In 1999, the presidency was not only ceded to the South of Nigeria but was also micro-zoned to the Southwest. That was explicably made possible by the elite consensus that preponderated the polity at that intersection due to the injustice that circumscribed the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential poll by the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB)-led junta. Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) from Ogun State in the Southwest of Nigeria had defeated a northerner, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, from Kano in the poll that defied the writ large fact of Abiola and Babagana Kingibe’s Muslim-Muslim ticket that was coupled by Abiola and his SDP to address the existential political exigencies, the sort that Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is dealing with now, with the Abiola-Kingibe prescription, thirty years after. Nigerians had voted for the ticket in spite of its cold insensitivity to religion and religious considerations. Looking back to that epoch, it could be surmised that the Abiola persona, largely constructed and sharply defined by his eleemosynary acts, pushed the issue of religion to the second place in the pyramid of considerations and factors. But has Tinubu been able to attract Abiola’s kind of pan-Nigerian appeal, association, approbation and validation?
The mindless annulment of the pan-Nigeria mandate invested in Abiola had consistently unsettled the polity and the situation fitted perfectly into the contemplation of the popular Yoruba aphorism, which says “Ediye ba lokun, ara o ro okun ara o ro ediye,” transliterated thus: “The fowl has perched on clothes line, both the line and the fowl are ill at ease.” IBB had to hurriedly step aside; and, in the process, he coupled an Interim National Government (ING) headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan, a Yoruba man from Ogun State. What happened to the ING thereafter is a fact of history. What also happened to General Sani Abacha who sacked the ING about three months after and Abiola himself in the interregnum in between the military rule and the advent of democratic Fourth Republic had been well documented. Let us just rewind to the juncture where Abacha suddenly died and the regime of General Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar that took over was confronted with the necessity to deliver on a short programme of transition to civil rule not exceeding eleven months in office.
As a matter of deliberateness, the power elite that straddled the military (principally retired Army Generals with their foot soldiers taking charge of strategic commands in the service) and their civilian cohorts, had pandered to the relentless agitations by pro-democracy activists, largely typified by NADECO, pushing for the revalidation of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential mandate won by Abiola, to force General Abubakar to commit to a short programme of transition. Significantly, in order to consummate their agenda to sooth the frayed nerves of the Southwest Yoruba, the presidency was micro-zoned to the zone. That was the reason the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) produced Olusegun Obasanjo as its candidate and the other two parties-All Peoples Party and Alliance for Democracy (APP/AD) produced a consensus candidate in Chief Olu Falae as the two candidates in the election. The essence was to restrict the emergence of a president to the zone in clear pacific overture.
