The Southern and Middle belt Leaders Forum has urged Nigerians to reject northerners as presidential candidates from political parties and vote for southern aspirants.
They made the call on Friday after a meeting of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ Forum (SMBLF) in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
A communiqué signed by Pa Edwin Clark, Afenifere’s Ayo Adebanjo, Middle Belt’s Pogu Bitrus, George Obiozr’s Ohanaeze Ndigbo, and PANDEF’s Emmanuel Essien said southern candidate’s emergence should be in the interest of justice, equity, fairness, and political inclusiveness.
The leaders claimed that any attempt by political parties to field a northern candidate to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari next year could obstruct national unity.
They, therefore, warned that the “call on all delegates of all political parties, and true lovers of democracy, as a sacred obligation, to reject Presidential Aspirants, or Candidates, from the North, and only vote for those from the South in the Party Primaries.”
The regional leaders also asked, “all politicians and professionals from the South not to accept, on any account, the position of Vice President, as that would amount to a shameful commitment of present and future generations of Southern Nigeria to senseless political vassalage.”
