Ondo State Governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, has advised the All Progressives Congress (APC) to zone its presidential ticket to Southern Nigeria if it hopes to retain the presidency in 2023.
Akeredolu, who is also the chairman of the Southwest Governors’ Forum, has been announced as the Chairman of Security and Compliance for the APC Special Convention. The convention, where the party will elect its presidential candidate, holds from June 6 to 8.
In a short message via his personal Facebook page on Thursday, the governor re-echoed the position of his colleagues in the Southern Nigeria Governors’ Forum that power should be rotated to the South.
He explained that the APC must be ready to rotate power so as to retain the presidency.
“APC must work to retain power. We must rotate power to retain power!!! Rotate to the South. Shikena,” he wrote.
Akeredolu and other APC governors from the South have insisted that the presidential candidate of the party should be from that part of the country.
This is despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s announcement to the governors that he should be supported to pick his successor. The president did not, however, name who he wanted as his successor.
Buhari travelled to Spain immediately after his Tuesday meeting with the APC governors.
The governors have since been meeting among themselves to nominate candidates for the president to select from.
However, their meetings have been deadlocked, mainly over the issue of what part of the country the candidate should come from.
While some northern governors argue that only a northern candidate can defeat Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, the southern governors have unanimously insisted that the presidency should be zoned to the south.
