Akinwande Soji-Ojo
Former governor of Enugu State, Chimaroke Nnamani, on Sunday said he decided to back the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, because the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) violated its constitution by denying the South the right to produce the next president.
In a statement made available to journalists in Abuja on Sunday, Nnamani who currently represents Enugu East Senatorial District on PDP platform, stated that the party’s constitution specified that key political offices be rotated between the North and the South to ensure equity, justice, and fairness.
“Conscious of the need to share and rotate key political offices among the diverse people of our country, the PDP constitution clearly stated that it shall adhere at all times to the policy of the rotation and zoning of the party and public elective offices in pursuance of the principles of equity, justice, and fairness.
“Even when the PDP National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, made a firm commitment to step down should a Northerner emerge as the presidential candidate for the 2023 election, the leadership jettisoned the constitutional provision and turned the logic upside down,” he said.
Nnamani recalled that the PDP in 2019 allowed the North to contest the primaries for the presidency in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in which Atiku Abubakar clinched the ticket and contested the election.
“It was expected that in 2023, the PDP would, in a corresponding manner, allow the South to contest for the plum position, but the party would, in its decision, open the contest for both the Northern and Southern aspirants.
“The action of the PDP amounted to injustice and a lack of equity, maintaining that it is morally wrong to leave power in the north after President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure in 2023,” he added.
