Senator Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State has waded into the thorny debate over which section of the country should produce the next president of Nigeria.
The Senator and former governor of Kano state is of the view that Nigeria’s next president should come from the Southern part of the country for purposes of political balance.
The former Kano state governor who was speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday maintained that by 2023, President Muhammadu Buhari who is from the northern part of the country, would have been in power for eight years.
According to him “common sense tells one that we should look at the other side, to the Southern part of Nigeria”.
On the agitation by some for the presidency to move down South in 2023, he said: “I don’t call it zoning, I would rather call it some balancing. There has to be some sense of belonging. There is what I call the constitution of common sense.
“The Constitution of Nigeria or the constitution of any of the political parties didn’t say if I am from the North, my running mate must be from the South. It is not written but if today, I am a presidential candidate from Kano and I tell you my running mate is from Bauchi, you will say something is wrong with me.”
He added: “The presidency has just been from the North for eight years. Common sense tells us that we should look at the other side, to the Southern part of Nigeria. We should recognise the North and the South, this is elementary geography and history.
“Perception is what you have to carry along. If you continue to dominate on one particular side, the perception from the other side is, ‘What about me?’”
However, another group, Accountable Governance and Public Space in Nigeria(AGPS) in a statement argued that the North still needs another four years to match up with the number of years the South has occupied power.
According to the AGPS, since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, the Southern part of the country has occupied the office of president more in terms of number of years and tenure than the Northern part.
Comrade Olusegun Alabi, spokesman of the AGPS said it is therefore fair to retain power in the North for another four years to catch up with the South, saying ” if you calculate it since 1999, the North has to match up with additional four years because the South has had it more.”
Recall that the race for 2023 presidential elections has already assumed a high velocity as top brass and strategic political apparatchiks in the two major political parties, namely the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) are currently pondering which zone to cede their presidential tickets to.
In some highly placed top quarters, it is being rumoured, that both the PDP and the APC are considering ceding their Presidential tickets to North-East geo-political zone. The North East geo-political zone is made up of the following states: Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe.
However, in another quarter, there are speculations that the tickets, especially that of the APC would be left open with any zone or aspirant with the strongest capacity to win the highest number of delegates votes would fly the party flag.
Shekarau, a former School principal, teacher and one-time minister of education also spoke on the security situation in Nigeria, stressing that there was need for the president to rejig his security team.
Recall that following the massacre at Koshebe in Borno State, calls have been mounting on President Muhammadu Buhari to fire the nation’s Security Chiefs, with many arguing that they have outlived their usefulness.
Shekarau said: “The President is breaking the law, the law says if you are 60 you must go, it is automatic. If you are 35-years in service, you must go. In fact, they are not staff of Mr. President, they are the staff of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and there is a rule.”
The former Kano state governor insisted that the question of the rule of law should be addressed by the presidency, with respect to retaining the service chiefs.
In his opinion, given the fact that the military as an institution is defined and regulated by a set of rules including tenure of service chiefs, it is only natural that the President should allow them to bow out peacefully.
