Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, has asked Northerners to wait until 2031 before thinking of producing another President for Nigeria.
This comes as several Northern groups and prominent leaders, especially from the North Central zone of the country are clamouring to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.
PANDEF, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt by its National Publicity Secretary, Ken Robinson, said the call was in the interest of national harmony and peace.
The statement reads in part: “The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) is advising and cautioning politicians from the North, seeking to run for the presidency, to wait till 2031, for the sake of national harmony and peace.
“Everyone has the right to take part in the governance of his/her country; to vote and be voted for. But, it’s equally fundamental to uphold the indispensable principles of fairness, equity, and justice. Noting that without these, there can be no overall peace and progress.
“PANDEF avers that it should be, therefore, unthinkable that the North should contemplate clutching onto the presidential seat, in 2023, at the end of President Muhammadu Buhari’s two tenures of eight years. Nature abhors injustice; the sun does not rise in the east and set in the east.
“We consider declarations, by some individuals and groups, now, suddenly opposing the extant practice of rotational zoning of political offices, particularly that of the Presidency, as unpatriotic and self-serving”.
