A fresh battle over who should produce Nigeria’s next president has opened, with Arise News Director and Politics Editor Sumner Sambo questioning why the South West should continue to dominate the presidency and other top political positions in the southern part of the country.
Sambo raised the issue while examining the growing debate over zoning, regional balance and the race for political power ahead of future elections.
He questioned why the South West should continue to have an advantage over other regions in the South, pointing to the political positions the region has occupied since the return of democracy in 1999.
According to him, the South West has already enjoyed eight years of the presidency and eight years of the vice presidency since 1999. He further argued that President Bola Tinubu’s tenure has added another four years to the region’s presidential record, bringing the total period of presidential control associated with the South West to 12 years.
The comments have added fresh heat to the argument over which region should produce Nigeria’s next president and whether political power should continue to move between regions.
However, the wider claim that Nigeria operates a formal North South zoning arrangement has been challenged.
Nigeria has never reached a nationwide agreement on zoning involving all political parties, civil society groups and political pressure organisations. There is also no official constitutional North South zoning arrangement governing presidential elections.
The strongest formal commitment to zoning exists within the Peoples Democratic Party, which has incorporated the principle into its constitution. Other political parties have not been bound by a nationwide North South zoning formula.
Since 1999, presidential elections have generally featured politicians from both the northern and southern parts of the country on the ballot, regardless of political party. The major exception was the 1999 election, when the political circumstances surrounding the transition from military rule produced a different arrangement.
The six geopolitical zones also do not represent a simple North versus South political structure. The zones were created during the military era under General Sani Abacha as a framework for regional administration and political balancing, and they have subsequently become an important part of Nigeria’s political conversation about representation and power sharing.
The argument over regional rotation has also exposed competing claims within the North.
The North West has produced presidents and held the presidency for more than a decade through the administrations of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Muhammadu Buhari.
That history has raised questions about the current ambitions of politicians from the region who may seek the presidency in 2031.
Critics argue that it would be difficult to justify another North West presidential bid when the North East and North Central have yet to produce a president since the return to democracy in 1999.
The debate has therefore moved beyond the simple question of whether power should return to the North or remain in the South.
It now involves a much wider question about which of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones should be considered next in the country’s informal power sharing tradition.
The South itself is also divided by the argument.
While the South West currently controls the presidency through Tinubu, the South South and South East have different political histories and claims regarding national leadership.
This has made the phrase it is the South’s turn increasingly controversial.
Those opposed to another South based presidential bid argue that such a position could effectively amount to support for the continuation of Tinubu’s presidency or another South West candidate, rather than a neutral demand for southern representation.
The emerging political contest is therefore likely to focus not only on North versus South, but also on which region within each bloc has had its share of power and which regions believe they have been left behind.
Sambo’s intervention has added another dimension to that debate by asking whether continued South West dominance can be justified when other southern regions are also seeking their opportunity at the presidency.
As Nigeria moves toward another major political cycle, the struggle over zoning is expected to become more intense, with politicians and political groups likely to use regional history, previous presidential tenures and the principle of fairness to strengthen their competing claims.
At the centre of the argument is a question that has never been fully settled in Nigeria’s democratic politics: should presidential power rotate according to an agreed regional formula, or should every qualified politician and political party remain free to compete for the presidency regardless of region?
