The South East Coalition For Good Governance, SECG, a socio political group, has vowed to mobilize voters in the South East zone, against the All Progressives Congress, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, if they field presidential candidates from the North in the 2023 presidential election.
Spokesman of the Coalition, Emmanuel Okwu, in a statement made available to INNONEWS, said both political parties will face massive rejection in the South East zone, if they go ahead to select Northern presidential candidates.
“We will reject it and embark on sensitization in the South East to educate our people to reject the APC and the PDP, if they go ahead with their perceived plans.
“It will be against the grain of common sense, if the two leading political parties in the country, take the South for granted and go ahead with plans to present Northern presidential candidates for the 2023 general elections.
The SECG said though “it is not averse to Northern presidential aspirants aspiring to be president of Nigeria, the mood of the nation at the moment demands that the next President of Nigeria should come from the South, particularly the South East, which has not produced Nigeria’s President after the reign of Late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in 1960.
“It is an open truth and an untwisted fact that the South East zone deserves to produce President Buhari’s successor in 2023, on the basis that the North, the South- West and South- South, have all produced Presidents of Nigeria.
“We call on the leadership of the PDP and APC not to tinker with the idea of producing Northern presidential candidates. The South East in the past, have aided both political parties to elect Northern presidential candidates as President of Nigeria.
“The South East backed the PDP to elect a Northerner, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as President, and also supported the South West to produce Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as President in 1999.
“The South East in 1999 sacrificed for the unity of the country in 1999, when one of its illustrious sons, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, had to forgo the presidential ticket of the ANPP, for a joint alliance with the AD Presidential candidate, Olu Falae.
“The North, including the PDP and APC should equally make a similar sacrifice and back the South East for the presidency in 2019” the statement stated.