The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum has warned political parties and stakeholders in the political circle not to tinker with the issue of zoning and power rotation offices especially for the Presidency in the 2023 elections.
The organisation warned that doing so would further threaten the unity of Nigeria.
The SMBLF which comprises Ohanaeze, Afenifere, Pan Niger Delta Forum and the Middle Belt Forum, said the recent comment by the APC national chairman that the party had not decided on the zoning of the Presidency, with about 30 days to the Presidential primaries, “amounts to outright dishonesty and chicanery.”
While calling on northerners to “stop their trickery”, because “enough is enough!”, the SMBLF said, “We cannot have a northerner President for eight years and then welcome another Northern President for another eight years or more. That is unacceptable to us.”
The organisation therefore, strongly cautioned “all our governors, former governors and top politicians not to accept the Vice Presidency nomination from any Northern presidential candidate.”
The SMBLF was particularly reacting to a recent statement credited to the chairman of the Northern Elders Forum, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, that zoning was “dead and buried.”
The organisation described as “rather unfortunate and absurd that Ango Abdullahi and his Northern Elders Forum would make such twaddle.”
The SMBLF said, “Are they now ready to dissolve the country? What has happened that zoning, which has been a sine qua non in the nation’s political progression has now become a ‘dead and buried’ issue, in the irrational contemplations of Ango Abdullahi and his co-travelers? Could it be due to the incapacity, insipidity and disastrous performance of the Buhari administration or the narcissistic desire to perpetuate Hausa/Fulani hegemony?”
