Between 2002 and 2010: Anenih flip-flops on zoning

Written by Daily Trust Tuesday, 29 June 2010 05:28

Former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party’s [PDP] Board of Trustees Chief Tony Anenih said last week that the party’s policy of zoning and power rotation was not sacrosanct, but he actually said in 2002 that the policy was sacrosanct, Daily Trust learnt from unearthed internal party documents at the weekend.

The documents showed that Chief Anenih, who at the time was Minister of Works and the widely acknowledged “Mr. Fix-It” of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime, vehemently stood behind the PDP’s zoning and power rotation arrangements in the run up to the 2003 general elections, saying the presidency must remain in the South till 2007, “when the reverse will be the case.”

In a letter he wrote to the then national chairman of the PDP Chief Audu Ogbeh shortly before the party’s presidential primaries for the 2003 general elections, Chief Anenih emphatically referred to the ‘sanctity’ of the zoning arrangement which he said was observed ‘to the letter in 1998.’ He strongly urged the then party chairman to ensure that zoning was protected. He made a detailed reference to the history of PDP’s zoning arrangement and said it was sacrosanct, and he told the chairman to ensure that it was upheld.

Anenih’s letter to Audu Ogbe dated 5th August 2002, stated, “You will recall that the sanctity of PDP zoning arrangement was obeyed to the letter in 1998/1999 general elections. It was the zoning, which is still valid, that gave the principal officers both in the party and executive the following positions in 1998/1999:

National Chairman    - North; President - South; Vice President - North; President of the Senate – South; Speaker of the House of Representatives –North; National Secretary - South; Deputy Senate President –North; Deputy Speaker - South.

“As it was in 1998 up till date, only candidates from the North were allowed to contest for the post of national chairman. In the same vein, only candidates from the South collected presidential nomination forms. The only aspirant from the North –Alhaji Abubakar Rimi –withdrew from the race before the convention.

“As a result, only Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Chief Jim Nwobodo, Chief Graham Douglas and Chief Don Etiebet attended the convention in Jos and contested. Of course Chief Olusegun Obasanjo won and became presidential candidate.

“I am writing to put you on notice so that you will remember when you are considering the guidelines for the presidential primaries that the above zoning arrangement stands till 2007 when the reverse will be the case.”   

Last week however, Chief Anenih did a complete flip-flop in a widely reported letter he wrote to the PDP’s National Working Committee, dated 14th June 2010. He said in the letter that the zoning arrangement is not sacrosanct, saying that it had been “observed more in breach than in practice especially in 2003 and 2007.”

He said late Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and Chief Barnabas Gemade had defied the zoning arrangement and picked nomination forms of the party and contested the primaries against former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

In  his recent letter to the NWC, which was routed through the then acting national chairman Dr. Bello Haliru Mohammed before the emergence of Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo,  the former BOT chairman now said President Goodluck Jonathan can be a candidate in the 2011 presidential elections regardless of the PDP zoning of the office to the North.

Chief Anenih’s position on zoning in 2002/2003 was apparently because, that time, he was the chief manager of then President Olusegun Obasanjo’s re-election campaign and in particular, was looking for a way to stop Vice President Atiku Abubakar from challenging Obasanjo for the PDP presidential ticket. This time around, Anenih, who has been forcefully displaced by Obasanjo as PDP BOT chairman, is trying to reposition himself for a role in President Jonathan’s efforts to overturn the policy in order to enable him contest for the 2011 ticket.