Ahead of the 2023 general elections, there are strong calls and agitations that the North-central geo-political zone should produce the next president. TOPE SUNDAY in this report, takes a look at the unfolding scenario.
Just a few months to the 2023 general elections, there are growing calls from the North-central geo-political zone that it should produce President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor. This is coming at a time that the South, comprising the South-east, South- south and the South-west, is intensifying efforts to ensure that the power returns to it.
To some, the sudden agitation by the political bigwigs from the North- central for the presidential tickets of the leading political parties in the country, especially the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), may alter the ‘gentleman’ arrangement on zoning between the North and the South.
Though zoning is not written in the 1999 Constitution, as altered, the political alignments and re-alignments since 1999 have laid credence to the gentleman’s arrangement on it. A Yoruba, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, from the South-west was the president from 1999 to 2007. He was succeeded by the late Umar Musa Yar’Adua, a northerner, whom his deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, succeeded upon his demise. Jonathan is from the South-south region. Similarly, in line with the already established arrangement, the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari, is from the North.
The South’s agitations
Also, there are stronger calls from the leaders of the South-west and South-east zones to have the presidential tickets zoned to them. The South-west region has begun consultations with the formation of The South West Agenda by some politicians loyal to the former governor of Lagos, and the national leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The South-west region is reportedly claiming that it had an unwritten agreement with the North, when the APC was being formed, to take over from President Buhari after eight years in office.
In prosecuting its agenda, the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), had as far back as at July, 2020, declared its readiness to take over from President Buhari, come 2023. To this end, it called on the prominent Yoruba leaders in the All Progressives Congress (APC) to urgently address the division among its ranks to ensure that the South-west region clinches the presidential ticket of the party.
The body’s publicity secretary in Ekiti state, Prince Michael Ogungbemi, who made the declaration at a media parley, said the zone has both the human and material resources to prosecute its ambition, and asked the political leaders of the Yoruba nation to embark on consultations with a view to clinching the presidency.
Though no Yoruba has officially declared his intention to vie for the nation’s number one seat, their supporters have been branding their names as the presidential hopefuls.
The list of presidential candidates is growing in the zone and as at the last count, the South-west zone had some names already being branded as the presidential hopefuls.
Prominent among the would-be presidential contenders is a former governor of Lagos state and the national leader of APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; the Minister of Interior and a former governor of Osun state, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; the vice-president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo; the chairman of the Governors’ Forum, Dr. Kayode Fayemi; a former governor of Ogun state, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, and the president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina.
Also, the people of the South-east zone, who have been longing to have the presidency zoned to them, have renewed their call. The Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the main socio-cultural group of Ndigbo, rising from a meeting of its Elders’ Council in Owerri, the Imo state capital, recently, mandated the group’s president-general, Prof. George Obiozor, to collaborate with other stakeholders to make the Igbo presidency a reality in 2023.
The group in a communiqué stated that the Igbo agenda could only be achieved in consultations with other ethnic nationalities. The elders urged qualified Igbo to show interest in the 2023 presidential race.
North-central and the new twist
While the two regions are pushing for the presidential ticket, the proponents of the North-central for president agenda are of the view that the zone should be considered.
Though the region has six states, feelers from only two states of Kwara and Kogi states are being heard. A former President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, hails from the former, while Governor Yahaya Bello is from the latter. Saraki, who is of all the PDP, has not yet declared his aspiration, but his supporters have called on him to throw his hat into the ring, while Bello has indicated his interest amidst several endorsements.
On April 13, this year, Saraki’s presidential campaign posters flooded Abuja and barely two months after, precisely this month, a group of youth under the aegis of ‘Saraki is coming in 2023’ staged a rally in Kano to support his presidential aspiration.
Unlike Saraki, the Kogi state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello had openly kicked against zoning, and also in one of his interview sessions with Channels Television said Nigerians have beckoned on him to run for president in 2023.
Prior to the interview, members of the Kogi state House of Assembly had, in December 2021, called on political leaders in the North-central region to come all out and lay claim to the zoning of the presidency in 2023 to the zone.
The lawmakers made the appeal in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, during what they described as an advocacy visit to Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. The lawmakers said they had resolved to speak up on the matter in the interest of the zone.
In his view, the speaker of the Kogi state Assembly, Matthew Kolawole, said the zone had not benefited from power-sharing in the country under the current dispensation.
Responding, Governor AbdulRazaq also called for better political representation of the zone at the federal level. The governor said the North-central region, with its huge human and material resources, has never produced the president or vice-president since the nation’s independence.
Also, the before the Twitter ban, the Kogi state Commissioner for Information and Communication, Kingsley Fanwo, said there was a deafening call for Bello to run for president in 2023, adding that Nigerians were being convinced to see Bello as a presidential material for 2023 that was capable of replacing President Buhari.
With the growing agitations from all regions to clinch the presidential ticket in 2023, will the North-central make it?
