Another crisis is brewing in the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the 2023 presidential ambition of the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a group within the party has expressed disappointment over a statement credited to the national coordinator of the TNN (Tinubu-Not-Negotiable 2023) Muri Okunola.
The convener of the Southeast Integrity Group and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Dr. Chinedu Ogbuagu, on Saturday dismissed as “ridiculous and absurd” a reported claim by Okunola that APC will lose if the Igbos get 2023 presidential ticket.
Recall that Okunola while pushing for the candidature of Tinubu had stated that the only reason Nigeria is still together is power rotation, stressing that power rotation is sacrosanct for unity of Nigeria.
Responding, Dr. Ogbuagu said power rotation is intended to be between North and South. “But is Tinubu not from the same Southern geo-political zone that produced president (Obasanjo) 1999 to 2007 and vice president (Osinbajo) 2015 to 2023.”
He recalled that each time the South has produced the President, they did so with the massive support of the Southeast, despite the fact it was the only zone that had neither produced the president nor vice-president.
Ogbuagu while attributing Okunola’s stance to “greed and insensitivity” said, “every selfless and patriotic Nigerian knows that presidential power must not only rotate to the South in 2023, but should also be zoned to the Southeast geopolitical zone that has not produced a president, not even vice president since 1999.
Dr Ogbuagu dismissed as “self-serving and distorted political and electoral calculations” of groups like TNN 2023 and asserted that to the contrary, “Southeast voters remain the largest, though latent voting block spread accross all states of the federation.”
He opined that this latency will be brought to life with a presidential candidate of Southeast extraction.
“Okunola and those who share his jaundiced narrative should take a cue from the historical swearing in of Governor Hope Uzodinma as an APC governor on 15th January 2020, exactly 50 years after the end of the Biafra War as an indication that the hand of God is in a southeasterner becoming the flagbearer and winning the presidency for our great party in 2023.