2023: South East ripe for vice president not president –Imo APC chieftain

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Imo State, Professor Vitalis Orikaeze Ajumbe has said that the South-East region was not ripe to produce Nigeria’s President in 2023.

He said that Ndigbo were not united and would fight themselves if allowed to produce the next president, adding that what the South-East needed was the position of the vice president.

Ajumbe, a former commissioner of Information, Tourism and Public Utilities in Imo State, stated this when he spoke to newsmen in Abuja on Tuesday.

The former chairman of the defunct All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP) also backed the position of Mamman Daura for the zoning arrangement to be jettisoned in the country.

According to him, zoning was responsible for what the country is suffering currently.

On the argument on zoning and where the next president should come from, Ajumbe said, “The argument is that the North has not equaled the South. South had 14 years and North 10years, in doctrine of necessity, the North may be right.

“What we need is good governance irrespective of where the person comes from. I don’t really cherish zoning because what destroyed Nigeria is this zoning thing, why can’t we really search round and get who can govern Nigeria very well.

“Look at the Abiola time we had Muslim Muslim ticket, we want that kind of spirit now, zoning breeds mediocrity, it will not give Nigeria what it wants. Let’s allow merit to play, merit will play when we have a good system.”

When was asked if his position was not in opposition to the clamour by Ndigbo to be allowed to produce the next president, the APC politician said:

“The Igbo’s are not United, they will fight themselves. An Anambra man will not want another person outside Anambra to succeed. Who is the rallying point. The only thing I can say is that we need the Vice President, then we can have a rallying point”