By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, says the north can’t be cowed to relinquish power in 2023, describing those making the demand as being foolish.
The Kaduna Governor who often makes inconsistent remarks, had in August 2020, advocated that the next president after President Muhammadu Buhari, should come from the South.
He had said at the time: “In Nigerian politics, there is a system of rotation, in which everyone agrees that if the north rules for eight years, the south will rule for eight years. That is why I came out and said that after President Buhari has been in office for eight years, no northerner should run for office. Let the Southerners also have eight years.”
But El-Rufai had hosted northern governors and traditional rulers on Monday, September 27 where they rejected rotational presidency.
In justifying the decision, El-Rufai said: “We are not saying there cannot be a rotational presidency. It can be done but you have to come and sit with the politicians in the north and dialogue and then we agree to give our support to the south but no one has the right to sit in Lagos or Port Harcourt and say whether northerners want it or not, they must relinquish power to the south, that is wrong. It is not how we do politics and in fact, it is foolish.”
The Southern governors had in one of their meetings, said for justice and equity, the presidency should rotate to the South in 2023. Their northern counterparts have now rejected the demand.
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