Atiku Abubakar was himself a beneficiary of zoning in 1999 and 2007, when he emerged as vice president in the Olusegun Obasanjo administration and presidential candidate of the Ahmed Bola Tinubu led Action Congress party in 2027, when it was the turn of the north after eight years in the south. And he will go on to protest the violation of zoning when he returned to PDP by in 2011 by Goodluck Jonathan after the death of Umar Musa Yar’Adua from northern Nigeria in 2010. On this occasion, the northern wing of the PDP under the leadership of Adamu Ciroma, had vehemently insisted that southerners stay off the presidency of Nigeria on the platform of the party including the sitting southern president Goodluck Jonathan who was Yar’Adua’s vice; a northern position that was strongly backed bysome southern politicians like then chairman of the party, Vincent Ogbulafor and Rotimi Amaechi, who was then governor of Rivers state and later chairman of Nigerian governor’s forum. But when majority of northern governors decided to bend the rules of zoning to accommodate the unforeseen and unfortunate circumstance that was the time, Amaechi mobilised Rivers state people behind Goodluck Jonathan.
That Amaechi may not end up a tragic hero, By Majeed Dahiru
