Mr. Osita Okechukwu, Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), has advised Sen. Bola Tinubu, national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former two-term Governor of Lagos State, to abandon his presidential bid in 2023.
He made the remarks in an Abuja statement on Sunday, adding that Tinubu should be a Kingmaker and support a younger presidential candidate from the South East.
Okechukwu, an APC foundation member, gave the advice at the 2021 Eke Day in Abuja, according to the statement.
“If our national leader, His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, consults me on whether he should run or not for the exalted office of President of Nigeria in 2023, my candid advice will be that he should use his abundant Almighty God’s endowment to unite the APC, and by extension, our beloved country, by supporting a candidate from the South East,” he said.
Okechukwu also advised Tinubu to support a younger person from the South, particularly the South-East geopolitical zone, to become the country’s next president in 2023.
Tinubu, he said, would have forever united the south if he did this.
The VON boss went on to say that if Tinubu broadens his search, he will undoubtedly find a credible candidate from the South-East who will easily defeat the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presumed candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
According to Okechukwu, Tinubu would have cleverly used one stone to kill two birds by uniting the APC, the South, and, by extension, the entire country.
He emphasized that Tinubu would be more statesmanlike if he became a Kingmaker rather than “throwing his hat into the ring.”
He stated that Tinubu’s name would be written in gold if he used his God-given resources to support anyone from the South East to be Nigeria’s next president of Igbo extraction, rather than any other person due to the zoning arrangement.
“Because the rotation began in the South-West in 1999, the South East should be allowed to produce the country’s next president in 2023, based on equity and natural justice.”
“Since 1999, the 4th Republic has been governed by the zoning convention, which states that the president should rotate between North and South.
“It began in 1999, with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as president, and then our brothers in the South South had their turn to preside over Nigeria.”
“With the exception of Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi’s six-month tenure, the South East is the only geopolitical zone in the South that has not presided over Nigeria,” Okechukwu said.