The Chairman of the Southern Governors’ Forum and Governor of Ondo State, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu, has insisted that the southern part of the country must produce the next president of the country.
Akeredolu, in a statement on Tuesday, warned the national leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress against giving the presidential ticket to a northern aspirant so as not to put the party in a crisis.
While the Southern Senators supported their governors, saying the presidential aspirations of politicians from the South were legitimate, the Coalition of Northern Groups described Akeredolu’s statement as a threat to the unity of the country.
The National Chairman of the APC, Senator Adamu Abdullahi, had on Friday in Abuja said the party had yet to zone the 2023 presidency
But Akeredolu, in the statement he personally signed and made available to one of our correspondents by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Richard Olatunde, on Tuesday, insisted that the presidential ticket must be zoned to the south.
He said, “The current democratic dispensation is anchored on the unwritten convention driven by a principle of equity. Political expediency dictates, more appealingly, that while adhering to the spirit and letters of the laws guiding the conduct of elections and succession to political offices, we must do nothing which is capable of tilting the delicate balance against the established arrangement which guarantees peace and promotes trust.
“Our party just elected officers on the established principle of giving every part of the country an important stake in the political calculus. The focus has now shifted to the process which will culminate in the participation of our party in the general elections scheduled for next year. All lovers of peace and freedom must do everything to eschew tendencies which may predispose them to taking decisions which promote distrust and lead to a crisis, the end of which nobody may be able to predict.
The leadership of the party ensured that the principle of rotational representation guided its decision at the just-concluded convention. The party chairmanship position has gone to the North. All other offices have been filled on this understanding. This is the time the leaders of the party must make a categorical statement, devoid of equivocation, on the pattern of succession.
“The party executive committee has fixed a fee for the purchase of the nomination form for the office. It is expected, fervently, that it will proceed to complete the process by limiting the propensities for disagreement to a region for possible micro-management. It is very expedient that we avoid self-inflicted crises before the general elections.