By Ayo Kehinde
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, on Friday, called for fairness and equity in the presidency for the 2023 elections
He disclosed that the Southern Governors Forum would resist any political party that fielded a northerner as a presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections. According to him, after doing eight years President Buhari would have served the political interests of the North allowing the presidency to rotate to the South.
The governor who disclosed this while appearing in a Channels Television TV programme, “Politics Today” said the Southern governors from three major political parties of All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) were unanimous in their resolution on the zoning of the presidency and would follow it to the letter.
The Southern governors in their meeting in Lagos on July 5 had said the presidency should be zoned to Southern Nigeria in 2023 when President Muhammadu Buhari would be completing his second term. They sadi the same thing at their maiden meeting in Asaba, the Delta State capital in May
They also repeated the request at their meeting in Enugu on Thursday.
Akeredolu, who is the Chairman of the Southern Governors Forum, said in the TV programme: “If we have anything that we have agreed, that we have unanimity, it is the issue of president in 2023. All of us, irrespective of our political party; there are three political parties that are in the Southern Governors Forum. We have All Progressives Grand Alliance, the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress and we all agreed on this.
“Any party that picks any candidate from the North will have to face all Southern governors because they will not support. But it has to come from South. We are saying that there must be rotational, the justice and fairness in it, that is what we are pushing.
“If my president, Muhammadu Buhari has ruled for eight years, then it cannot be from the North again. The next president must come from the South. We have not got to the stage where we will say let us give it to somebody who is competent.
“There are many people that are competent. We have competent people in the North as we have competent people in the South. So, the president can come from any part of the country. But if you have occupied the position for eight years, then it has to rotate back to the South.
“We can continue to do that until it gets to a point where the issue of zooming becomes an anathema. But for now, zooming is it and those of us from the South are determined that the next president comes from the South.”
