The Nigerian Presidential Primaries of 2023 stirred anger across the country when the ruling All Progress Congress, APC, ended up with a Muslim-Muslim ticket. That simply means that, while the Presidential candidate is a Muslim, his running mate is also a Muslim. Northern Christians felt insulted by it. The party has zoned the position of the VP to the north.
| New Government House, Rayfield, Jos |
This plan stirred a conversation that refused to abate to the point that a Senator from Kogi West, Smart Adeyemi, decided he was sponsoring a bill to ban same-faith tickets. That means that if the bill is passed, it will make it impossible for any presidential candidate to come up with a running mate from the same religion as his. So, if you are a Christian, you must have a Muslim running mate and vice versa.
A lot of political pundits feel there is nothing smart about the bill; it will just stir a huge conflagration across the country. The fear is that, should that bill get passed, there is a strong possibility some states would start asking for it, as well. In so many states across northern Nigeria with predominantly Muslim populations, it has always been a Muslim-Muslim tag team. The Christian minorities in many of such states have come to accept it and it is normal to them. In Kaduna, the southern half is predominantly Christian. They have always produced the deputy governor until Nasir El Rufai decided he wasn't going that way during his second tenure as governor. I have heard someone from Nassarawa State saying that the state will never have a Christian governor. If Plateau State will never get a Muslim governor, why should they, in Nassarawa State, have a Christian governor?
Plateau State, which is predominantly a Christian state, has always had a Christian-Christian ticket. It isn't because someone has anything against Muslims. Rather, it is the political dynamics that make it so.
Plateau State has an ethnic population of more than forty tribes. Of these, there are five major ones, which include the Berom, Mwaghavul, Ngas, Taroh and Gomai. Though the Muslim community in the state is huge, it can never be compared with the population of any of these tribes. So, if an Ngas man becomes a gubernatorial candidate, he will want to run with a Berom man. This is because the Berom, spreading across four out of the seventeen local government areas, has a huge population. If it turns out that a Berom man is also contesting for the same seat, he would turn to any of Ngas, Taroh or Gomai for a running mate. They wouldn't want to risk going for a Muslim, since the Muslims, though huge in number, can't be compared with the population of any of these tribes.
Someone may ask: if in Kaduna State, Christians have produced deputy governors, why is it not happening in Plateau. In Plateau State, if you decide you are going with a minority tribe and your opponent decides he is going with a major tribe, you risk the chance of losing.
A further reason why a Muslim hasn't become a sidekick to any governor in the more than two decades of democratic rule is because of the timidity of the Hausa population, particularly in Jos-North. They don't seem interested in Plateau politics as a whole. Rather, they are only interested in the politics of Jos-North. It is something that is within their grasp, enabling a Hausa or a Fulani man to become Chairman of the council.
Since we are practising democracy, it will be unwise to have a bill that aims to stifle the freedom that democracy represents. Nigeria is a secular state, after all. That means that, though Nigerians are free to practice any religion of their liking, the government wouldn't allow religion to influence the decision it makes. It wouldn't use its resources to support the growth and development of any religions.
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