Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has called for an end to zoning arrangements for political offices in the country.
According to El-Rufai, zoning should begin to take a back seat in favour of competence.
Although an informal arrangement, the position of the President currently rotates between the North and the South.
With President Muhammadu Buhari from the North serving his second and his last term as allowed by the constitution, there are already talks about the South producing the next President in 2023.
But making his position known in a prologue titled, ‘Defeating a Determined Incumbent – The Nigerian Experience’, which he contributed to a book –Power of Possibilities and Politics of Change in Nigeria – written by the Director-General of the Progressives Governors’ Forum, Salihu Lukman, El-Rufai lamented that zoning undermines political equality.
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He said, “Even with our success in the 2015 elections, there is room for improvement. Barriers to political equality, such as our seemingly entrenched though informal rule for zoning candidacies according to regions of origin, need to be de-emphasised and ultimately abandoned in favour of an emphasis on qualification, competence and character.
“The financing of parties, candidates and campaigns remains opaque.
“Many African countries are marked by savage inequalities, and a handful of individuals have the wherewithal to hold the process hostage.
“We must work towards funding parties via capped and fully disclosed donations and annual dues payable by every registered party member.”
On what is needed to develop Nigeria’s democracy, the Kaduna governor said, ” aunified opposition preferably merged into a single and well-structured political party well ahead of the next election cycle, and with transparent processes and progressive policies.
“A presidential candidate widely seen as credible and reformist to provide a sharp contrast to incumbents usually fattened by years of lazy, incompetent and corrupt rule.
“Honest elections that guarantee that votes count, using a mixture of competent electoral commission leadership and, crucially, deploying technologies for voter verification that drastically reduces electoral fraud.
“Credible elections are enemies of voter apathy. They enhance democratic legitimacy and citizen participation.
“Continuous engagement of the international community, particularly in the leading stable democracies as well as in multilateral institutions, to supply a crucial external fillip to the electoral process.”