Akeredolu Insists on southern presidency in 2023.
– Tamarauemi Ebimini
Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, has insisted that the Presidency of Nigeria must come to the South in 2023 not to thwart the power rotation arrangement in the country.
Akeredolu said power rotation had been an unwritten agreement in the country since the return to civil rule in 1999, saying that arrangement must be changed now.
He said this on Wednesday at the one-year remembrance of Prof. Bankole Oke of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Ibadan, while delivering a lecture entitled, ‘Nigeria: The politics of religion in a transitional society.’
He advised Nigerians to make sure that power did not return to the North under what he described as the guise of a party picking a southerner as its vice presidential candidate.
The governor warned Nigerians to beware of the tricks of desperate politicians using religion to divide the people.
Akeredolu said politicians in the First Republic achieved so much because they were people with huge capacity, and religion was not an issue in determining those elected and appointed into offices but the capacity to deliver
He said Nigerian leaders before the independence laboured hard to wrest power from the colonial masters while urging Nigerians to be optimistic that the country would be great again. However, he admitted that it was taking too long.