...Says power shift is between North, South Not PDP, APC
The Apex Youth Socio-cultural organization of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC) has blasted Gov. Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, for an alleged plot to deny South East’s People Democratic Party Presidential ticket, saying that he is a poor student of History.
The council noted the call by Gov. Bala Mohammed for the Northern presidency of Nigeria in 2023 is shows that he lacks conscience and a sense of history in Nigerian politics.
This, followed a recent report on a daily News Paper, though not Core Reporters wherein Gov. Bala stated that: “power must shift to the Southern part of the country in 2023 is meant for the All Progressives Congress, APC, and not the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. He said the North still has four years left, based on the arrangement of the PDP”
However, speaking to newsmen over the weekend during the Annual General Assembly of Catholic in politics, Catholic business leader, on the theme: ‘Advancement Of The Common Good Towards Justice, Unity, Structure & Development Of Nigeria’, held at Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria in Abuja, the national President of OYC Comrade Igboayaka O Igboayaka said Gov. Bala has no moral justification to make such comment.,
“Gov. Bala Mohammed disclosed of Northern Presidency in 2023 when a Contact and Consultation Committee he set up for his presidential ambition submitted its report to him on Friday 28 January 2022 at the Government House, Bauchi State.
In the said report, Mohammed said, “We are aware of the agitations of the southern part of the country because the leader of the country today, President Muhammadu Buhari, who is from the North, will finish his tenure in 2023, so power should rotate to the South.
“But I want to say that I am in PDP, I am not in APC. It is the APC that has this burden (of zoning the presidency to the south”
However, Igboayaka stated that “Gov. Bala Mohammed is Northern fundamentalist and a political profiteer whose idea revolves on what he can get while hiding under the Northern agenda to cause crisis in Nigeria.
“It’s unfortunate that Gov. Bala Mohammed is suffering from the burden of conscience and moral question, if not at his age he could have consulted the book of political history in Nigeria to know that out of 63 years of Nigeria as a country from Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Gen. Murtala Ramat Mohammed, Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Gen. Sani Abacha Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar and Umaru Musa Yar’adua the North has ruled Nigeria for 39 years while the South has ruled for 24 years, and the 24 years in Southern Nigeria was between Southwest and South-South with only Six Months from the Southeast,” Igboayaka recalled.
Comrade Igboayaka further reminded Gov. Bala Mohammed that Nigeria’s political arrangements for equity and justice were by geo-political Zone description, between the North and the South not between political parties.
He said: “It is a truism that those that laid the foundation of PDP are political elites and stakeholders from Southeast. People’s Democratic Party, (PDP) is a product of G-34 spearheaded by Dr. Alex Ekwueme.
“It was All Politicians Summit convened by Alex Ekwueme in 1997 to discuss the way out of what was fast becoming a festering dictatorship by Gen. Sani Abacha, in which in the meeting, led by Dr Alex Ekwueme was brutally dispersed by the security apparatus of the Sani Abacha’s regime.
Dr Ekwueme undeterred by the brutish antics of the regime continued rallying key political figures of different ideological persuasions under a new platform called the Institute of civil society.
In the midst of all this confusion and fear a group of political leaders, eighteen of them in the first instance and later thirty-four decided to “dare the lion in his den” called Gen. Sani Abacha. This group known as the G-34 later formed the nucleus and rallying point of the associations that formed what is today, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
“Where was Gov. Bala Mohammed when an Igbo man Dr. Alex Ekwueme put his life to danger to usher Nigerians into a new democratic dispensation,” Igboayaka queried
It is morally and politically evil for PDP to deny a Southeastern 2023 presidential ticket, it’s time to appeal the Spirit Dr. Alex Ekwueme of blessed memory and appreciate his dogged effort in 1997 by giving the presidential ticket to any aspirant from Southeast,” Igboayaka concluded.
