The Sokoto State Governor, Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has said that merit and not the zone a person comes from should determine who becomes Nigeria’s president in 2023.Tambuwal also emphatically said that the opposition Peoples Democractic Party (PDP) will not zone the presidency to any part of the country. The Sokoto State governor made this known in Minna, Niger State Wednesday after holding private audiences with two former Nigerian leaders, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar, at their residences.Tambuwal said that zoning of the presidency has never been the main issue in any political party in Nigeria since 1979, insisting that: “The main issue has been that political parties will throw up candidates and allow Nigerians to decide who to expect as their president.”
According to him, the zoning of the presidency to the South-west in 1999 was a deliberate action by the political class to assuage the region following the annulment of the June 12 presidential election believed to have been won by late Chief MKO Abiola from the region in 1993.He maintained that what is of paramount importance to the opposition PDP is how to win the presidential election in 2023, adding that the party will not dissipate its energy on zoning the presidency to any part of the country.”What this country needs now is a competent leader, a person with capacity not a regional leader,” he declared, adding that he will give Nigeria the desired leadership for socio-economic growth if elected president.
Details of the meeting between Tambuwal and the duo of Babangida and Abubakar were not known, but it was believed the sokoto State governor briefed them of his presidential aspiration.Tambuwal was accompanied to Minna by a former Governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Attaihiru Bafarawa, and a former deputy governor of the state, Alhaji Muktar Shehu Shagari, as well as a former publicity secretary of the PDP Mr Olisah Metuh.
