Election: ‘Why The North Should Wait Their Turn′ - Former APC Member

The national chairman of the Third Republic National Republican Convention (NRC), Chief Tom Ikimi is a former member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), but is now in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Ikimi in this interview with Vanguard explains why the North should wait till 2019 to come back to power.He also goes on to point out APC flaws in thinking they would win the forthcoming polls overwhelmingly in the southwest and northwest geo-political zones. Excerpts How Nigeria got to this frightening state after avoiding it since 1993. Following the overthrow of the Shehu Shagari democratically elected government in 1983 by General Muhamadu Buhari, we had ten long years of military rule before the annulled June 12, 1993 election took place. The build-up to that election, contested by two popular national political parties, the NRC and SDP, saw three northern-born popular presidential candidates, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, and Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi among others summarily disqualified and taken into detention. READ ALSO: In the circumstance, while it may be convenient to characterize the June 12, 1993 election as the freest and fairest, behind that facade rested deep tribal resentment, mostly from the North, of what had occurred. In some other parts of the country, mainly in the South West, protesters, not necessarily confined to the leadership of the SDP, found the Abiola cause a convenient platform on which to organize overt resistance. In the midst of all this restiveness erupted among southern minority elements, particularly in the Niger Delta area, mostly for reasons of apparent grievances. They commenced challenging what they described as a reckless plundering of the natural resources from their native soil – oil. The coincidence of the sudden deaths of General Abacha and Chief MKO Abiola did not put the firestorms sparked by these crisis to rest. The emergence of General Obasanjo, on the platform of the PDP in 1999, by virtue of an arrangement conceived and executed by his top military colleagues did not really fulfill the intention of the inventors to assuage the anger of the South West whose leading political figures distanced themselves from Obasanjo’s candidature. Unfortunately the OBJ personal agenda, which included a plot to position himself for an indefinite presidential reign, rather than work to unite the country, created massive asssault on the peace and orderly progress of the new democratic structure. OBJ was virtually forced out of office. He departed with a vengeance, ceding power to an ailing successor, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, from northern Nigeria.
President Goodluck Jonathan assumed the presidency in the midst of escalating unrest and crisis in his indigenous area, the Niger Delta. Simultaneously, parts of Northern Nigeria was gradually being criss-crossed by Muslim religious fundamentalist, who took advantage of Nigeria’s extensive, porous borders with neighboring Niger ,Chad and Cameroons. The sectarian-fomented crisis in North Africa and parts of the Middle East started sipping through to Nigeria.