Rotational presidency necessary to give everyone sense of belonging — Shehu Sani
By Jeffrey Agbo
Senator Shehu Sani has said that he believes rotating the office of the president between the north and south helps to give everyone a sense of belonging.
“We are a country of experience. There are many African countries that never had the kind of experience we had,” the former lawmaker told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday.
“We had been through a period of violent military coup, civil war, different democratic governments and military rules, and we all survived.
“Now we are experiencing banditry, terrorism and I believe we will survive.
“If you look at the multi-ethnic/religious nations such as ours, people feel more comfortable when they see someone from their part of the country in power.”
Sani said that given the rotation of the presidency, no part of the country in power could use either their demographic or geographical advantage to remain in office perpetually.
He recalled that before the emergence of former President Goodluck Jonathan, there were several incidents of attacks on the country’s oil pipelines.
He, however, stressed the need for Nigerians to realise the fact that rotational presidency might not mean that when a president comes from a particular part of the country, that the problems of the people from that zone would automatically be solved.
“Former President Muhammadu Buhari was seen by the northerners as a magician and a miracle worker who would solve all the problems of northern Nigeria; he came, saw and left the problems as they were.
“Now it is the turn of the South-West, Jonathan had equally left, maybe other parts of the country yet to be there are the ones dreaming what others had already experienced.
“I believe that it will reach a point in our history where everyone will realise that the ethnic and religious identities of a leader doesn’t mean the solutions to the problems before a nation and that is when we will consider abandoning rotation of the presidential seat,” he said.
On the recent mass killings in Yelewata, Guma area of Benue, Sani said the problem needs to be tackled to avoid recurrence.
According to him, the solution to the problem is for the northerners to see the situation as a collective problem that should be jointly addressed.
“It is time for the political leaders in these parts of the country to sit down and address the problem, to secure both the people and the country.
“How this can be done is simple. For instance in Benue, the Fulani people have been living in there for more than a century and have been well accommodated.
“There is even a folk relationship between the Tiv people and the Fulani people for centuries. So at what point was the trigger for this violence?
“This is what the north needs to dig into and address. The Fulani people are not farmers, they are herders, while the Tiv people and Idoma people are farmers.
“If you allow your cattle to destroy the crops in the farm of someone, you are destroying the person’s life and if you go and spray pesticides that kill my cattle, you are equally triggering an issue,” he said.
