Abah Joshua
A socio-political Igbo group, South-East For President 2023, on Wednesday, said the Peoples Democratic Party might jettison the country’s constitution, the same way it dumped its historic agreement on rotation of the presidency, if elected into power.
The group, which condemned the main opposition party’s current stance on zoning and abandonment of the power rotation agreement, maintained it was the turn of the South-East to produce the nation’s president in 2023.
The group’s National Coordinator, Rev. Okechukwu Obioha, in a statement, on Wednesday, said there was fear in the country that PDP might abandon the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria if the party is voted into power in 2023, since it can flouted its power rotation agreement.
He said, “The political rigmarole by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and PDP, disregarding the Federal Character, provided for by the Nigerian constitution, and PDP’s power rotation gentleman’s agreement, to deny the South East the opportunity to produce the president, is a strong indication that the civil war, which supposedly ended 52 years ago, is still on.
“If the two major political parties, APC and PDP, do not declare South-Easterners their candidates at the end of their primary elections, as it was done in 1999 in favour of the South West and 2019 in favour of the North, SEFORP2023 will go on coalition with various groups and lovers of equity, justice and fairness in the six zones of the country to support and midwife a Third Force to elect the president of Nigeria from the South East in 2023.
“Denying the South East of the 2023 Presidency will create more apprehension and worsen the security situation in the region.
“We, therefore, implore the powers that be, political gladiators, APC and PDP, to do the needful and save this country from unnecessary biases, crises and conflicts.”, he noted.