Adedamola Adeyemi Ebonyi Governor David Umahi thinks President Muhammadu Buhari will support the emergence of a candidate of Igbo extrac...
Adedamola Adeyemi
Ebonyi Governor David Umahi thinks President Muhammadu
Buhari will support the emergence of a candidate of Igbo extraction as All
Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate for the 2023 election.
Mr Umahi, a presidential aspirant, expressed his optimism at
a town hall meeting between Mr Buhari and South-East leaders in Abakaliki, the
Ebonyi State capital, on Friday.
Backing up Mr Umahi on the need for the next Nigerian
president to be from the South-East during the meeting were the Chairman of South-East
Traditional Rulers, Charles Mkpuma, and the Christian Association of Nigeria
chairman in the region, Rev. Fr. Abraham
Nwali.
The president had been in the state on a two-day working
visit to commission some projects and meet with the Igbo leaders.
Speaking further on his 2023 aspiration, Mr Umahi said it
would be morally wrong for any candidate from the South-South and South- West
to vie for the APC presidential ticket if the party agreed to zone it to the
South.
He said he believed strongly that the demand for the
presidency to be zoned to the South-East region is on the basis of fairness,
equity, justice and morality.
The South-East has not produced a Nigerian president since
the return to democratic rule in 1999. The situation has escalated claims of
marginalisation from the region.
On Thursday, Ohaneze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural
organisation restated its resolve to ensure an Igbo person emerge as Nigeria’s
president in 2023. The group barred politicians from South-East from accepting
to play a second fiddle role as vice president in the next political
dispensation.
Since the ruling APC opened the bid, scores of aspirants
from the South-South, South-West, and the North, including Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo, former Lagos governor Bola Tinubu, Transport minister Rotimi Amaechi
and Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi have picked their nomination forms ahead of
the party’s primary.
National chairman of the APC, last week said the party has
not decided to zone its presidential ticket to the South, stressing that the
preferred flag bearer could come from any part of the country.
Notwithstanding, Mr Umahi commended some leaders from
outside the region for expressing their support for the next president of
Nigeria to emerge from the South-East.
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