Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State while acknowledging the agitation over zoning the president in 2023 to the south, stated that there are more reasons for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to allow the northeast to produce the next president ion the country.
The Bauchi Governor observing thatPresident Muhammadu Buhari from the northwest would be completing his eight years tenure in 2023, said that affects only the All Progressives Congress (APC), not the PDP.
Governor Mohammed, a presidential aspirant on the platform of the PDP receiving the progress report of the Contact Committee on his presidential project, emphasized that the northeast and southeast have not been given opportunities to produce the president of Nigeria for a long time. He argued, therefore, that for equity and justice, the president in 2023 should come from the northeast, which he represents.
Governor Mohammed had declared: “We are aware of the agitation of the southern part of the country because of the tenure of the leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, who is from the North and will be finishing his tenure in 2023.
The Bauchi Governor had declared: “I want to seize the opportunity to say that I am in PDP, I am not in the APC. It is the APC that has this burden.
“In my party, the last President was from the South. He was my President, Goodluck Jonathan. During the period my party was at the centre for 16 years, 14 of these years were led by the people from the South.
“So, where is the justice and justification? So, it is the time of the North. When you come to the North, North-East and South-East have not been there for too long, only a short stint compared to other zones.
“We should be given the opportunity. This Presidency, if it wants to be just and equitable to Nigerians, should be open to everybody from other sections of this country so that Nigerians can be given the opportunity to elect the best that can provide solution.”
The zoning of the presidential ticket in 2023 has been generating controversies in the dominant parties in the country, the APC, and the PDP. The two parties have zoned their national chairman to the north, presupposing the zoning of the presidential tickets to the south, according to the partisan tradition of the political actors over the years.
However, the two parties still insist they have not zoned the presidential ticket for 2023 yet.