At least nine northern state governors are urging their colleagues to support the Congress of all progressives (APC) to elect their presidential candidate for the 2023 elections in the southern part of Nigeria.
The APC has 14 governors in the region and, like its eight peers in the South, they have been holding meetings to deliberate on possible candidates to recommend to President Muhammadu Buhari as the party’s consensus candidate.
The party will nominate its presidential candidate at its National Convention in Abuja next week. Twenty-three (23) applicants have been selected to participate in the primary, 19 of whom are from the three geopolitical zones of the South.
But pressure has intensified for the party to look north in its election since the main opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party chose former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as its own candidate for the election on Saturday.
On Tuesday, President Buhari met with the governors of the 22 APC states and urged them to support him in choosing his preferred successor.
Following the president’s statement, state governors met twice on Tuesday to recommend a candidate for president, but the meetings ended in deadlock.
While the governors agreed that their southern and northern groups should meet separately to recommend one candidate each to run for president, they couldn’t agree on whether their picks should be governors or any of the candidates already on the ballot. race.
After the general meeting, the northern APC governors moved to the Kebbi state governor’s lodge in Abuja from 8:00 pm on Tuesday, but spent several hours discussing whether to field a northern candidate or return to the south to present the candidate.
The meeting was attended by all 14 APC governors in the region, except Kaduna state governor Nasir El-Rufai, who is in Dubai. El-Rufai was represented in the previous meeting with the president by his deputy, Hadiza Balarabe.
According to one source, the meeting at the Kebbi governor’s lodge had the same tone as previous discussions, where nine of the governors had argued that it is not in the interests of national cohesion and social justice for the presidency to remain in the north in 2023. , after eight years of Buhari’s presidency.
Some of these governors also rejected the view that only a northern candidate can match the DPP’s candidate, Mr. Atiku, in elections.
The nine governors who support the shift of power to the South are Babagana Zulum from Borno, Simeon Lalong from Plateau, Nasir El-Rufai from Kaduna and Abdullahi Gantuve from Kano. Others are Aminu Masari from Katsina, Abubakar Bello from Niger, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq from Kwara, Abdullahi Sule from Nasarawa and Bello Matawalle from Zamfara.
“Kwara, Kano and Katsina are less vocal, but they all support the view that as Northerners we must honor the unwritten agreement (rotation of power between North and South). Governors El-Rufai, Zulum and Lalong are more vocal,” the source said. .
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However, the nine governors disagree on who should be the South’s choice because “there are many conflicting aspirations… What unites them is that they all believe in the South’s presidency at this time,” the source said. “They have their various preferences that they keep to themselves,” the source said. “But Gantuve clearly prefers Tinubu while Lalong prefers Amaechi. The Governor of Niger also follows Tinubu, but the Governor of Nasarawa prefers the Vice President (Yemi Osinbajo).
Governors of the South United
For their part, the eight southern governors are united in their demand for a southern candidate. However, the governors could not agree on a candidate for recommendation to the president to consider as his preferred candidate.
Three of the governors are among the party’s 19 presidential hopefuls. These are Kayode Fayemi from Ekiti, Ben Ayade from Cross River and David Umahi from Ebonyi.
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