Ondo Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has urged the national leadership of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) under Senator Abdullahi Adamu to immediately make a pronouncement on which zone will produce the presidential candidate of the party.
This, the Akeredolu stated will safeguard the party from self-inflicted crisis ahead of the General election in 2023.
Akeredolu said the principle of rotational representation guided the party’s leadership decision at the just-concluded national convention.
Akeredolu, in a statement he personally signed in Akure, insisted that it was the turn of the South to produce the next President.
The Ondo Governor said the party leadership should have no difficulty in making pronouncements on the important issue of zoning just as it has fixed various fees for the purchase of forms.
He said the pronouncement must be done without delay.
Hear him: “It will be disingenuous for anyone to argue against rotation at this period.
“We must not keep our party men and women guessing on the position of the leadership of the party. This is the time to weigh in and take control of the process. No statement must suggest, even remotely, that the party harbours certain sentiments which may predispose it to consider throwing the contest open. This is certainly not the time for equivocation. Equity dictates we take a stand.
“We cannot, therefore, afford any internal bickering which holds the potential promise of causing distrust and militating against cohesion, harmony, and the zeal to achieve set objectives.
“The current democratic dispensation is anchored on the unwritten convention driven by a principle of Equity. Political expediency dictates, more appealingly, that while adhering to the spirit and letters of the laws guiding the conduct of elections and succession to political offices, we must do nothing which is capable of tilting the delicate balance against the established arrangement which guarantees peace and promotes trust.
“Our party just elected officers on the established principle of giving every part of the country an important stake in the political calculus. The focus has now shifted to the process which will culminate in the participation of our party in the general elections scheduled for next year. All lovers of peace and freedom must do everything to eschew tendencies that may predispose them to make decisions that promote distrust and lead to a crisis, the end of which nobody may be able to predict.
“It is expected, fervently, that it will proceed to complete the process by limiting the propensities for disagreement to a region for possible micro-management. It is very expedient that we avoid self-inflicted crises before the general elections.
