Posted by By Dotun Oladipo on
The Kaduna State Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Makarfi, has said that he is ready to serve as the vice-president in 2007 if it is the consensus of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party.....
The Kaduna State Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Makarfi, has said that he is ready to serve as the vice-president in 2007 if it is the consensus of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party.
Makarfi, who spoke with journalists on Saturday in Lagos, said since the South and the North were locked in a battle of who should produce the next president, it was incumbent on the leaders of the ruling party at the federal level, the PDP, to find the an amicable way of settling the issue.
Makarfi, who is aspiring to become the president in 2007, when asked if he would accept the position of the vice-president if offered by the PDP, said, "If that consensus is built by contact, what can I do?"
Asked if this would not run contrary to the position of the northern governors that the North must produce the next president, he said, "Don‘t forget that the South too is insisting that power must remain.
"We have done that much, but we are in a state of negotiation and North and South have seen the spirit to negotiate in the national interest, to talk to one another on national interest.
"And whatever that is going to happen is not going to be a question of force but of consensus.
"If we cannot have 100 percent consensus, when you have overwhelming majority views, definitely that is democracy.
"Then the rest, in spite of whatever grudge they have, when they see an overwhelming majority would come along.
"That is how democracy works."
On the protest by some Lebanese in the North on the continued pounding of Lebanon by Isreali troops, Makarfi said, "There has been two or processions by Shiite in Kaduna.
"First of all was that we monitored it to ensure that from where it commences and terminates it does so in peace just as it is happening in other parts of the world.
"Secondly, we held several meetings with religious leaders - both Christians and Muslims - and the general consensus arrived at was that it is a political problem, not religious because both Lebanese and the Gazans, Palestinians are all Arabs but it is political.
"What one should continue to do is to pray for peace there and in our country."