Ex-ACF Scribe To Ohanaeze: Buhari Not Product Of Zoning

Immediate past Secretary-General of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Chief Anthony Sani has tackled Ohanaeze Indigbo for saying President Muhammadu Buhari is a product of rotational presidency.

The former ACF scribe said, aside former President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner contesting against President Buhari twice in 2011 and 2015, 70 Presidential candidates contested against Buhari in 2019.

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He noted that, though former President Olusegun Obasanjo attempted to enthrone politics if zoning when he brought late President Umaru Yar’Adua to succeed him, but the arrangement did not last.

Anthony Sani in his personal reaction to Ohanaeze’s position on zoning, however said that, those selling the idea of rotational presidency, should either find their way if making it a law or design a winning game plan to secure their needed electoral mandate.

According to him, “I find it curious when some groups like Ohanaeze would say that, President Buhari was a product of national consensus on zoning or rotation of position of president to the North. The fact of history says no to that.

“I agree that the annulment of elections of June 12, 1993, morally blackmailed the nation into fielding General Obasanjo of PDP and Chief Olu Falai of AD/APP in 1999 to make up for the annulment and death of the winner, Chief MKO Abiola.

I also agree that President Obasanjo wanted to enthrone politics of zoning and rotation when he foisted President Yar’Adua on the nation.

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“But this did not last because apart from General Buhari’s bid in 2003 against President Obasanjo which was against letter and spirit of zoning/rotation, President Jonathan from the South contested against Buhari from the North not only in 2011 but also in 2015.

“In 2019, of about 76 presidential candidates, about 70 were southerners.

All these show there is no national consensus on rotation and zoning that is binding on political parties.

“Therefore, it is either the proponents of politics of identity symbolized by rotation and zoning make it a law or they design a winning game plan and sell to the nation in order to secure their needed electoral mandate.

“The publicity secretary of ACF is right when he said yesterday that currently rotation and zoning are still affairs of political parties and must be seen and treated as such in the interest of our multiparty democracy,” Sani said.