The hope of the Igbo race in South/ East Nigeria to cling the position of the Presidency in the 2023 general elections was Monday dashed as the Women and Youth Team of the All Progressives Congress, APC campaign said any region in Southern part of the country can produce President after President Muhammadu Buhari second term.
The Igbo who are the third largest ethnic group in Nigeria occupying five states has never produced a democratically elected President unlike it’s Yoruba and Hausa counterparts and have being seriously agitating for the position particularly in the 2023 general elections.
But Abdulmumini Jibrin, Director of Media and Strategic Communications of APC Women and Youth Campaign Team while briefing journalists in Abuja stated that in 2023 power would naturally move to Southern part of Nigeria but every region is entitled to it and is eminently qualified for it.
Jibrin said, “the reality of the matter is that generally we all know that power should and will go to the Southern part of the country. But again every region in the Southern part of the country is entitled to it. The South/South is qualified, the South/ East is qualified, the South/ West is equally qualified.
“But then, it is your contribution, it is your ability to negotiate within the party system, it is the value you bring on board that will determine where power goes to. Now, this has sent an instructive message to all us sitting here.
“We are all feeling relaxed because we are talking within the cycle of a party that believes that if there is fairness and Justice in this country, by 2023 power will move to the Southern part of the country. That is position of the APC”.
This just as Vice President Yemi Osibanjo and other APC stakeholders had called on the Yoruba people of South/West region to vote for Buhari and the APC so that the Presidency would move to the region in 2023.
The group also accused the Presidential candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP Atiku Abubakar and the Director General of his Campaign Organization, Bukola Saraki of muting the idea to incite the north not to support power transfer to the southern part of the country after president Muhammadu Buhari completes his second term.
The APC Women and Youth Campaign Team described Atiku and Saraki as the biggest threat to stability of Nigeria by taking Nigerians for granted in their attempt to short change the southern part of Nigeria as Atiku refused to commit to returning power to the Southern part of the country after 2023 despite concerted pressure by many PDP stakeholders.
“As sensitive as this matter is we have people in the opposition PDP contesting for the Presidency and the party itself, they decided to incite a lot of hatred in the country, insisting that the Southern part of the country will not have it’s fair share.
“As I mentioned it in my speech, that this why the Presidential Candidate of the PDP has refused to commit to the one term to your own surprise, just to come public and said, me I will serve one term because 2023 is the turn of the Southern part of the country. There is no one.
“If tomorrow he comes back and make that commitment you will all understand that he does not really believe in that because since the day he won the Presidential primaries what has stopped him from doing that till today”, Jibrin argued.
James Kwen, Abuja
