As Nigerians look forward to the 2023 general elections, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has said that the next Nigerian president should come from the south.
The governor, while speaking in an interview with BBC Hausa on Saturday, said that he will not support a northerner to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.
Stating that he does not have any interest in the presidency, El-Rufai said that it is baseless for anyone to insinuate that he would contest for presidency in 2023.
According to him, the idea of rotating the presidency may not be constitutional, but it is based on the country’s political arrangement.
The Kaduna governor stated:
In Nigerian politics, there is a system of rotation, in which everyone agrees that if the north rules for eight years, the south will rule for eight years.
That is why I came out and said that after President Buhari has been in office for eight years, no northerner should run for office. Let the Southerners also have eight years.
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If you look at how I am, I don’t take anyone to work with me for the zone he came from. The eligibility I look at is if who is entrusted to the public will hold it properly.
It has been said that I have loved the presidency since I was a minister in the FCT. This is nonsense. I do not want the Nigerian presidency. God gives power, whether you like it or not, if He wants it, He will give it to you, but I have never sought the presidency of Nigeria, no one can say I have ever sought it.
Recall recently that President Buhari’s older nephew, Mamman Daura, in an interview with BBC Hausa, said it is better to allow a competent candidate to rule the country than zoning the seat of the president.
Daura’s comments, in the meantime, attracted criticisms from socio-ethnic groups and some personalities in the country.