Ahead of the 2023 general elections, indications have emerged that the current Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, may not get the opportunity to pursue his presidential ambition under the platform of the All Progressives Congress APC
According to a Vanguard report, the former Anambra State governor promised to declare his presidential ambition in April after he must have made due consultations with political leaders. He also said that he was qualified to become president
Sadly, if the recent report is anything to go by, then it appears that Ngige’s chances of becoming the flag-bearer of the APC in 2023 are very thin.
This is because a recent report by National Daily alleged that the decision-makers in the ruling APC have agreed to zone the party’s presidential ticket to the southwest region of the country.
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In the past, aspirants who ran against their party’s decision have often lost. We saw how the late Abubakar Rimi woefully lost the PDP’s presidential ticket in 1998 when he refused to step down after the party zoned its presidential ticket to the southwest. If the report that the APC’s decision-makers have zoned the party’s presidential ticket to the southwest is true, then it would most likely be a waste of time and resources if aspirants from other regions contests for the ticket
Ngige is one of the many politicians from the southeast who believe that the next president of Nigeria should be of southeast extraction. In an interview with Channels TV, Ngige said for the sake of justice and equity the southeast should produce the country’s next president since it is the only region in the south that hasn’t produced a president since the 1999 return of democracy. It can be argued that this is one of the reasons why Ngige is gearing to join the 2023 presidential race.
Rather than shelve his presidential ambition simply because the APC has agreed to zone its presidential ticket to the southwest, my pragmatic assumption is that Ngige, who strongly believes that the next president of Nigeria should be of southeast extraction, will dump the APC and join his former party, the PDP which has hinted that it will throw its presidential ticket open to presidential aspirants from all six geopolitical zones.