Zoning Formulas & Our Polity - By Charly Boy

 

Article written by Charly Boy. Read below and share your thoughts

Really been thinking about this zoning thing since this APC drama on it and wondering why we have allowed this to eat so deep into our system that at every quarter, it always raises its head. To think that the Change agents everyone has been clamoring about are back to the same issue of zoning formulas and reports have it that it is fast wreaking havoc is a high. It makes me wonder why zone in the first place?

The 360 states in the house of assembly, is it not enough representation for any quarter of the nation. Why do we need to complicate issues further because one would have thought the primary concern when it comes to appointment should be competence? We have tried this zoning thing over and again but what better has it done us because I hear someone say it helps to foster unity and participation.

I think the divides are more obvious now with this whole zoning thingy than it was with our founding fathers. I'm probably going to rest this argument by drawing this analogy; Take a look at our team called Super Eagles! Has anybody ever asked that positions in our football team be distributed across zones, or that the position of the captain, or coach for that matter, be rotated between North and South, etc? That I think is clearly because everyone is more interested in the team winning. I ask myself why do we want this win so badly? What is the price at stake? A piece of metal called trophy I suppose.

How about the Struggle to alleviate poverty staring at our face? How about the fight to educate millions of Almajiri? How about the fight to eradicate polio and reduce maternal mortality to negligible numbers? How about the fight to increase power generation seven fold by 2020? We have so much more at stake in these fights that the Super Eagle will ever have yet we let something as flippant as zoning take the Centre stage over competence. So, how is it we can demand that the coach pick out best 23 for the World Cup, and yet tolerate less in our Government? I hope posterity does not judge us for our lack of objectivity and sentiments instead.