The race for the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress has been generating a lot of controversies over the zone that will produce the flagbearer of the ruling party.
While the northern region wants to retain power, the southern region on the other hand wants the ruling party to honour the gentle-man agreement in 2015 and zone the presidential ticket to the region for the sake of equity and fairness.
One of the presidential hopefuls from the northern region, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State argued that the North Central where he hails from has neither produced the President of the country nor Vice President and sought to be given the presidential ticket of the party as a politician from the North Central geopolitical zone.
However, the latest the decision of APC zoning committee showed that the ruling party has zoned presidency to the southern region after zoning the position of the party’s National Chairman to the northern region.
The decision came after the meeting of the 19 state Governors on the ruling party with President Muhammadu Buhari in presidential Villa on Tuesday.
This brought to an end months of controversies over the region that will produce the presidential candidate of the ruling party in the February 18, 2023 presidential election.
The decision of the All Progressives Congress to zone the presidential ticket of the party to the southern region may have ended the presidential ambition of the Kogi State Governor.
It would be difficult for Bello to achieve his presidential ambition after the recent decision of his party on zoning arrangement.
The implication of the zoning arrangement is that presidential aspirants on the platform of APC from the northern region may shelve their ambitions as the ticket would only be contested by the southern politicians just like the arrangement on the zoning of the National Chairman of the party to the northern region.
Unless the Kogi State Governor is able to convince the leadership of the party to change the zoning arrangement, his presidential ambition may have ended with the new development.
Isah Bala…
Writes from Okehi
