2023 Presidency: Bala Mohammed got it wrong on APC’s zoning to South, says DG, VON

A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Mr Osita Okechukwu, has faulted Bauchi State governor, Senator Bala Mohammed’s argument against the party’s zoning of the 2023 Presidency to the South.

Okechukwu said the Governor got it wrong on all fronts.

The Bauchi Governor had, after his visit to Obasanjo in Abeokuta, told journalists that APC’s decision to zone the Presidency to the South was not a threat to the PDP.

But, speaking to reporters in Abuja on Thursday, Okechukwu, who is also the Director-General (DG) of Voice of Nigeria (VON) noted that Governor Bala’s disposition showed the lack of dynamism in the political thinking of the opposition PDP.

He stressed that the opposition party had shown that it was incapable of upstaging APC, especially when the unity and prosperity of Nigeria were not uppermost in their calculations.

According to him “Methinks if the statement credited to him is correct, His Excellency, Bala Mohammed and by extension PDP, is simply being opportunistic by saying that APC’s zoning of Presidency to the South is not a threat to the PDP because if we put it to the North, it will give us more electoral victory. That’s ethnic chauvinism simple.

“The Bauchi State governor and PDP seem to forget that Nigerians are fair-minded and uphold justice and equity in their voting preferences. That was why the late Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), defeated Alhaji Bashir Tofa in his Kano State home in 1993.

“In 2023, Nigerians are going to repeat that feat by acknowledging President Muhammadu Buhari and APC’s decision to do the right things for national unity, peace and progress.

“To me, the doctrine of swap of offices between the north and the south is a masterstroke by Mr President and good for APC and Nigerians in every material particular.

“It is not only a threat to our sister political party, the PDP, but also signals their imminent defeat. My friend governor’s reaction seems inspired by a sense of defeatism and phobia for APC.”

He regretted that “after just seven years in opposition, PDP had retained its character of deception, duplicity, selfishness, promise and fail. Otherwise, how can a rational political party flagrantly and unscrupulously breach its constitution, which expressly ingrained zoning?”

On the perception that PDP’s strategy could be geared towards getting more votes from the north, Okechukwu insisted that the Bauchi governor may be speaking on behalf of those who underrate the political sophistication of the north and their abiding faith in equity, natural justice and good conscience.

While contending that the governor may have forgotten that a latent vote bank would be created in the South through a southern presidential candidate, the VON DG stated: “The north cannot be led by the nose by Governor Mohammed and his co-travellers.

“Have we forgotten how notable northern politicians like Alhajis Abubakar Rimi, Umaru Shinkafi, Adamu Ciroma, Dr Sola Saraki et al out of overriding public interest and uncommon patriotism constructed the zoning convention, which birthed the 4th Republic as the longest democratic era in the annals of Nigerian history?

“I am confident that Nigerians cannot forget in a hurry how PDP nurtured Nigeria towards becoming the World Poverty Capital, gross unemployment and palpable insecurity by their squandermania and share-the-money syndrome which became its slogan.

“Nigerians know that those monies PDP shared among themselves and their cronies were budgeted for critical infrastructure and social development of our dear countrymen.

“It is, therefore, ironic that the same PDP is struggling to wash off its hands like Pontus Pilate from squandering money budgeted for military equipment, roads, rails, education and healthcare.

“Or do we forget the less than transparent sale of national assets and state-owned enterprises, where the sordid agreements like that of DISCOs are more or less tailored by the tenant for the Federal Government, who is supposed to be the landlord?

“The tenancy-tailored agreements had made it impossible to unbundle the non-performing DISCOs and free Nigerians from the yoke. That is the darkness we cannot easily overcome.

“One flatly disagrees with those who say that the APC and the PDP are the same because whereas our great party invested in critical infrastructure, PDP shared Nigeria’s money for temporary happiness.”