The Presidency — By Prince Emeka Obasi
Business Hallmark Newspaper, April 26–May 2, 2010

The presidential election in 2011 is shaping up as epic battle. On the surface it looks like a mere contest between the declared contestants, and the multiple ones waiting at the wings. But it is not, it is far deeper than that. It is a battle between the two forces that have bedevilled Nigeria since the 1959 Federal elections which threw up the Zik-Balewa coalition government and Chief Awolowo as the leader of opposition. By throwing his lot with Ahmadu Bello, Zik reduced the three ways argument to two. Unfortunately for Zik and subsequently for his Igbo people, his perspective to Nigeria was not inculcated into the NPC’s overall philosophy, rather, it was simply discarded to form the government. So, for anyone seeking to understand why the Igbos have become increasingly unimportant and irrelevant in Nigeria politics today, that is part one of the answers. The other part is of course, the civil war which is not the main subject of this write-up.

When Chief Obafemi Awolowo retreated into opposition, he set up the platform for the emergence of a sustained political government, the Progressive Movement, which has overtime developed many fronts. Socio-political and philosophical purists may argue that it is wrong to lump all opposition movements in Nigeria since 1959 within the Progressive Movement founded by Awolowo. Well, such an argument is both right and wrong. Right, in the sense that technically, there have been differences even within the Progressive Movement but also wrong because the movement has transcended simple classification and is rather a thought process with various strands. In its present form it can be seen as an amalgam of movements — religious, civic, political and even professional. In other words, it included the political parties: Action Congress and Labour, the Labour Movement, activist journalists and crusading lawyers, the Human Rights Organization, the Pentecostal Churches, the bulk of the mass media and in a sense, the mainstream of the international community.

Whereas the objectives of all these groups may reflect on its entirety, Awo’s political world view encapsulates its central theme — Progressive. In Nigeria, that has come to mean identification with such noble political aspirations like good governance, rule of law, fiscal federalism, human rights etc. On the other hand, the conservative movement which does not necessarily harbour such objectives has nevertheless allowed itself to be profiled as reactionary, corrupt, undemocratic etc. First the NPC, the NPN, and the NRC, now the PDP, have all come to symbolize such tendencies. The AG, the UPN, and SDP, the AD and now AC and Labour Party have represented the Progressive tendency in Nigeria.

Since 1959 the conservative group has tended to be the stronger political platform. But all that changed in 1993 when the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, politician with a distinct conservative view, jettisoned the group and joined the progressives. His election, on the platform of the SDP, even though subsequently annulled, was a watershed in the history of Nigeria. It energized the progressive movement and opened new horizons. Even the annulment of the result can be seen in the context of the raging battle between the two groups. The military industrial complex, a component of the conservative movement, moved in to halt the advance of progressives.

However, in spite of the premature termination of the progressives, they have continued to advance, and I contend that they are at their most formidable today. The leader of the group, Asiwaju Ahmad Bola Tinubu, is battle ready and has amassed an armada to engage in the 2011 political battle.