Akeredolu, Keyamo hail Northern APC Governors stance on power shift, as South, CAN, PFN cautioned over utterances towards North in democracy

*As level ground contest for 2023 discussed

By KEMI KASUMU

Governor of Ondo State, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), and Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo (SAN), have hailed the decision of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Governors in Northern Nigeria that Presidency should go to South come 2023.

The DEFENDER had reported earlier that the APC Northern governors had held that no Northern aspirant should contest the coming primary election with the Southern aspirants and urged President Muhammadu Buhari to look toward the southern presidential hopefuls when considering his successor.

They particularly asked Buhari to limit his search for APC’s presidential candidate to the South.

Governor Akeredolu, who is Chairman of South W st Governors Forum, hailed his counterparts in Northern Nigeria for the historical decision.

In his reaction, Keyamo said: “A truly national Party has come to stay. Whilst others hope to cash in on ethnic sentiments to win AT ALL COST, the Northern APC Govs have displayed statesmanship & commitment to the Nigerian Project.

“Take note: this is one of the most pivotal moments in the history of Nigeria!”

A level playing ground

In the meantime, it has been gathered that since the South cannot become President on its own and the demography does not so favour it like it does to the North, their quest for power should always be based on mutual understanding, respect and far away from thought of blame game and all the campaigns of calumny all the times.

This attitude, it was said, tends to paint the North as enemy of the same Nigeria in which it has the biggest stake thereby subjecting to security risk Northerners, who have everything favouring them as far as demographic distributions and geographical locations of Nigeria are concerned in a democracy, and still using the media they control to mislead the world about truth of happenings to the disfavour of the same North.

“This idea of saying power must come to the South is not automatic. If you agree you are practicing democracy, you must know that it is the most undemocratic thing the South do by thinking the North must give power to the North because some people are turning their regions to war zones and manufacturing fake news they supply to the Lagos/Ibadan press to blackmail other region mainly the North. No. Power shift can’t be automatic. It is the people that have the votes that own the power.

“It is good now that the decisions that put APC and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the level ground for this contest still come from the North and it is not because of pressure of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) or Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) or an Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo or some kind of so called Middle-Belt group but because of moral consideration to enable smaller group have fair share. The end result will still depend on the decision of Nigerians at the end of which no one can have reason to complain.

“We remember in 2015 and 2019 the campaigns of calumny by ethnic and religious groups saying Nigerians should not vote for Muslim and Northern Candidate. That was after Christian and Southern candidate had ruled for the 14 of 16 and 14 of 20 years, respectively, then, with the Muslim and Northerner ruling being two of 16 and six of 20 years, respectively.

“It is therefore unfair enough to the North that some people, because they are Southerners or Christians, would continue to blackmail the North as if what they are saying is that Northerners have done badly by not using democratic process that is a game of number to always perpetuate in power to vote Christians and Southerners into power and yet these same Northers are not appreciated for once. If for food security alone, not to talk of commitment to national peace and unity development, the North has never been appreciated by the South. It is unfair but we are less concerned.

“Even now that APC Northern governors have done it for the South, don’t be surprised, the South will still find a way to be ungrateful  but the North will allow Nigerians to choose their leaders. What we are saying is that, the South and Christians should be careful with the way they gloat over chances they got on moral consideration because, if at the leadership level we can achieve this, what about the Northern masses, whose decisions may go out of control because of your provocations and who are capable of doing protest votes as a means of asserting themselves at the long run?” The respondent warned.