nigerian political economy may have diverged from the conservative (or even retrogressive) path we have followed if this alternative platform had been forged with Zik, Awo, Aminu Kano, J. S Tarka and Imam at its head. In any event, if Zik had sacrificed power for national unity and cohesion, the Gods evidently did not accept his offering as Tiv riots, “wetie”, deadly coups and counter-coups, pogroms and later a genocidal civil war in which Zik’s own Igbo ethnic group were the main victims ensued over the next decade! Some argue that General Olusegun Obasanjo as military head of state was similarly intimidated into governing almost as nominal head of the military junta while real power was exercised beneath him. Indeed some accounts suggest that in order to convince strategic military and political constituencies of his loyalty, Obasanjo distanced himself from fellow Yoruba officers and political leaders. Fortunately for Obasanjo, unlike Zik, he had a second opportunity at power between 1999 and 2007 when he ruled substantially (at least for a while) as he thought fit.
Dr Goodluck Jonathan is called upon to make a decision similar or divergent from Azikwe’s in the run up to the 2011 elections. Essentially if Jonathan fails to run, it would be because he has been scared out of the race-choosing to lay his hand on the plough and then to take it off again! The argument that the PDP had zoned the office to the North for the next eight years is off course non-sequitur. If Obasanjo had died in 2002 and Abubakar Atiku had become President by virtue of the constitution, would Atiku have handed power back to Olu Falae, Bola Ige or Opeyemi Agbaje in 2003 in the name of zoning? In my view, even though the PDP zoning arrangement subsists (as Ade Ogunsanya argued recently it was scrupulously honoured such that a Northerner succeeded Obasanjo in 2007), the concept and sequence must necessarily be amended due to an act of God (the death of Umaru Yar’adua) and the provisions of our national constitution (which elevated Jonathan into the Presidency). Zoning was made for the country and not the country for zoning!
What would Jonathan do? Would he choose the path of power for national development or the sinecure course that Azikwe followed?