The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndgibo Worldwide, and the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, have asked President Muhammadu Buhari to save the country from plunging into problem after the 2023 general elections by pronouncing the zoning of the presidency to the South.
This came today, April 30, in the wake of the fact that the leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has been undecided on the issue.
Reacting to the statement of the national chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu that APC had not decided on the zoning yet, the spokesman for Ohanaeze, Chief Alex Ogbonnia, accused APC of vacillating and insulating like a pendulum.
Advising the ruling party to “be wise and do the right thing for equity and fairness to all the regions,” Ogbonnia added: “they know the truth, that is why they are moving left, right and centre like a pendulum. It is not good that this should be the identity of the APC.
“The President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, is the leader of the party today. He should step in and take decisions just like former President Olusegun Obasanjo took the decision in 2006 that a northerner should be the President since he was from the South.
“Because of the power-rotation principle agreed upon by the party, the Presidency had to move to the North. All eyes are on Buhari to do to the South-East what Obasanjo did to the North-West. They have seen the truth and don’t want to accept it.”
The Secretary-General of Afenifere, Dr. Sola Ebiseni, said that the Adamu’s statement did not come to the group as a surprise.
“That the new national chairman of the APC is now wavering on the zoning of its presidential ticket to the South after he has secured his own position based on that understanding did not come to us in the Afenifere as a surprise because we saw it coming and our leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has used every available platform to warn those who may be so deceived. “These are all permutations driving towards the ultimate decision on what Nigeria will make of itself.
“While it may sound predictive that having swapped the party positions between the North and the South, the positions in government such as the President, Vice-President, Senate President, and Speaker of the House of Representatives will equally be so exchanged by the party; the prized seat of the President and the Leviathan powers at its command are too tempting to be allowed to pass by those who believe Nigeria is their exclusive estate. This is the reason behind the deliberate resistance to restructuring.”
Ebiseni said that for the country to survive as a corporate entity, true federalism must be enthroned, and “all regions must have equal opportunities for all the ethnic nationalities and citizens.”
Also speaking, the spokesman for the Pan Niger Delta Forum, Ken Robinson, said that the indecision by the ruling APC is “unnecessary, insensitive and completely out of place.
“It is, therefore, expected that the presidency will go to southern Nigeria. If the national chairman of the party is now saying they are undecided, that is unacceptable. It is completely out of place. “It is inconsistent and is against protocols that have been established since 1979 and zoning since independence.”
He stressed that if the APC eventually threw the race open, it would be a “call for more disaffection, dissension, and crisis that have already engulfed our country.”
But, the spokesman for the Coalition of Northern Groups, a conglomerate of over 40 pro-North bodies, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said that the APC did not promise any region the presidency.
According to him the best move for all political parties is to throw the ticket open so that candidates could emerge on merit.
“As far as the CNG is concerned, that is the proper thing to do. We have never had faith in that zoning arrangement that does not actually look at the merit of candidates but their region, religion, or tribe.
“We have all along been of the view that until that day when we are able to elect a leader we can all trust and rely on as a Nigerian President, then we have not reached true nationhood.
“In any case, there is no evidence that the APC had in the first place-bound itself to any arrangement on zoning or rotation of power on a regional basis.
“That arrangement had all along been most pronounced in the PDP and even they could not get it right. The agreement was respected only in the first four years of Obasanjo and it became shaky towards the end of his second term with the notorious third term agenda, which was aborted.”
Source: The Punch.
