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Although I never studied journalism, formally, I learned long ago that news is about what gets attention, the unusual. Consequently, one of the elementary ways to explain the topic was this contrast: “The dog bites the man”, is nothing new, but “the man bites the dog” is something else.
Who would be so banal as a titular: The policeman takes a bribe! Who would choose to be bored with the banal phrase: There is a power outage in Nigeria!
Likewise, the marginalization of the South East in Nigeria’s power structure is no longer new. General Yakubu Gowon laid the foundation with the distorted creation of twelve states in 1967. And subsequent regimes perpetuated the plot to make the South East a minority by military fiat or democratic inaction. In the current situation, the creation of a state under constitutional review is not about righting the wrongs suffered by the South East.
Rather than adopt a framework of assertion aimed at creating an additional state only in the region, the establishment continues to encourage the proliferation of claims for states across the country.
From the basis of the structural disadvantage, shortchanging schemes were born. In nominations, location and financing of projects, the South East must take last place. Former Senate President Chuba Okadigbo was so disgusted by this trend that he called on people in the region to “make noise and shout against” injustice wherever it occurs. Shouting helps, but the Jericho Wall of marginalization will take more than media protests to fall. For Mohammadu Buhari’s provincial presidency, curtailing the rights of the South East was a guiding principle, albeit an unwritten one.
Buhari’s 1984 Supreme Military Council had only Navy Captain Ebitu Ukiwe as the South East member in an 18-man ruling body. However, those who knew his antecedents, including Wole Soyinka, were excited about his second coming. In eight years of detached presidency, the South East has been left out of Buhari’s security architecture. It was initially hoped that President Bola Tinubu’s perspective would be broad and fair. But statistics on the administration’s appointments indicate that the profile of activism does not warrant balanced treatment.
In the articles “Between Obasanjo and Dare” (December 12, 2024) and “Once again, the South East excluded from national projects” (May 29, 2025), I showed the extent of discrimination against the South East by this government.
There is currently a viral document on social media listing thirty-three positions filled by people from the Southwest under the current system. None of the government spokesmen criticized the compilation. The latest South East expropriation controversy concerned the appointment of Court of Appeal judges.
A lawyers association, Otu Oka Iwu, had in February this year petitioned the Chief Justice of Nigeria alleging under-representation of the South East in the selection process of fourteen new Court of Appeal judges. The outcome of the Otu Oka Iwu protest is not yet known. But it is curious that the plan to recruit federal high court judges, which began a month earlier, in January, was also followed by complaints of negligence at the regional level. The historicity of the disputes doesn’t help.
In 2017, there were similar allegations of the South East’s refusal to appoint fourteen more jurists to the second highest courts. The National Judicial Council’s Director of Information, Soji Oye, said at the time that the allegation was not true. In 2021, the Alaigbo Development Foundation sued the NJC for geographical imbalance in the appointment of eighteen judges to the Court of Appeal. It is important to note that the case was only rejected on technical grounds of lack of legal standing.
Well, according to the wisdom of our fathers, when the handshake goes above the elbow, it becomes something else. Since the South East will not normally receive its due like other components of the federation, it is up to the zone to take steps to start reducing its losses.
Where is the Ohaneze Ndi Igbo? What interventions has the leadership made on this burning issue? The missiles of marginalization do not just represent an assault on the Igbo psyche. The unwritten policy poses a threat to the cohesion of the Igbo subnation. Why then is the vaunted top socio-cultural body silent in the face of a force that seeks to disempower its voters? The socio-cultural mandate does not preclude civic space, socialization, living conditions in the political community. Culture does not exist in a vacuum. It finds expression in time and space. What can be avoided is partisan politics. But defending citizenship rights does not mean engaging in politics.
Many Igbos have a functional value problem with Ohaneze. This poverty of relevance in the eyes of younger generations continues along with the type of resignation shown towards marginalization. Ohaneze should lead the campaign against marginalisation. It is expected not only to have dossiers on the distribution of positions and appointments, but to instruct the Federal Character Commission (FCC) to remedy the injustices.
The 1999 Constitution (as amended) mandated the FCC to stop sectoral domination of public service positions and government-funded organizations. Or at least that’s how it seems. Under the Third Schedule, Part 1 of the Constitution, Section 8 gives the Commission the responsibility to “work out an equitable formula subject to the approval of the National Assembly for the distribution of all cadres of posts in the public service of the Federation and the States, the armed forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force and other government security agencies, government-owned corporations and parastatals of the States.” Indeed! It goes on to state in subsection c that the FCC has the authority to “take such lawful measures, including prosecuting the head or personnel of any department or governmental body or agency who fails to comply with any federal character principles or formulas prescribed or adopted by the Commission.”
These provisions may be news to many Nigerians. First, you wonder why the content does not figure in media analyses, debates and discussions about governance in general and abuse of appointing power specifically. Second, one cannot help but wonder whether the various FCC boards since 1999 were aware of these letters of the Constitution. Yes, the FCC has developed some allocation percentages in the composition of public offices. According to the Commission’s prescription, a State should not employ more than 3% of the workforce of a federal institution. On a zonal basis, the limit for the six geopolitical zones is eighteen percent of the workforce. These parameters are little known to Nigerians. And that says a lot about the effectiveness of the FCC. The Commission rarely responds to complaints about ethnic or regional domination of the country’s strategic institutions.
If the Commission had involved the public, its interventions on important cases would be well known and perhaps even appreciated. A situation in which the Commission’s exercise of its mandate is shrouded in obscurity raises questions about both influence and accountability.
What notable abuses of nominating authority have the FCC overturned or taken to court? What are some cases among the hundreds of ethnic favoritism in national institutions that the Commission has remedied with the balance of justice, balance and fair play? Can we also cite the routine representation to the Buhari and Tinubu presidencies for the review of their grossly discriminatory appointments? The double tragedy is therefore that the controller is also rendered impotent by the system. Faced with the impotence of the Commission in the face of the presidential assault on the federal character, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe in 2020, made a courageous intervention. The Abia State Senator has initiated a bill for the establishment of the Armed Forces Services Commission. In essence, the bill sought a means to ensure that the President respected the federal character in the appointment of service chiefs. Consistent with the interests of Nigeria’s dominant blocs, Abaribe’s bill did not survive to see second reading in the Senate.
What do we do? Resignation is not an option, so all progressive minds must keep pushing. Constitutional change seems like a necessary step to take. The FCC needs to toughen up. As appointees of the President, they are as disadvantaged as the INEC leadership in rejecting the executive’s agenda. And so we return to the Mohammed Uwais Committee for Electoral Reform. Create an INEC and an FCC to be appointed by the National Judicial Council. The FCC should receive direct funding from the Federation account. Under the terms of the proposed amendment, the President would submit certain categories of nomination lists to the FCC for review. Of course, no legal measure is infallible. Human will remains a critical factor in any undertaking. But it helps to create a strong mechanism and a conducive environment. The legislature of the Fourth Republic has so far shown itself open to what it calls changes to the Constitution. Why not this too? And why doesn’t the coalition of progressives, inside and outside the legislature, give it its support? Leaving the habit of discrimination unchecked not only diminishes us all. It erodes the path of unity, bogs down the wheels of government.
