The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) shouldn’t zone its 2023 presidential ticket to the Southern part of the country, former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso has said.
The former governor, who is one of the presidential hopefuls in 2023, said this in an interview with Channels Television on Sunday night.
He described the call by the southern governors and other leaders for power shift as an attempt to intimidate the northern region into relinquishing its right to contest for the seat.
Kwankwaso argued that the decision to contest should be based on strategy rather than mere clamour or sentiments.
The two-term former governor said PDP had produced more southern presidents than northern ones.
He said: “You see many people are mixing what ordinarily shouldn’t come together at all. We have PDP, we have APC, we have APGA and we have many other parties today in this country. And the issue of where a party puts its presidency or vice presidency is a matter of strategy.
“If you look at it from 1999, to date, or even after 2023, we have 16 years for PDP, eight years for APC. Now, in the 16 years of PDP, we had a situation where the presidency had been in the south for 14 years and only in the north for two years during the presidency of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of blessed memory.
“Now we see some people, maybe because they don’t understand politics or they want to be mischievous, they keep on mixing the two issues of two political parties together. This PDP and APC are contestants in this game.”
Kwankwaso also refuted claims that he was planning to defect to the ruling APC.
The former governor traced the genesis of the rumour to leave PDP to the treatment meted out on him and his supporters during the party’s congress in Kaduna in 2021.
“As we speak, there is no plan for me to leave PDP, to join APC, or any other party.
“Of course, there were issues which are very clear to almost everybody; that we had congress in April last year in Kaduna, which I felt and many of my supporters in the North-west and even beyond felt that I was not being treated well and Kano was not being treated the way it should be.
“And therefore, I believe that was the beginning of those issues to the extent that people thought because of that, we would leave the PDP for APC or any other party,” he said, while noting the reconciliatory efforts of the party leaders.”
