…Says I’ll not support a northerner in 2023
Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has stressed the imperative to respect the spirit of rotational presidency in Nigeria to foster national unity among the country’s geopolitical zones that make it truly a nation, noting that anybody who denies the notion is deceiving him or herself. ONYEKA AJUMOBI ONOCHIE reports
He said, although rotational presidency is not constitutional, it was a notional belief drawn by the nation’s elders to offer sense of belonging among the various federating units, judging from the country’s complex political structure.
He said, “I believe that no developed country in the world considers leadership based on where someone comes from. However, in Nigerian politics, there is an arrangement that we all believe on rotational leadership. We are aware of that, and anyone who denies that is wrong.”
According to him, the southern part of the country is now in a better position to produce the president, come 2023, when the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime elapses, although he did not say a preferred region from the South west and South east. South west has joined the north to experience power since the present political dispensation in 199.
On this note, El-Rufai sounded it clear that he will not support any northerner to contest for the 2023 presidential election after Buhari.
He stated this, Saturday, during an interview programme with the BBC Hausa Service, insisting, “the southern part of the country is supposed to produce the president come 2023; I won’t support a northerner to vie for the seat after President Muhammadu Buhari, based on Nigeria’s political arrangement.”
The Kaduna governor’s remarks come against the backdrop of the recent comments of President Buhari’s nephew, Mamman Daura, challenging the veracity of the rotational presidency, which has, so far, drawn a deluge of flaks from southern political bloc, which insisted on the imperative for power shift from Buhari (a notherner) come 2023.
Although political pundits view El-Rufai’s comments as hypocritical, bearing in mind that in his Kaduna homestead, reverse is the case with his Northern Kaduna Moslems remaining in power in perpetuity, the governor said: “In Kaduna, I don’t work with people because they came from a particular zone, rather, I work with you based on your capacity to deliver on a task given to you and your ability to keep public trust.”
On his rumoured presidential ambition, he said, “it is a baseless speculation. I don’t want to be president; only God decides the future of anybody; whether you like it or not, I have never shown interest for the presidency