Senator Roland Stephen Owie is a founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Chief Whip of the Nigeria Senate in 1999. He was also a member of the House of Representatives 1979-1983 on the platform of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). In this interview, he advised that the leading opposition party should zone its presidential ticket to the North come 2023.
What is your view on the agitation that the presidency be zoned to the South in 2023?
Where there is no justice, there can’t be peace. Zoning is not in PDP constitution but it was brought in to ensure justice. It was on the basis of the perceived injustice meted out to the South West following the annulment of June 12 won by late Chief MKO Abiola that the presidency was ceded to the geopolitical zone, hence the emergence of Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999.
So, if you calculate; from 1999 till date under the PDP, the South has taken 14 years as president of this country while the North only took two years plus. The PDP will be unjust if it picks its candidate from the South. The PDP is the only party that believes in the unity of this country, the presidency for 2023 must go to the North. Let no individual’s interest or ambition stop PDP from doing what is right. On APC, I can’t talk for them but the North has taken eight years so they are very free to rotate their presidency to the South.
How would you react to the allegation that southerners championing a northern presidency in 2023 are doing so for pecuniary interest and political relevance?
If you are talking about poverty, it is 90 percent in the North. The southern parts of Nigeria do not have that level of poverty. A number of the northern political leaders will leave Abuja on a Friday and move to their towns, they will visit their homes where their wives are and after some hours, they leave for their guest houses. Which money are they talking about? Election is a game of numbers: check the voters register for now and see the votes in the various zones of the country. If you don’t have the votes, can you make the change? If because of greed we jettison zoning, in the next 300 years, the South will never produce the president of this country because this is a game of numbers.
Go to some parts of the North and you will see a man with 78 children, which he can’t take care of, they are on the street but when it is election time, they will go and vote. Economically, they are useless but politically they are useful. But you and I here are not ready to have more than three or four children. I went to New Benin to see my aunt and tell her to go and register, she asked me whether I am contesting any election. That means it is only when I am contesting that she will register, whereas in the North, they will queue to register. North West alone has 29 million registered voters excluding the new one, yet South-East and South-South put together have less than 19 million, so how do you win?
In the on-going registration exercise, Borno State where there is war has registered over 3.7 million, here in the South we are still talking grammar. I always tell the truth; when Jonathan wanted to contest for a second tenure, I told him not to contest based on the circumstances, that he will be defeated woefully but other leaders asked him to go ahead, saying ‘this is our time’, but what happened? When there is no truth, there is danger, and we pretend because we are self-centred.
You preach equity, fairness and justice, how can we achieve this considering the present situation?
When you talk about marginalization, in 1999, the PDP zoned presidency to the South West, Vice President to the North, Senate president to the South East, Chief Whip South-South, Deputy Speaker to South-South, Speaker to the North. The Speaker of the House was only changed once because Salisu Buhari had issues with his certificate and after him Ghali Umar Na’aba emerged Speaker and through the remaining seven and a half years, in spite of all the resources Obasanjo pushed out to the northern members in the House to impeach him, they will collect his money and refused to do his bidding. That is a sign of people with conscience, people that believe in themselves but the Senate Presidency that was zoned to the South-East, they were ready to change the Senate president every hour. Within that period, five presidents of the Senate came from the South-East. Is that a good testimony? Christ said if you are not accountable in little things, how will you be accountable in bigger things? Even if today the presidency is zoned to the South, 100 people will come out from the South-East and at the end of the day, another person from another zone will clinch it. Everybody needs to put their homes in order and then you can be a good player at the centre.
(Daily Trust)
