Abdulazeez Yari: Presidency Has To Go To The South
The clamour for Igbo presidency received a further boost at the weekend with a declaration by Abdulazeez Yari, immediate past governor of Zamfara state, that the All Progressives Congress (APC) would support a power shift to Southern Nigeria in 2023.
It was gathered that Yari, who was Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) as governor, also said he might vie for the office of the party’s national chairman should it be zoned to the North.
He said the ongoing reform of the APC at the national level would enable it to avoid a re-occurrence of the challenges that confronted it in the build-up to the 2019 general elections.
In an interview, Yari said it was expected that power would shift to the South after the expiration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s second and last tenure.
“As we have seen the nature of how our presidency will look like, it has to go South. The chairmanship may likely as well come to the North in preparation for that,” he was quoted as saying.
Asked if he was one of the leaders supporting power shift to the South in 2023, ex-governor simply declared, “Of course, that is how things are supposed to be.”
There have been calls from different quarters for a power shift to the South in the 2023 presidential election, particularly to the Southeast geopolitical zone.
Various interest groups including the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) has declared its full support for Igbo Presidency ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
The group also declared its total support and preference for Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, Chief Whip of the Nigerian Senate and former Governor of Abia State, as president.
Ayooluwa Joshua