A group within the People’s Democratic Party PDP, has called on PDP, All Progressives Congress ,APC, and other parties to zone their presidential ticket slot to the South East geopolitical zone of the country for fairness and equity.
The group, PDP Coalition, in a statement by Chief Emeka Kalu, its Coordinator, said that since political independence in 1960, no candidate from South East zone had been voted as the president of the country, despite the division of Nigeria into six geo-political regions.
The group insisted that Mr. Peter Obi and Sen. Pius Anyim, the former Governor of Anambra State and former Senate President, respectively for instance from the PDP have the capacity and mental ability to transform the Nigerian economy and make it competitive with others across the globe.
Kalu specifically challenged the leadership of PDP to make zoning of the presidency to the southeast a project that must be achieved as the party organises its convention in the next few weeks, stressing that Southeast geo-Political zone has competent, experienced, educated, purposeful, exemplary and capacity building persons to be elected the next President.
Kalu said: “It is disheartening and undemocratic that in a heterogeneous society like Nigeria, presidency seat continues to be rotated between two ethnic bloc; Western and Northern regions without giving Eastern region a slot to produce the number one leader of the country.”
“Despite the six geo-political zones arrangement, we have three major ethnic regions in Nigeria as carved out by the colonial masters, but back to the cabinet system of government before the emergence of republicanism in 1963, no person of Igbo origin had been elected the President of Nigeria.”
“During Parliamentarian days, Tafawa Balewa was made the Prime Minister who served as the Head of the Government, while Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe services were just mere ceremonial without strong statutory recognitions.”
PDPCo recalled that in 1999, late Dr. Alex Ekwueme’s ambition to govern the country was foiled by power manipulation, while Chief Obasanjo and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar were voted into office.
It said that at the expiration of Obasanjo’s government in 2007, late Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan were preferred candidates of the power bloc, while the combination of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi as flag bearers for PDP, did not also emerge winners of the presidential poll in 2019.
“For the sake of seriousness in addressing our challenges as a nation, absolute care should be taken to elect an experienced, age wise, focused and development – driven President whose antecedents are cherished by the generality of Nigerians.
“This boldly calls for greater political consciousness on Nigerians to see beyond their noses that in this advancing society, we need to have a president that is capable of uniting, developing and industrialising Nigeria to compete with the western world in this fourth industrial revolution,” Kalu added.
Kalu further recalled that in 2019 under the full fledged sponsorship of Igbo elite, Atikulated Agenda vehemently supported Atiku Abubakar to ensure he emerged as the president of the country, but regretted that the party lost the election “only on papers not by values and conscience.”
VANGUARD
