The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has claimed that the 2023 presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) will come from the South.
In an interview with the Vanguard over the weekend, Ngige says he expects the next National Chairman of the ruling party to come from the North and the South produces the presidential candidate.
The former Governor of Anambra State, however, failed to disclose which part of the South will produce the candidate, saying that politics is all about interest.
Ngige asked that the 2023 presidency be zoned to the South and allow the Southerners to decide where it will go.
He said, “We expect that our national chairman this time around will come from the North and our Presidential candidate will come from the South.
“Where it will be from the South, I cannot tell you because politics is all about interest. If we carry moral grounds to go there, one will say let the South-East take it because we are the only zone that has not tasted it among the South-East, South-South and South-West.
“But again, you cannot tell the man from the South-South not to vie. If you want to tell him not to vie, you have to convince him. It has to be through persuasion, negotiation and horse-trading; the same for the man from the South-West.”
Ngige proposed an Igbo presidency and disclosed the reasons why the South-East should produce President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor.
According to him, zoning the 2023 presidency to the South East will erase the issues arising from the civil war and address the resurgent separatist agitations in the region.
“The South-Easterner is saying on moral grounds, equity and justice, you should leave this for me or support me for us to bury all the hostilities, all the bad blood, following the civil war, all the resurgent separatist agitations, based on perceived marginalisation, since there is a thin line between perception and reality. For me, it is Southern President,” he said.