Emerging report indicates that there is serious division and brewing crisis in the Southern Governors Forum, over the zoning of the 2023 Presidency.
The South-East Governors are reportedly feeling betrayed by the South-West Governors, who made them join in their fight that the 2023 Presidency should move to the Southern part of the country, in an agreement reached in 2021.
The South-East Governors are furious that after standing in agreement with the other Southern Governors against the North, which they believed was a hidden fight for an Igbo man to emerge as the next President of the country, in 2023, the Governors, especially the South-West Governors, have turned around to support the South-West Candidates, like Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and the All Progressives Congress, APC, National Leader, Bola Tinubu, for the 2023 Presidency.
This move has not sat well with the South-East Governors, who argue that for equality, fairness and justice, it is time for an Igbo man to emerge as the next President of the country, especially as the South-South, North and South-West, have all produced Presidents of the country, since the democratic era which began in 1999.
Speaking on this on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’, the Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, said: “We cannot be honest by half. When zoning does not exclude people from contesting. It has been happening. There is no political face that is not zoning in this country. And the body language of the Mr. President is well disposed towards the Presidency shifting to the South.
“But when the South cannot handle it on the basis of equity, fairness and justice, then we should continue to suggest that we should not blackmail the North; we should not deceive ourselves. This thing should be thrown open, because if there is no zoning, then you have no right to continue to agitate that the North cannot contest.
“We cannot be used to drag Presidency to the South, and then we are shortchanged. So, we should be part of such agitation, if such fairness and equity cannot be ascribed to us. That is the position of most Leaders in the South-East.
“I am not asking that people from the South-West should not run; it is their constitutional right. But I want to say that we have worked together, the Southern Governors said look Presidency should rotate to the South, but on the basis of equity, fairness and justice, we had the South-East in mind since the South-East never tested it.
“Now it has become clear that the platform upon which we collectively asked the North to concede the Presidency to the South, is no longer the same platform upon which the realities are based; then it is fair and just that we should be able to allow anybody in the country to run.”
More news later…