2023: Southern Governors Will Oppose Fielding Of Northern Candidates

Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu warned on Friday that the Southern Governors Forum would oppose any political party that runs a northerner for president in the 2023 elections.

The governor, who made the announcement while appearing on Channels Television, said the Southern governors from the three major political parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), are united in their resolution on the presidential zoning and will adhere to it to the letter.

When President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term ends in 2023, the Southern governors agreed in a meeting in Lagos in July that the presidency should be zoned to the region. They reiterated it at their meeting on Thursday in Enugu.

According to Akeredolu, who is the Chairman of the Southern Governors Forum “If we have anything that we have agreed, that we have unanimity, it is the issue of president in 2023. All of us, irrespective of our political party; there are three political parties that are in the Southern Governors Forum. We have All Progressives Grand Alliance, the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress and we all agreed on this.

“Any party that picks any candidate from the North will have to face all Southern governors because they will not support. But it has to come from South. We are saying that there must be rotational, the justice and fairness in it, that is what we are pushing.

“If my president, Muhammadu Buhari has ruled for eight years, then it cannot be from the North again. The next president must come from the South. We have not got to the stage where we will say let us give it to somebody who is competent.

“There are many people that are competent. We have competent people in the North as we have competent people in the South. So, the president can come from any part of the country. But if you have occupied the position for eight years, then it has to rotate back to the South.

“We can continue to do that until it gets to a point where the issue of zooming becomes an anathema. But for now, zooming is it and those of us from the South are determined that the next president comes from the South.”