By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
In the interest of equity, justice and unity of Nigeria, the South East geopolitical zone of the country is condemned to produce the next President of Nigeria.
This is the view of the Chairman, African Democratic Congress (ADC), Chief Raph Okey Nwosu who spoke on Thursday on African Independent Television breakfast programme, Kakaaki.
He said it will unfair to Nigerians of the South East extraction to be denied the opportunity to produce the next President in view of the fact that it’s one of the few geopolitical zones of Nigeria that is yet to produce the Executive President of Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Nwosu who made it clear that his view may not be in tandem with the decision of his party, said the choice of the zone to produce the next President after President Muhammadu Buhari should be based on fairness to the geopolitical zones of Nigeria.
According to him, “South East should be allowed to produce the next President. This is my humble opinion and I believe it’s justifiable because the zone has not tasted power at the center since the return of constitutional democracy”.
On the chances of his political party to wrestle power from the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) at the federal level and other parties at the states, Nwosu said ADC is prepared to upset bookmakers in the 2023 General Elections.
Said he: “Our party has gone back to the drawing board, we have reflected on our past performance at polls and have come out with a new strategy to win big in the next elections cycle. We are mobilising the youth and women to takeover the space and make changes for the good of Nigerians”.
Reminded that ADC did not win any seat at state and federal levels in the last General Elections, the party chieftain blamed it all on IndependentNational Electoral Commission (INEC) which he accused of conniving with the executive branch of government to undermine free and fair elections the last time out.
” I disagree with anyone who says ADC didn’t do well in the last General Elections. Without fear of contradictions INEC worked against us (ADC) because of the sudden postponement of the elections when we had expended all our resources to pay our party agents across Nigeria. We are not party of money bags like the big two in Nigeria.”, Nwosu concluded.
PromptNews reports that ADC won 5 seats in the Federal House of Representatives
as of 2015. The 5 ADC House of Representatives members were from Oyo state of the South West.
They were Hon. Abiodun Olasupo- Iseyin/Itesiwaju/Kajola/Iwajowa constituency; Hon. Adeyemi Sunday Adepoju- Ibarapa East/Ido constituency; Hon. Olusunbo Samson- Oluyole Local Govt. constituency; Hon. Lam Adedapo- Ibadan North-East/ Ibadan South-East constituency and Hon. Akintola Taiwo- Ona-Ara/Egbeda constituency.
Also, in the 2007 Presidential Election, ADC put forth candidate Prof. Patrick Utomi. He obtained 50,849 votes, and placed 4th in the election and in the 2011 Presidential Election, ADC’s candidate, Rev. Peter Uchenna Nwangwu obtained 51,682 votes to place 8th out of the 20 candidates in the election while in the 2015 Presidential Election, ADC presented Dr. Mani Ibrahim Ahamad as their candidate. He also obtained 29,665 votes which was 0.10% of the votes cast. He placed 7th out of 14 candidates.
