Nigeria’s recurring argument over zoning often gets trapped in sentiment and political tribalism. But beneath all the noise is a fairly practical question: how do you stop presidential elections from repeatedly deepening ethnic division and making large parts of the country feel excluded from power?

The case for zoning is really an argument about stability and inclusion.

The proposal is simple. Beginning from 2031, the presidency would rotate among Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones. During each cycle, only candidates from the designated zone would contest for president, but the entire country would still vote. Nigerians would therefore continue choosing their president democratically, while reducing the zero-sum ethnic competition that has repeatedly destabilised the country.

The logic behind this idea comes from a pattern that has appeared across several election cycles. In Nigeria, presidential elections are rarely seen as purely political contests. When leading candidates emerge from different major ethnic blocs, defeat is often interpreted not just as losing an election, but as losing access to national power itself.

Because the federal government controls enormous resources and influence, communities tend to view the presidency as protection for their interests. Once elections become framed as ethnic victories and defeats, resentment does not disappear after results are announced. It lingers across election cycles, fuels separatist sentiment, and weakens national cohesion.

Several moments in Nigerian history reflect this problem:

• 1964/65: regional rivalry spiralled into coups and eventually civil war
• 1983: the Shagari-Awolowo-Azikiwe contest ended with military intervention
• 1993: the annulled Abiola election triggered prolonged national crisis
• 2015: tensions between Buhari and Jonathan brought the country close to serious instability before Jonathan conceded
• 2023: the Tinubu-Obi-Atiku election left deep regional and ethnic divisions that are still visible today

This does not mean cross-regional contests automatically cause crises. Economic conditions, elite behaviour and weak institutions all matter too. But elections involving the major ethnic blocs consistently place enormous strain on the federation in ways same-region contests usually do not.

The clearest counterexample is probably 1999. Olusegun Obasanjo and Olu Falae were both Yoruba candidates. Yoruba voters largely backed Falae, while much of the rest of the country supported Obasanjo. Falae lost, but the result did not produce the kind of existential ethnic backlash seen in other elections.

Why? Because, from the Yoruba perspective, representation at the centre was still guaranteed regardless of who won. The contest felt political rather than civilisational.

The same dynamic appeared in 2007, when both leading candidates, Yar’Adua and Buhari, were Northerners. Despite serious concerns about the credibility of the election itself, the outcome did not trigger the same level of inter-regional hostility seen in more ethnically polarised contests.

That distinction sits at the heart of the zoning argument. Nigerians often care less about which individual wins than about whether their broader community still has a seat at the table.

There is also a second argument for rotation that receives less attention: smaller ethnic groups currently have almost no realistic route to the presidency.

Under open competition, electoral mathematics overwhelmingly favour the three largest ethnic blocs. Candidates from smaller groups such as the Ijaw, Tiv, Kanuri or others usually cannot compete nationally without attaching themselves to a larger political structure. Their access to power depends more on elite bargaining than on any genuinely equal opportunity.

A rotational system across all six zones changes that calculation. When it is the North-Central’s turn, for example, candidates from Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa or Niger compete within the same zonal framework rather than against the demographic weight of the entire country. It creates a more credible pathway to national leadership for groups that would otherwise never realistically reach the presidency.

None of this means zoning is a perfect solution. It would not eliminate political tension, electoral malpractice or corruption. It would not solve Nigeria’s overcentralised federal structure or reduce the enormous stakes attached to controlling the presidency. Those problems require separate reforms.

But zoning does not need to solve everything to address something important.

Its purpose is narrower: to reduce the sense that presidential elections are winner-takes-all ethnic battles, while widening access to power beyond the country’s dominant blocs.

Critics often argue that open competition is the purest form of democracy. In theory, that sounds reasonable. In practice, however, Nigeria’s political realities are not taking place on a level playing field. The same groups repeatedly dominate national leadership because demographic and historical advantages heavily shape electoral outcomes.

Zoning attempts to manage that reality rather than pretend it does not exist.

Instead of competing over which ethnic bloc controls the federation, politicians would compete within rotating zones over who can best lead the country at a given moment. The competition remains democratic, but the stakes become less existential for the rest of the federation.

Whether such a system should be written into the constitution, enforced through electoral law, or maintained as a party convention is open to debate. But the broader principle behind it is difficult to ignore: in a country as diverse and fragile as Nigeria, stability and inclusion rarely happen automatically. They usually have to be designed deliberately.