2023: Tinubu Urged to Support Younger Candidate from South-east

Chuks Okocha and Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

The Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has called on the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to jettison his presidential ambition in 2023 and back a younger candidate from the South-east.

Okechukwu in a statement issued yesterday said Tinubu should throw his weight behind a younger person from the South-east geopolitical zone to emerge as the President in 2023.

The party chieftain said by so doing, Tinubu would have united the south foreverv as some northerners have complained that they are reluctant to support Southern candidates because of lack of cohesion among the two major geopolitical zones in the South.

He said: “If one is consulted by our national leader, His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu on whether he should run or not for the exalted office of the President of Nigeria in 2023, my candid advice will be that he should use his abundant Almighty God’s endowment to unite the APC, and unite the South and by extension our beloved country, by backing a candidate from the southeast.”

Okechukwu was of the opinion that if Tinubu widens his search, he would definitely find a credible candidate from the South-east who will easily defeat the presumed candidate of the PDP, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar.
He added: “By so doing, he would have wittingly used one stone to kill two birds – unite the APC, and unite the South and by extension, the entire country.”

The scriptures said there is time for everything which happens on earth. Am one of those Buharists who have tremendous respect for Asiwaju for the critical supplement he added to Buhari’s 12 million vote-bank, which resulted in our 2015 presidential election victory. It is not a mean feat, when you consider that with Buhari’s vote-bank, we were unable to win in 2003, 2007 and 2011, until the merger of the legacy political parties, where Tinubu played a major role.”

Okechukwu said he was not privy to any purported agreement between Tinubu and Buhari in 2015 to be his running mate in the presidential election.

“I don’t know of any agreement, however as I said, the scriptures posit that there is time for everything which happens on this planet. All I know is that there was raging debate on the proprietary of Muslim/Muslim ticket as to whether it can guarantee victory of the APC at the 2015 presidential election. This was what to the best of my knowledge which denied Tinubu the Vice Presidential slot and not the scanty insinuation of breach of agreement. The scale of Muslim/Muslim ticket was weighty unlike in 1993 Abiola/Kingibe ticket. It was thoroughly debated and dropped, for defeat phobia,” he said.

Okechukwu insisted that President Buhari did not breach any agreement with Tinubu, but it was realpolitik at play.
Okechukwu said given the foregoing background, Tinubu would etch his name in gold if he utilises his Almighty God’s endowed resources to support anyone from the South East to be Nigeria president of Igbo extraction.

He believed that Tinubu should support a Southeast candidate instead of his protege, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who is meters away from the coveted seat of the presidency.

Okechukwu maintained that the rotation started from the South-West in 1999 and therefore, going by equity and natural justice the South-East should be allowed to produce the President in 2023.

“One, it is because of the zoning convention which has governed the 4th Republic since 1999, a convention which states that the president should rotate between north and south. It started in 1999 from the South-west, with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as president. Secondly, our brothers in the South-south had their turn to preside over Nigeria. Southeast is the only geopolitical zone in the south which had not presided over Nigeria except the six months of General Aguiyi Ironsi’s stint.

“This uncommon statesmanlike Tinubu’s gesture will unite the south, for many had bemoaned the lack of synergy between politicians from both the South-East and South-West geopolitical zones.”