WHEN children of different mothers quarrel over their patrimony, it is only a fool who says peace in the family is not what matters most.
Nigeria is one larger ‘polygamous’ setting whose fratricidal feuds over the years provide useful lessons for those who care to learn from history.
The West African country often referred to as the ‘giant of Africa’ due to its large population has over 170 million inhabitants.
The country is extremely diverse, with over 500 ethnic groups and over 250 spoken languages.
About 50 percent of the country is Muslim, 40 percent is Christian and 10 percent indigenous tribal.
Islam mostly dominates northern Nigeria, whereas Christians are concentrated in the south.
The major feuds in the Nigerian polity since its independence in 1960 have been mainly over leadership.
Be it the civil war of 1967-70 or the Gideon Orkar-led attempted coup of 1990, or the 1993 crisis now referred to as the ‘June 12’.
Yet the leadership question in Nigeria has lingered unresolved for the last fifty-five years.
Nigerians will tomorrow, March 28, go to the polls to elect their president, parliamentarians, state governors and assembly members following a six-week postponement due to heavy fighting in the northern region of the country.
The presidential election promises to be a close one between Goodluck Jonathan of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and a former military leader, Muhammadu Buhari of the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC).
Although there are a number of other candidates running, only Jonathan and Buhari have sufficient national support to win the presidency.
According to the latest polls, each candidate has approximately 42 percent support.
Jonathan represents the Christian, southern region of Nigeria, while Buhari represents the Muslim, northern region.
Historically, the unwritten rule had been that the presidency should rotate between a southerner and a northerner.
The custom of rotating the president’s seat was put in place to minimise the religious and civil strife between the Muslim north and Christian south.
However, this custom was broken following the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010 when then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner took office during the north’s ‘turn’ from 2006 to 2011.
According to the custom, the 2011 election ought to officially select a southerner as the prior presidential term had been split between the north and the south.
Lacking a precedent for half terms, the north argued that by finishing the term of the deceased, the south had already had its turn but the south contended that the previous presidential election went to the north.
Similar to this year’s election, the 2011 election was held between Jonathan and General Buhari.
Buhari took power through a coup in 1983 and ruled for two years.
He ran for president in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 elections, failing to win a majority each time and also unsuccessfully disputing the results.
Although Buhari won the majority of the votes from the north, Jonathan won the overall election in 2011.
Following Jonathan’s win which was disputed by the north, Nigeria became more religiously and ethnically fragmented and violent.
Widespread rioting and civil unrest ensued based on religious and ethnic lines.
The Muslim north felt that it had been cheated out of its turn at the presidency.
The radical Muslims became increasingly violent, while the other northeners, feeling pushed out of the political process, perceived insurgency as their only option.
However, the seemingly intractable leadership crisis is deeply rooted in the colonial era.
The British were able to achieve a transfer of power to the North by outright manipulation of the system in two ways.
First, they manipulated census figures to favour the North by ascribing numerical demographic superiority to it.
British colonialists repealed the principle of North-South parity in the allocation of seats in parliament, and instead introduced a population weighted principle that allocated 52 percent of the seats in parliament to the North.
Second, they tactically delayed Nigerian Independence so that necessary human capital could be in place in the North before granting independence.
Thus since 1960 except for the intervals of January to July 1966; 1976-1979; and August to November 1993, the North had held on to power until 1999.
These historical differences have led to increased conflicts between the north and south.
To the credit of Nigerians, the leadership question appeared to have been understood.
This time around should be the North’s turn.
Past experiences have shown that the unwritten rotational presidency policy seems to be the only workable remedy for Nigeria.
The approach managed to have reasonably stabilised Nigeria between 1999 and 2011, as fear of ‘ethnic hegemony’ appeared not to have been as pronounced as it once was.
Only that this time around the principle should be accommodated in the constitution where its nitty-gritty can be spelt out.
However, some perceive tomorrow’s elections as important in determining the direction of Nigeria’s leadership.
If Jonathan wins, the custom of presidential rotation will be completely broken.
If that is the case, then Nigeria will need to address the political process and include northerners in the new government.
But indications are that the north would perceive this shift as pushing the Muslim regions out of the political process.
Boko Haram and possibly other insurgents would become increasingly aggressive.
Whatever the outcome of the election: Good luck, no pun intended, Nigeria.