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Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State says southern governors have all agreed to oppose any political party that fields a northern candidate for president in 2023.
Akeredolu, who is the chairman of the Southern Governors Forum made this known on Friday, September 17, 2021, during an interview with Channels Television.
The governor said the forum has unanimously agreed that the 2023 presidency must be zoned to the region for the sake of justice and fairness.
He said, “There are about three political parties that are in the Southern Governors’ Forum, we have APGA, PDP and APC. All of us are unanimous in our position that the next president of this country must come from the south.
“For us, we are unanimous. It is not a political platform. I believe that any party that picks somebody from the north would have to face the whole southern region, southern government because they would not support it.
“But it has to come from the south. We are saying that there must be, what I will call rotational. The justice of it, the fairness in it, that is what we are preaching.
“If my president — President Buhari — has been in office for eight years, so it can’t be from the north, the next president must come from the south.
“There are many people that are competent. We have competent people in the north as we have competent people in the south, so the president can come from any part of the country.”
It would be recalled that the forum had earlier resolved in two separate meetings, that the next president must emerge from their region.