The introduction of political zoning system into the Nigeria political space was to aid the smooth rotation of political key position across the country. Though this policy is not known in the constitution of the country, the aim is to achieve fairness, peace and equitable distribution of political resource across the various geopolitical zone of the Nation. The phenomena of zoning by political parties are high stake politics in Nigeria’s democracy. This is because zoning is seen as a mechanism of uniting various diverse people while political parties are the vehicle for realizing democracy in Nigeria.
Party politics and zoning/power shift are two very important elements of any liberal democracy that no one can brush aside with a wave of the hand in a primordial state like Nigeria. Political parties serve as veritable tool for which democracy is enhanced. Many Political analysts have described the importance of the political parties in a liberal democracy. Political parties encourage stability of the governing process because once elected for a fixed term, the government knows its life span at the corridor of power, and the opposition parties too are aware of this. Thus, both the government and opposition would operate along this political axis. The zoning policy/power shift is also important like the political parties in a primordial democratic state like Nigeria. Though, zoning is alien to the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, as there was no provision in any section of the law that recognizes zoning, however, the PDP constitution recognizes zoning as part efforts to rotate political offices between the North and South and also among various ethnic groups within state, Senatorial district and local government. In 2011, a former President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) Olisa Agbakoba stressed the importance of zoning in Nigeria when he pointed that “the call to abolish zoning seriously underestimates and ignores the complex political character of Nigeria.” He also pointed further that Nigeria is a federation and also a divided society. The current paradigm in Nigerian democracy is the issue of zoning/power shift.