The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has said that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 election will come from the South.
Ngige stated this during an interview with Vanguard Ngige, saying since the next National Chairman of the party is likely to come from the North, the South should also produces the presidential candidate.
While the former Governor of Anambra State failed to mention the part of the South that will produce the candidate, he noted that politics is all about interest.
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Ngige urged that the 2023 presidency be zoned to the South for Southerners to deliberate on the region to produce the candidate.
He said: “We expect that our national chairman this time around will come from the North and our Presidential candidate will come from the South.
“Where it will be from the South, I cannot tell you because politics is all about interest. If we carry moral grounds to go there, one will say let the South-East take it because we are the only zone that has not tasted it among the South-East, South-South and South-West.
“But again, you cannot tell the man from the South-South not to vie. If you want to tell him not to vie, you have to convince him. It has to be through persuasion, negotiation and horse-trading; the same for the man from the South-West.”
Ngige also canvassed for an Igbo presidency and went further to give reasons why the South-East should produce a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister stated that zoning the 2023 presidency to the South East will erase the issues arising from the civil war and address the resurgent separatist agitations in the region.
He said: “The South-Easterner is saying on moral grounds, equity and justice, you should leave this for me or support me for us to bury all the hostilities, all the bad blood, following the civil war, all the resurgent separatist agitations, based on perceived marginalisation, since there is a thin line between perception and reality. For me, it is Southern President.”
