As the race towards the 2023 elections gathers steam, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has cautioned against the rising bickering over which region should produce the president in 2023, saying political parties have no power to zone elective offices.
The former presidential candidate explained that the bickering is adding a corrosively divisive ting to an already badly fractured polity.
“While we recognise the freedom of expression of every Nigerian, utmost care is needed now more than ever before not to complicate the delicate situation of the country by pitching one section of the country against another,” he said.
According to him, it is the constitutional right of every Nigerian who meets the qualification criteria to stand for elective office regardless of their ethnic descent or religious persuasion.
“Any politician that wants to contest to be president from wherever can jolly well jump into the ring. There is no need to continuously blackmail the country by hiding under ethnic nationality groups.
“While political parties can zone party offices, they have no power to zone elective offices. There is no need to spit hot air over this any further,” he said.
Olawepo-Hashim warned that while everyone has a freedom of expression, utmost care is needed now more than ever before not to complicate the delicate situation of the country by pitching one section of the country against another.
“If we allow ethnic nationality groups prompted by different factions of the political elites to continue to drive the debate on our future, we shall soon arrive at 350 confusing pathways as Nigeria is made up of 350 ethnic groups,” he warned.
He warned that power rotation argument is always emotive and it tears nations apart.
“This is exactly what led to genocide in Rwanda causing the killings of 800,000 souls and same thing that ignited the collapse of Yugoslavia to an extent that virtually every county wanted to become a country,” he added.
Nigeria, he stressed, is a modern state, not an ethnic federation; its sub-national component are states and local governments and her primary focus is citizenship rights, not regional and ethnic charters.
