A former Special Adviser on Media to Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, Salihu Tanko Yakasai, has criticised Ebonyi State governor, Dave Umahi, over his posture that the ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC) will zone the 2023 Presidency to the South-East geo-political zone of the country.
Yakasai, who stated this on Friday, as a guest on a television programme, said Umahi would be missing it if his reason for decamping from the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), to the APC in November 2020 was for the ruling party to zone the 2023 presidential ticket to the South-East.
According to the former aide of Ganduje, the potential presidential candidate of the APC is in the South-West and not in the South-East, a zone he claimed does not have the political number and candidate with national appeal and weight to pull votes across the country in the forthcoming elections.
Recall that Umahi, who is the Chairman of the South-East Governors’ Forum, had defected from the PDP to the APC in November 2020 over alleged “injustice” to the people of the zone. He had also said that “there are a lot of qualified persons from South-East” for the No.1 office.
However, speaking on the television programme on Friday, the son of the founding member of Arewa Consultative Forum, (ACF), and elder statesman, Tanko Yakasai, said APC’s potential candidate is in the South-West and not in the South-East.
Yakasai listed some APC chieftains who, according to him, can win the next presidential election, to include: APC National Leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo as well as Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi.
He said, “Umahi should tell us if APC has promised him and other governors from his region if they are going to give power to them in 2023.
Yakasai said the flagbearer of the APC should come from the South-West in 2023 because the zone ‘immensely’ supported the formation of the ruling party and was the ‘biggest contributor’ to the victory of the party and the emergence of Buhari in the 2015 polls.
The former aide further stated that the Southern Governors’ Forum has heated the polity by making a proclamation twice demanding that power should shift to the South while, according to him, they ought to have began “behind-the-scenes diplomacy”.
