The South must unite to create a healthy balance of power in Nigeria

The amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates to create Nigeria in 1914was an involuntary merger. But since it happened, it should have been a true partnership of equals since neither entity conquered the other. Yet, the fear of Northern domination has historically defined inter-ethnic power struggle in Nigeria.

Indeed, in a speech in 1967, General Yakubu Gowon, then military head of state, cited “the fear of domination” for creating 12 states from the then four regions. Gowon said: “The main obstacle to future stability in this country is the present structural imbalance in the Nigerian Federation”.

By “structural imbalance”, he was referring to the fact that Northern Nigeria, one of the two protectorates, remained a humongous monolithic entity, while Southern Nigeria, the other protectorate, was divided into Eastern, Western and Mid-Western regions. Thus, of the 12 new states that Gowon created, six were from the North.

Yet, despite the North being split into six states and, over the years, into the present 19 states, the fear of Northern domination has not gone away; indeed, it has intensified, undermining the unity, stability and progress of Nigeria.

Of course, the North’s “hegemony” must be contextualised. There’s a sharp economic divide between the North and the South. The North is utterly impoverished; the South is far more prosperous. Over 80 per cent of Nigeria’s poor live in the North.

According to a UNICEF report in 2018, the North accounts for nearly 70 per cent of the over 10m out-of-school children in Nigeria. What’s more, the North is war torn, ravaged by insecurity. An ordinary Northerner might, thus, wonder: What’s the fuss about Northern domination?

But we are talking about political hegemony here. Whoever controls political power makes decisions that affect others. In a country like Nigeria where politics is winner takes all, where the president is too powerful, and the Federal Government too dominant, political hegemony matters because the group that has political dominance has control over the allocation of resources and can distribute them in an unfair and unjust manner.

Truth is if the powers of the president and of the Federal Government are significantly reduced, and if the regions become centres of political and economic powers, the centre will lose its allure, the inter-ethnic struggle to produce president will lose its existentiality and the fear of Northern domination will lose its intensity. Until such restructuring happens, the fear of domination will remain.

But the question that invariably follows is: where does the North get its hegemonic power from? Well, there are three sources. First, it’s from Britain. Lord Lugard described the South as the “rich wife” and the North as the “poor husband,” implying the latter’s superiority.

What’s more, the British regarded the South as an enemy for fighting vehemently for Nigeria’s independence and treated the North as an ally for opposing independence. Britain enabled the North and ensured it took over political control of Nigeria at independence.

The second source of the North’s hegemonic power was its head start in the military. While other young Nigerians were pursuing non-military careers, young Northerners joined the military in droves, urged on by Northern emirs.

The logic is simple: power flows from the barrel of the gun. It’s not a coincidence that, apart from the first military coup in January 1966, led by young Southern majors, all the other coups in Nigeria were led by Northern soldiers, who then ruled the country for nearly 30 years under different military regimes.

But while the leg-up from the British and the barrel of the gun gave the North absolute advantage in the past, they are no longer relevant today. So, what’s the current source of the North’s political hegemony?

Well, it stems from its large population and its ability to “weaponise” its numerical strength for its political advantage. If politics is a game of numbers, the North plays it well, and even brags about it, letting everyone know that it has the large population to decide, as it wishes, who becomes president of Nigeria.

Yet, population alone cannot and must not be the basis for securing political power in a multi-ethnic, federal state. As the Encyclopaedia Britannica puts it, in a genuine federal system, no part of the federation should be “so dominant that others have little opportunity to provide national leadership”.

The American founding fathers knew that if population determined who became president, America could become a one-party state. For instance, Democrats, who traditionally control large states like California and New York, would always produce the president.

So, under US Constitution, it’s the Electoral College vote, not the popular vote, that matters; a candidate that wins the popular vote but not the Electoral College vote won’t become president. This forces a candidate who wants to become president to win in both large and small states.

In the 2000 US presidential election Al Gore beat George Bush by more than 500,000 votes nationwide but had 266 electoral college votes against Bush’s 271.

In the 2016 presidential election, Hilary Clinton beat Donald Trump nationwide by about 3m votes but won 227 electoral college votes against Trump’s 304. So, population is irrelevant in US politics.

Nigeria’s Constitution tries to address the population issue by requiring a candidate to have a) the majority of votes cast at the election and b) “not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja”. Thus, to become president, a candidate must have one-quarter of votes cast in two-thirds of 36 states and the FCT, meaning in 25 states.

The threshold is too low and favours the North, which has a population advantage and often enjoys large turnouts at elections. That said, the North cannot produce a president without the South; winning the majority of the votes cast and having one-quarter of the votes cast in its 19 states are not enough, the Northern candidate needs to win at least one-quarter of the votes cast in at least six Southern states.

But that means the North doesn’t have to take the whole of the South seriously. Indeed, the North’s calculations have never been about the whole South. If the North can speak with one voice, as it does when it matters, it only needs one of the three Southern geopolitical zones to produce the president.

In 1979, Shehu Shagari won by aligning with part of today’s South-South. In 2015 and 2019, Buhari won by aligning with the South-West. So, the North often produces president by dividing the South, picking off one of the three zones.

Read also: 2023: ‘The Nigeria and president we need’- citizens – perspectives

This brings us to the concept of balance of power. This is an international relations concept that suggests matching one’s power against the power of the other. It can be achieved by increasing your own power and by building alliances. The South needs both internal unity and alliance to match the North’s power.

Recently, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, chairman of the Southern Governors’ Forum, speaking for the Southern governors, warned that the South would not vote for a Northern presidential candidate in 2023, adding: “Only a party that is determined to lose will field a northern candidate”.

Predictably, the Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG, and Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, huffed and puffed. But the North knows that if the South truly unites and speaks with one voice, and gets the support of the Middle Belt, which is spearheading the “Power Rotation Movement”, no Northern candidate will become president in 2023.

What’s more, the South’s unity and solid alliance with the Middle Belt will create a healthy balance of power that will inject an equilibrium into Nigeria’s political power equation.

Question: Can the South ever unite?