The race for the presidency has begun in earnest despite the fact that the presidential contest is in 2023, three years away. Within the ambit of fair-play and equity, the South East geo- political zone should produce the next President of the country after President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure ends in 2023.
Since the advent of democracy in the country in 1999, the Presidency has rotated between the North and the South.The North has produced the nation’s President twice- the Late Umaru Yar’Adua and Muhammadu Buhari, while the South had produced Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan.
It is a fact that it is ruling political parties that catapulted the North, South South and South West zones to the Presidency. Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan, were all elected on the platform of the then ruling political party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The PDP was the ruling party for 16 years in Nigeria before it was dislodged by the All Progressive Congress, APC, which produced Muhammadu Buhari as President in 2015.
If the PDP could hold sway as the ruling party in the country for 16 years, it can be said that the APC, may double this feat or even surpass it. Those who contend that the South East does not deserve the presidency on the APC platform because it had never voted for the party in the 2015 and 2019 presidential elections, miss the point, because when Olusegun Obasanjo from the South West was President, the region was non aligned to the ruling PDP. The region was in the firm grip of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, a regional political party domiciled in the South West.
The South West zone only drifted towards the ruling party- the PDP- after Obasanjo won a second term as President. Obasanjo was elected President because the mood of the nation at that time had favoured a President from the South West, because the June 12 issue was major factor, a recurring decimal which counted in the favour of the region to produce the nation’s President after the exit of the military.
Though the presidential contest in the country is usually vied for by all the geo political zones at every election period, the APC will be balancing the political alchemy in the country if it concedes its presidential ticket to the South East zone. If the South West could be granted the presidency in 1999 to calm their “frayed nerves” after the June 12 debacle, then the South East deserves the presidency in 2023 to end the feeling of marginalization by the people of the zone.
There is a consensus among political stakeholders and leaders of Thought in the region that the South East will align with the APC and vote en masse for the party if an Igbo emerges the presidential candidate of the party.
This will further strengthen its presence in the region where it has striven for years to make an appreciable presence. The South East is not in short supply of men and women who are acceptable to the North and receptive to the South West. They abound in the region. The APC should look farther in the zone.
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