Former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, has urged the ruling All Progressives Congress to allow the South-East to produce its presidential candidate for the 2023 general elections.
He, however, noted that the APC may find it difficult to produce a candidate like President Muhammadu Buhari in the forthcoming presidential poll.
The former Senate President stated this while speaking on Friday on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.
He said stressed that the South-East geopolitical zone have faith in Nigeria and should be giving the opportunity to produce the next president of the country.
Nnamani, who is the Chairman of President Buhari Committee on Electoral Amendment, said the decision for the next presidential candidate “is supposed to be the collective decision of the party; no one person can impose himself on the party. Remember that we are returning the party to constitutionality, we believe in the constitution of the party.
“South-East is an integral part of Nigeria. In fact, South-East zone contributes enormously, I dare say, more than other zones, because if you notice the type of investments made in the country by people from South-East, it is direct investments, not portfolio investments.
“There is no part of Nigeria you go to that you don’t see physical structures from the people of the South-East either developing markets from the scratch. If you give them a bush, they (will) clean it and if you go back there in the next few months, you see a lot of difference.
“So, people from South-East stand to benefit more if there is stability and progress in Nigeria because they are willing to compete and compete favourably.
“All the zones should participate. Remember we are talking about participatory democracy. If we are talking about zoning, South-East deserves to be considered equally because if we talk of true Nigerians, those in the South-East are true Nigerians.”
When asked about the fate of APC after Buhari, Nnamani said, “Yes, it may be difficult to find a candidate of his calibre because he came into the election with almost 10 million votes in advance. He has followers. We will look hard to find someone who can fall into that category but he is trying to lay a strong foundation and that is this revalidation and registration that is going on.”
He said Buhari is concerned about the future of the ruling party after his tenure and hopes to consolidate the party and make it resilient with the ongoing APC membership revalidation and registration exercise.
Nnamani said, “Mr President understands the need for leaving a strong legacy and I understand from all his actions so far the he wants to leave a strong party long after he has left office.
“To do this, he wants us to start from the foundation. It is not the first time the party is doing registration or revalidation. But since the last time we did it, there have been those who were 18 years and would like to participate and those that have passed on. We have to update the register. It is in accordance with the constitution.
“After this registration, we will be talking about congresses and after congresses, we move into conventions, and that would put the party on a very strong footing.”