 It's still plus politics. Now, Dr. Obunaya Onu, a former minister of science and technology has questioned the all-progressive Congress APC over its failure to zone the 2023 presidential ticket to the Southeast. Onu disclosed this yesterday at the Eagle Square while delivering his agenda to the party delegates just before the commencement of the voting at the presidential primaries. He asked, and I quote, where is the justice? that he sacrificed his presidential ambition in the past just so two candidates from the Southwest could run. Take a listen. Mr. President will be completing his tenure by 29th of May next year. I think, you know, naturally, naturally, it should be somebody from the Southeast. I'm not saying this because I'm from the Southeast. Somebody from the Southeast that we're now replacing and that will give the opposite of South versus North and Christian versus Muslim. And it will bring stability to our nation. It will strengthen the unity of Nigeria. And I believe that this should have been done. And you know, I personally, 23 years ago, I made a personal sacrifice when there were three parties and I held the presidential ticket of one of the three. But I had to let it go in order to solve a problem in the Southwest to make sure that two or lose contested for the presidency. I heard or tell one will become a president. And that brought down tension in the country. And this is what would have happened if we allow the Southeast to, which is the, I mean, look at it. The Southwest has eight years as president. They have eight years vice president and president. Where is the justice? Where is the justice? Well, that's the question, where is the justice? And I remember watching that and there was a loud booing coming from the crowd of delegates who were representing every state in the federation. So I think the question that came to mind was, I think the question that came to mind was, he was obviously making sense, but why was he getting that much apprehension from a group of delegates in a party that he belonged to? Okay, so thank you very much. I think, good evening viewers. I think that why, I would hazard a guess as to why that booing was happening because it was more or less almost over in terms of the fact that this wasn't a place to begin to act for justice. Yes, it was a place to agitate, show your agitation verbally, but it may not have much effect if you've not been planning. He made a lot of sense. In fact, a lot of things that he said was actually factual, especially for, if you look at every region, every region coming out to, of course, agitate for that shift of power. We're talking about the supreme power now, as in terms of the real crux of what everybody's searching for. And he's thinking to himself, since 1999, that we became civilian democracy, we've had Muslim, sorry, a Northern president, we've had a South-South president, we've had the Southwest president, and we don't have Southeast president. And he, when the three parties merged to form APC was critical, in fact, was one of the pillars of the AMPP who came to get out from that party. But there's a lot of play that happens before you get to this point. I'm guessing that that's the reason why that boing was happening. But if you think very deeply about it, it made a lot of sense because it was even much, much deeper than that, down to the appointments, down to federal appointments, down to the local government distribution, down to as much as some of the security agencies, spread of security agencies. So for instance, out of 16 heads of security agencies, you don't have any from South East extraction. I want to take you on on that, but ladies and gentlemen, Ihei Beji is a political analyst, also joining us via Zoom is a legal practitioner, but Ihei, I want to take you on on that. I have had this conversation over and over again about appointments, about people from the Southeast or even the South South, leading or heading, being chief of Army staff or naval staff, and they would tell you that we don't have a huge number of these men and women in those forces. And that you have more of people from the North, the Northeast, the Northwest, the North Central in those areas. And that's why most of the time you see them rising to those positions. It's debatable. But this is what they say. Also for, and some people would say that what he says or talks about as a sacrifice of sorts, would be, so for some would be that he was rigged out of that position. And so why is he saying that he sacrificed it? Is he trying to say that he was a good luck journalist and in this instance? Well, I mean, before every appointment is made as, I mean, it's called positioning. So I mean, every region positions themselves. I mean, for a region to understand the strategic nature of a handshake across very different divides, you need to begin to position yourselves. You need to position yourselves up to the point where you have fully top ranked officers who can take over at the highest level of positions, a higher level of offices. But then again, it also behoves on the president and the top office to appoint, make such appointments. So even if you position yourself up to that top rank and the president does not deem it necessary, you will not get that position. So for instance, you have an IGP, for instance, who maybe has not gotten up to the level of a DIG, so to speak, and is going to be picked to be made an IG. What normally would happen is what? Every other person who is above him. He's retired. He's retired. So that's how it works. So at the end of the day, it all boils down to not just the preference of the president, but our federal character and the equity, which is one of the things that we are talking about. So aside positioning, that also comes into play. You know, the political evaluation and political strategizing in the power structure, it has to work that way. And so for, unfortunately, it hasn't worked very well for the Southeast. If you look at the spread of the political appointments within this cycle, if I may, you look at the Northwest, Northwest has 37. You look at North Central, 21. You look at Southwest, 64. You look at North East, 29. You look at South, South, 24. And you look at the South East, 15. So these are some of the things that you begin to look at, then you begin to put one or two together, one or two together, and you ask yourself, okay, so where is the equity? And that's exactly, these are some of the things that bring the angers to what he's saying. But you also need to understand the fact that there is a role that is played, as I said earlier, by the political class, by the presidency, and there's a role that's played by the region. The region needs to begin to bond together. I was about to toss that question to you, Barsatricu, we've heard the Southeast complain over and over again about being given the short end of the stick, always. Whether it be a government that's even under a South-South government or a Southwest government, the Southeast always seems to be getting the short end of the stick. And Ihe is also saying that maybe there's a death of positioning and structuring that would put you in a position where you would be peaked for these offices, or even for the Southeast to be able to spread and say, well, it's our turn, and are able to also make sure that they get that turn. But what's your take? Okay, so thank you for having me. This has become a recurring thing in the Nigerian policy. I think to me, this appears to be the closest that Southeast, or people from the Southeast, have gotten to in terms of being the flag bearer of a ruling political party. Why did I say that? Because at least up to midnight or early hours of this morning, at least the winner of the APC primaries was not known until the vote started to roll by and the counting started. But for me, I would say that we need to deemphasize this issue of every time or any time we are close to a political, say, okay, let me be specific, the primaries for presidential election. You begin to hear politicians shout, mention, one region or the other. I think we need to deemphasize that. Let us, if what Nigerians wants to follow is to allow for the people to vote, is to allow for the best candidate to admit. We should completely take a dive into that and allow that to work. What that will not mean will be that whoever that will be elected or that will fly the ticket of a political party will be by merit. I don't understand why in one place. But is there not also a loophole in that? Because you see, merits can also one way or the other put certain persons in a corner. Again, merits can be that, oh, this guy's smart, he's intelligent, but then how many people does he have lined up behind him? That's what pushes again, because politics is a game of numbers, not necessarily about sentiment. So you might be smart, you might be good, you might merit it, but then we don't give it to you because you don't have the numbers. So what happens then? What I'm saying is that I don't like this in one breath. The politicians will be shouting north and south, letting them to north and south. In another breath, you will see the politicians do exactly opposite. If the main aim, or maybe to encourage stability and inclusiveness, and Nigerians or the political parties or decide to now go zoning, why don't we go, allow that zoning to work, or allow the zoning to get to the extreme? For instance, over from 1999 up to the, into this administration, the issue of zoning between north and south worked until we got to the point where the zoning was again to come to the south. And looking at the south, you will see that the only region or zone that has not taken a shot at the presidency from 1990, now, in the southeast, ordinarily, for equity and fair play, it should have been zoned like it was zoned in 1999 to the southwest. It should have been zoned to the southeast. What do we have? We now, what we are hearing is north-south, north-south, north-south. If we are zoning across the two regions, north and south, it therefore means that one particular region should not be allowed to produce the president at every given time. Okay. That's why I now said, if we want to do away with zoning, let us completely do away with zoning. Okay. And let it be like as it were, survival of the fittings or whoever, let the candidate that has the clouds, the candidate that has the money. For instance, I know that whatever that will come out of this, particularly the two big political parties, the PDP and the APC, I can tell you that's not the will of the people. Okay. It is the will of money. Okay. Those that can be able to raise the millions. They are the ones that contested. I can even tell you, maybe it's by sheer more that those that contested came from a particular region. They came, some came from the north, some came from the southeast, and some came. But if you look at them, you will see the whole thing is an assemblage of millionaires or billionaires in Nigeria. All right. That does not in any shape or form reflect, the reflect Nigerians. All right. Let me come to Ihe because we are almost out of time. Where do we go from here? Because he's made very interesting points. It seems like it's a convenient rhetoric to put out there every campaign season. How do we change the narrative going forward? Because we can't keep coming back here every election cycle. I totally accept what he says when he speaks to meritocracy. But you see we have six geopolitical zones, seven or seven before local governments spread across the nation. And there's meritocracy that exists in all of that. How do we change the narrative? We need to look deep into the equity redistribution of political offices. So I mean, the two positions, the two key parties, APC and PDP, have a southwest and a north. And then incidentally, the southeast has one in Louisville party, even though it's not the front line, it's not considered the front line, so to speak. But we need to begin to look at whoever is the winner must be magnanimous in victory and actually implement federal character. As for Dr. Bonaya's position, the region, the southeast region, which I'm from, was born together really strongly and begin to reassert themselves now, as of now. I would say you have a candidate already. We're born around him and push for it. On the other hand, we speak with one voice. Seven years ago, APC flag bearer has set a plan. Yesterday, we saw governors from member southwest states step down for him. He had done a handshake across the divide. We had about three or four candidates from southeast extraction and they all stood on the podium. Some stepped down for the southwest candidate. No bonding together. These are very crucial points that we need to take to heart. Well, unfortunately, time is not on our side, but we will revisit this conversation, of course, because campaign season is upon us and there is a lot to talk about. But Ihei Beji is a political analyst and Obinat Chiku is a legal practitioner. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Thank you very much, Rami. We've had a conversation. All right, well, this is where we wrap up on the show today. It's been a very interesting 20, 48 hours, if you ask me, but tomorrow is another day. We'll be talking for development. I am Mary Anna Cohn. Have a good evening.