Presidency 2023: Shekarau disagrees with northern governors, supports power shift to South

A political leader in the north, former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State, on Monday expressed his disagreement with governors, including the northern governors, on the ways they are going about the issue of power shift in the country towards the 2023 general elections. The former governor and a former Minister of Education declared support for rotation of the president to the south after the second tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

Shekarau also expressed support for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to cede the presidency to the south in 2023.

“I have said it before, as far as the party I belong to is concerned – the APC, my proposal is that now that President Buhari is from the northern part of the country, he has done his eight years, let’s beam the searchlight to the southern part of Nigeria.

“Not because we don’t have enough competent people up North. If you say, ‘let the other part of Nigeria produce the leader,’ that does not mean you are throwing to the dogs the issue of competence, the issue of credibility, and so on.

“While I agree we should go for the best and, therefore, throw it open regardless of which side of the country, we should also be mindful of aspects of the sense of belonging. You see, we must be mindful of the perception to give some sense of belonging to every part of Nigeria,” Shekarau had said on Channels TV program on Monday monitored from Lagos.

Shekarau, however, pointed out: “I subscribe to the view that we should be talking of the North and South, but where I disagree with the southern governors is coming together to gang up and say ‘it must be’; I think this is purely the party affairs.”

He expressed that the rotation of the president between the north and the south would strengthen Nigeria’s unity and promote national development.