One plus that accrues to Edo State politically is that every four years, the Edo governorship election has a different date from the main election dates of the federation. That stagger, from the national political grid, naturally allows the entire nation to give it focus and there is ample time and unfettered space for robust discussions about the likely outcomes.

So it is now as the countdown has invariably begun to the seventh governorship elections in the state, that is, seventh since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999. Permutation and extrapolation are on. Graphs are being drawn just as political pundits are analysing and re-analysing the pathways and players that would determine the next occupant of Osadebay Avenue, come 2024. Critical among the many crucial strands of political and social discourses about this all-important governorship elections in Edo State is the subject of zoning.

We in Ogbakha-Edo, ever conscious of the socio-political terrains we survey and sensitive to the interplay of forces impinging on the fortunes of the good people of Edo South and, indeed, of the entire Edo State, wish to record our views about this trending issue of zoning.

Some may wonder why this rejoinder is pertinent since political parties are yet to officially announce their candidates. Yet, social, traditional and grapevine media have obvious iterations that already seek to spin a predetermined narrative for the position of governor in Edo State. And quite unfortunately, the body and voice languages seem determined to dictate that only a governor from Edo Central is morally entitled to aspire for and acquire the apex seat of our dear state in 2024.

The primary “justification” by the proponents of this posture is the argument that sixteen out of the twenty-four years of our reborn, albeit nascent, democratic sojourn in the state have been filled by governors of Edo South extraction. Growing from this purported marginalisation which is being surreptitiously spun into an emotional blackmail of sorts is a nearly enervating contention of the Esan Agenda sponsors. In words and in deeds, some seek to demonise anyone who dares to hold an alternative view to their Esan-must-rule position.

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We do not believe that a tribal card, cleverly adorned with the cloak of zoning, is what Edo State needs at this point. We do not think that tribal descent is the foremost consideration in catapulting the state from its current nearly antediluvian age of untold backwardness and underdevelopment spanning the length and breadth of our urban and rural centres to a frontline destination of trade, commerce and wealth.

To pursue crucially needed cognate development in Edo State, to make progress and happiness available to our people, we must embrace open mindedness and decide wisely. Our mission here is to enlighten our people sufficiently and therefore broaden the thinking of well-meaning Edo citizens so that we do not mark time for four more years while neighbouring baby states are placing themselves on the map of world recognition for good.

Quite clearly, the politics of zoning has no place in the laws of our land as far as political positions are concerned. Political parties, of course, have the liberty to employ zoning as a policy of fairness and inclusiveness. Instructive it is though that mature political permutations often require that parties look before they leap and so would never sacrifice quality representation and quest for electoral victory on the altar of tribal considerations.

Politics is a game of numbers, not an exercise in emotional gymnastics and puerile infantilism. Parties put their best feet forward, understanding that, as Yale professor of law and political scientist Harold Lasswell puts it, “politics is about who gets what, when and how.” We expect that vying political parties in the state would field robust candidates who model a meeting point of cognate experience in public office dealings with private sector understanding; capacity and a clear articulation of dire and needed expectations; true grassroots representation thinking fuelled by longstanding connection with grassroots’ hopes and aspirations of the good people of the state; and, of course, a capacity to pool the needed human support to win an election in a fairly plural state like ours.

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Our Esan brothers should not expect that the numbers would be swallowed up in tribal patronage. If indeed we are one, having a consanguinity that draws from the deepest of historical roots, Esan quite clearly being the junior in the Edoid nativity, it should not be hard for them to accept that whether from Edo South, North or Central, a good governor is a good governor. The days of expecting development only on the platter of tribal presence in Osadebay Avenue are far gone. Ours should be a mindset that frees our political space to throw up persons who can bring the much needed development to the state. It is not tied to tribe, and shouldn’t be.

As Ciceros and elderly citizens in the political space of Edo, we believe we have capacity to see beyond narrow sentiments. Thus, it is crucial that we sound the bell now, resonate and reverberated. A pursuit of a purely tribal agenda will ultimately place the peace loving people of Edo State on an unnecessary pathway of collision, hatred and anomie. Emotions will be bruised, tribal intolerance could spiral out of control as the signs already suggest in the dialogues surfacing on social media spaces. We must not allow present day politicians draw us into a fight of blame in which they have personal and ulterior motives. The subtle attempt to introduce bad blood into our peaceful state in the name of zoning must be resisted by all. The ploy to achieve personal objectives by knocking heads in the state must be firmly challenged and overthrown.

We have been governed in this state by an Esan man who demonstrated capacity and a love for the entire state. Professor Ambrose Alli of evergreen memory was a governor for all. He neither rose to that status by flying the Esan Agenda flag nor were non-Esan candidates made to feel threatened through emotional blackmail. The tenure of the respected late professor of morbid anatomy came on board as a vision whose time had inevitably come. Citizens gave their votes not because of a zoning reward or political grandstanding and gang up but as a natural concomitance of massive acceptance of a self-effacing man who sought to serve his state. Coming as minority in a state that then included the Niger Delta in the defunct Bendel State, he won the elections to become the first executive governor of then Bendel State.

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Beyond that, we must ask, “Whose nest is about to be feathered by this tribal drumming in the land?” Who is pushing, and for what purpose? We question the altruism of this nauseous inorganic political concoction being prepared for purely selfish reasons but deodorised with a false perfume of zoning. Edo must resist any attempts to give the state as reward for privately driven interests.

One underbelly of this new mantra is the rightness of foisting a play on Edo State which was not permitted at the national level. Charity would have been seen to have begun at home had the PDP as a political party, for instance, insisted that the zoning system be employed in choosing who ran its flag during the last presidential elections. It smacks of double standards to be supportive of a non-zoning and liberalised internal electioneering for the 2023 presidential event, lining up behind a candidate of northern extraction who would have succeeded another northerner, but now attempt to deprive citizens of our state the full latitude to seek the number one position of the state because of their tribes. That cannot be allowed.

Edo is blessed with citizens who can govern this equally blessed state. Edo can be far better than it is today. We cannot submit ourselves to narrow tribal compulsives in the name of zoning or impose upon0 ourselves limitations that cannot do for the larger number of people the greater good in the shortest possible time. Whether Edo South, North or Central, the right to breathe is not limited to minority tribes. The majority also needs oxygen and protection from political asphyxation in the pretended name of zoning. The Right to breathe should be thrown open as it was in the February 25th Presidential election by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

By Professor Sam Guobadia and  Dr. A. O. Izekor, Chairman and Secretary, Ogbakha-Edo