Why PDP must zone 2023 presidential ticket to North – Dokpesi

The Chairman Emeritus of Daar Communications Plc, owners of African Independent Television (AIT) and RayPower FM, High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, has advocated that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) must come from the north in 2023 for fairness and equity. Dopkesi declared that the North has not got a fair share of the presidential slot in the PDP since the contemporary democratic dispensation in Nigeria since 1999. Dokpesi, therefore, said that the PDP should not imitate the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which zoning the presidential ticket to the south after the second tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023 is convenient.

Dokpesi, therefore, cautioned that zoning the presidential ticket to the south will cost the PDP the presidential election in 2023.

Dokpesi had noted that those PDP members agitating for the zoning of the 2023 presidential ticket to the south are merely imitating similar agitation in  the ruling APC which does not have the same template with the PDP.

According to Dokpesi: “We are all Nige­rians and there is no need for us to keep deceiving ourselves at this point in time. “At the age of 70 and with my experience in organising campaigns in this country, I can tell you that unless there is a candidate from the North, the PDP will not stand a chance of winning the election.

“On the ambition of those from the South who are today asking for the presidency to be zoned to the South, they are only echoing what prevails in the APC.

“In APC, President Muhammadu Buhari has done eight years, so, it is imperative on APC to cede the presidency to the South.

“In the case of PDP, let us look at it honestly. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo from the South-West did eight years; Goodluck Jonathan from the South-South also did five years. That made a total of 13 years.

“On the other hand, Umaru Yar’Adua from the North did three years, so there is an imbalance of 10 years. If in 2019 former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had not been rigged out of that election, he would have come back in 2023 to say that he wants to do a second term. And would anybody have stood in his way? No!

“So, for the PDP, the presidential candidate must come from the North in 2023. People should exercise patience because it will still come back to the South.”