The All Progressives Congress and Peoples Democratic Party have the key to the preservation of unity of Nigeria by observing the zoning convention, which midwifed the fourth Republic in 1999, a founding member of APC, Osita Okechukwu, has said.
He also commended the PDP for the timely clarification of its stand on zoning the 2023 Presidency.
According to him, the South-East should produce the President in 2023 to, among other things, ensure equity, natural justice and good conscience and “end of the civil war” activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra.
Okechukwu stated these on Sunday in an interview with journalists in Abuja on the clarification made by PDP on its position on zoning.
He also said that supporting a President from South East would be APC and by extension, President Muhammadu Buhari’s greatest legacy to the socio-political stability and development of Nigeria.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had renounced the statement made by a former governor of Niger State, Alhaji Babangida Aliyu and Chief Femi Fani-Kayode at different fora, that PDP has zoned the party’s presidential ticket to the North, preferably in favour of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Ologunagba had stated, “The attention of the PDP has been drawn to comments and speculations from certain individuals claiming that our party has zoned its presidential ticket to a particular part of the country.
“This is completely misleading as it does not in any way represent the position of our party. For the avoidance of doubt, the PDP emphatically and unequivocally states that it has not zoned its presidential ticket to any part of the country.”
Welcoming the PDP’s clariy as very interesting and refreshing, Okechukwu, who is also the Director General of Voice of Nigeria, sais that “the two dominant political parties in our multiparty system, APC and PDP, hold the key to restoration of Nigeria’s unity by observing the zoning convention.”
He said, “It was that same zoning convention that midwifed our 4th Republic and we are waiting for the two to save our fledgling democracy.”
He explained that his adamant campaign for zoning was that political power has always rotated between the North and South.
“My major concern is the peace, unity and prosperity of our dear fatherland”, he said.
Okechukwu said that in political activities, the law, with its legal teeth, combines with convention and its moral weight, stressing that both played prominent roles in the political economies of all countries at one point or the other.
The VON DG said, “It was based on this premise, for instance, that patriots like former Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Solomon Lar, Alhajis Abubakar Rimi, Umaru Shinkafi, Adamu Ciroma, Dr. Olusola Saraki, all of blessed memory, and a host of others shelved their self interest and adopted the zoning convention, thereby saving our country.
The PUNCH
