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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Former Director, Centre for Alternative Policy Perspectives and Strategy (CAPPS) and an author, Dr Udenta O Udenta, has said that it is morally wrong and interest borne out of rapacious appetite and greed for anybody from the South West to indicate interest for the 2023 presidential election.
He spoke in Abuja at a parley with newsmen on Monday, claiming that the construct of the zoning presidential ticket to the South is mischievous, dubious and duplicitous.
Warning that no Igbo sons and daughters should waste their vote on a Yoruba presidential aspirant or candidate, he suggested that supporting the North East or North Central aspiration would be more beneficial to the Igbos.
“When we talk about zoning to the South, we must know that the construct of zoning to the South is fraudulent, mischievous, duplicitous and full of concealment of true intentions.
“It is based on the false binary of North and South as if these two entities are not without subdivisions and substructural units in them. It is possible for one section out of the three in the South to grab the presidency and perpetually hold it to the exclusion of the other two. They hide under this false narrative of equity and justice to claim that the power has shifted between North and South.
“Power shift from North to South is a blind generic indeterminate shift that does not specify. If you ask me which side it should go to, I will say it will go to the Nouth without holding brief for them especially those from Nouth East and North Central.
“In the South, there is no way an Obasanjo eight years and Osinbajo eight-year Vice Presidency and the sacrifice of Ogbonnaya Onu should not translate into an unambiguous, clear, visible statement that there is no part of the country that has not experienced presidential power.
“So, the South West of this country stand morally disqualified and whoever that is in the South West by whichever name is rapacious in his appetite and greedy to seek for this office,” he said.
Speaking further, Udenta argued: “But what do I witness in my own side, the South East, where they should have been screaming that it is not a generic South, the noise is not resonating. And when it is resonating, it is not coming from those from critical party stakeholders. The PDP and APC in the South East stakeholders ought to have spoken powerfully. None of our children will contest this presidency.
“South West party stakeholders are talking power shift to the South. We are going to have an eight-year Yoruba presidency to another eight-year presidency of the North to another eight-year presidency to wherever it goes in the South again. From 16 years it could become 84 years before the South East could have the presidency. It is obvious that these politicians are duplicitous and not sincere about the power shift to the South.
“When the political elite is confusing the rest of the country of an amorphous power shift to the South, which may consequent to South West presidential grab, it is better to have a rearguard action with the like of Bala Mohammed who is eminently qualified for,” he said.
