A former president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Peter Esele, has urged State
Governors to concentrate more on the best Nigerian to contest and emerge as the President of the country rather than the zone or region that the candidate comes from.
Esele, who aired his opinion in an interview with newsmen in Benin, the Edo State capital, on Wednesday, was speaking on the recent agitations by State governors and other politicians over the zoning of the president of the country.
Esele said that the actions and concerns of the state governors should be more on what would strengthen and bring development to the country taking into consideration recent happenings.
According to him: “One would have expected the governors to disagree on what services to deliver to the people and not the distraction of where the next president must come from.
“Not ‘it is my ethnic group that will produce the next president‘. I am a card-carrying member of the APC, and I know this is not how politics is played.
“This is how you kill a country because what you have now is governors from the North and South indirectly by commission or omission dividing this country into the republic of Northern and Southern Nigeria.
“These governors have not met in the South to say this is a roadmap to security that we should adopt and implement for the safety of our region; it is the same with governors from the North.
“What they are always quarreling about is, it is my turn, it is your turn. They have turned Nigeria into a Turn-by-Turn Plc”, he said.
The former TUC president noted that ordinarily, disagreement among the governors should be on service delivery to the people who elected them.
“What we want is a president for Nigeria not a president for Northern Nigeria or Southern Nigeria. The next president can be from any of this extraction, but he must see every one of us as Nigerian, not from tribe or religious background”, he emphasised.
Esele also lamented the lack of respect for the Nigerian constitution by political leaders, noting that for instance, the issue of federal character in appointments has been relegated by elected political leaders in the country.
He explained that though the Constitution was not perfect, as there was no constitution in the world that was perfect, people must be seen to respect it. This is because if you have respect for the constitution, it becomes easier for us to manage.
“As weak as people say this Constitution is, if we practice what is in it to the best of our ability, you will find out that to some extent, it can take us to the next level”, Esele further stated.
