2023: Be mindful of power rotation, Okei-Odumakin urges parties

Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, a human rights activist, has urged the two major political parties to consider power rotation as a means of ensuring national cohesion.

The appeal was made by Okei-Odumakin, President of the Women Arise for Change Initiative, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Lagos.

She stated that any sector of the country interested in the president must put its best foot forward by offering a great candidate who can be sold to the rest of the country.

“Any zone interested in the presidency must sell itself by expressing what it has to offer.”

“It must also put its best foot forward by delivering a quality candidate sellable to other parts of the country. ”

Any zone interested in the presidency must sell itself by outlining what it has to offer.

“It must also put its best foot forward by offering a great candidate who can be sold to the rest of the country.”

“Intriguingly, no zone can win the president without the help of one or two other zones,” she explained.

Okei-Odumakin stated that aspiration for the top post in Nigeria is a basic right of everyone.

She, on the other hand, believes that the two major political parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are still scheming over where they would zone the presidency.

“If in their wisdom they believe the Igbo should have it,” she says, “then they may both zone their presidential flag bearers to the East.”

“That’s what happened in 1999, when the two main presidential candidates were permitted to emerge from the Southwest in order to appease or pay the zone for the presidential catastrophe of June 12, 1993.”

“The President has remained in the North for two straight terms; whether it will transfer to the South in 2023 remains to be seen.”

“Opinions are mixed on the political elite’s agreement on negotiations of rotating President between the South and the North.”

If the president is to be rotated to the South, the next issue is, which section of the South? Is it better to go east, west, or south?

“If Nigeria is to remain one indivisible country,” she stated, “state actors must encourage acts of national unity and cohesion.”