By Ali Abare, Lafia

Since 1999, Nasarawa State has done something other states may have failed to do: share power peacefully among its three senatorial zones, turn by turn. Though not a written agreement but through share providence, zoning has come to signify fairness and equity.

Nasarawa West produced the state’s first civilian governor of the state, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, who served eight years. Nasarawa South came next, first briefly under the late Aliyu Akwe Doma, then longer under Senator Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, giving the zone twelve years in total.

In 2019, Senator Al-Makura handed power to Nasarawa North, in the person of Engineer Abdullahi Sule. No matter the reason that may be attributed to Al-Makura’s decision to support Governor Sule, the call for fairness and equity stood out and was the major unifying factor.

The history made in 2019, when Senator Al-Makura insisted that Nasarawa North produced his successor is the starting point for any honest conversation about 2027. By the time Governor Sule finishes his second term, Nasarawa North will have ruled for eight years-the same as Nasarawa West got at the very start, and far less than the twelve years Nasarawa South already enjoyed. By simple counting, the zone that has waited longest for its turn is the Keffi zone.

This is not a new or convenient argument. It is the same reasoning Senator Al-Makura used when he set aside his own zone’s advantage and gave the Nasarawa North its turn in 2019, even though the Akwanga zone has a smaller population.

Without this gentleman agreement to share the seat of power between the three senatorial zones, there won’t have been a governor from the Akwanga zone simply because the zone lacks the population.

Governor Sule has said this openly many times, saying his emergence was in the spirit and letters of brothers keeper and that it is his responsibility to sustain it. That is why he has continued to insist that the seat should now go to Keffi zone which has not produced a governor in over twenty years.

Even though this gentleman agreement remains an internal affair within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), it does not remove the fact that zoning brings fairness and justice to the zones. Therefore, even though some people from Nasarawa South say the zone deserves another chance, or that zoning should give way to open competition based on merit, the people of Nasarawa North must not support any attempt to disrupt the established zoning arrangement.

As could be seen in the past seven years, the call to discard zoning for ‘competence’ or ‘merit’ fails flat with Governor Sule proving that each zone has been endowed with leaders capable of moving Nasarawa State forward. Each zone has competent leaders and fairness demands that each zone be given the chance to produce the governor.

But fairness is not something given once and forgotten. It is a promise that must be kept at every change of power. Nasarawa South has already had its full share — twelve years, under two governors. To ask for more now, exactly when it is Nasarawa West’s turn, means undoing an arrangement the state only just completed, and doing so at the expense of Keffi zone.

The attempt to disrupt the zoning arrangement portends grave danger for Nasarawa North. The zone does not have the population to win the governorship on its own, outside a zoning arrangement. If the zone turns its back on zoning now, thinking it has nothing to gain from supporting Nasarawa West, it will also lose its own future chances.

Nasarawa North cannot afford to support any political arrangement meant to jettison the zoning arrangement because disrupting zoning will make it nearly impossible for the zone to produce another governor after Engineer Sule. Standing by zoning is therefore not just about being fair to Keffi. It is how Nasarawa North protects its own place in the state’s politics for years to come.

Come 2027, the people of Nasarawa North, irrespective of political party affiliation, should see reason to align with Governor Sule and to support the election of Senator Ahmed Wadada Aliyu as the only guarantee the zone has to produce yet another governor.