2023: What about North-Central

Gabriel Alewo AgudeSIR: It is bewildering that all the open talks and surreptitious moves about which geo-political zone produces next president is still about Northwest, Southwest and South-south; the regions which have literarily monopolized political leadership of our country at the centre since the beginning of current democratic dispensation in 1999. Undoubtedly, this is where the whole affair of who leads Nigeria at the expiration of President Muhammadu Buharis second term in 2023, becomes interesting and thought-provoking, especially, for North-Central Nigeria.It is stating the obvious that North-Central Nigeria has been condemned to playing the third fiddle in the political affairs and configuration of our great country in the current dispensation.This uncomplimentary historical development, which, of course, dates back to the first, second and the aborted third republics, is the encumbering group albatross which North-Central should no longer accept from those who believe that the political leadership of our great country at the centre is their exclusive preserve.North-Central Nigeria cannot not continue to be the slave-partner in the Nigerian Project because the 1999 Constitution, is unambiguously and explicitly against inequality in running the affairs of this nation. In particular, Section 17, subsection 1 of 1999 Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria states: The state social order is founded on ideals of Freedom, Equality and Justice.Implicit in the quoted portion of our constitution is the question: Where is the ideals of freedom, equality and justice in a situation whereby three out of six geopolitical zones, believe and scheme in perpetuity, to be the men on the horseback; while the North-Central and other two zones remain on their knees as beasts of burden forever'It was Dr. Nelson Mandela who once told the world that, As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, no one of us can truly rest. Of course, Mandelas warning is rife in that none of us can truly rest in Nigeria as injustice and gross inequality persists in power-sharing as well as in all affairs and political configuration of our great country.The counsel here is that all political leaders concerned with what the shape or shapes of things will be in 2023, should take the recoil to their drawing boards and patriotically consider those other geopolitical zones that are yet to produce the president since 1999, especially the North-Central. For indeed, and as Aristotle immortally established, The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.Gabriel Alewo Agude, Jos, Plateau State.
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