By Oluwayemi Davidson
Erstwhile Minister of State for Education, Chief Kenneth Gbagi has declared that only power shift from the North to the South in 2023 “is the most equitable thing that could guarantee enduring peaceful coexistence among the various ethnoreligious nationalities in the country”.
The former Minister who is presently the Delta State Governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) made the statement at a press conference held in his Oginibo country home in Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta on Saturday.
Chief Gbagi maintained that he was in full support of last week’s resolution of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ Forum (SMBLF) led by elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark, that Nigeria’s next President should come from the southern part of the country in 2023 at the expiration of the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to the former Minister, the existing understanding among Nigerian politicians whereby governance has been based on North-South power rotation since the the inception of the ongoing democracy “is the most equitable thing” that could guarantee to endure peaceful coexistence among the various ethnoreligious nationalities in the country.
To this end, he declared, “What I am saying now is that I am a Southerner. I support and ask all Southerners, all religious organisations, teachers, pensioners and everybody that has true understanding of life, to support the North-South rotational issue. If you do not support the shift from the North to the South, your children will die slaves; your children children will die as slaves. We cannot afford this. We all own this country. We believe in this country. I don’t hate any Northerner. After all, you can see people from different parts of the country – North, South, East, West – that I have been associating with.
“It is on record that we resolved that the North should do one term and Presidency should come back to the South. Fortunately for me, I am from the South. I will support a Presidential candidate from the South. So, let us not waste time, I don’t know how to pretend.
“As at today, there are three Presidential candidates from the South of Nigeria. There is Niyi Adebayo who is from Ekiti State and a young lawyer of the Social Democratic Party; also Peter Obi of Labour Party and you also have Bola Tinubu of All Progressives Congress.
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“If you people want this country to go foward, you have the three of them to play with. But my choice, and if you are my friend, is to vote for SDP.
“We agreed publicly that once North, once South. Anyone who does anything to thwart that effort to bring governance to the South of Nigeria is only working for parochial interest. I don’t care anywhere in the South.
“We must bring President to South for the next eight years after President Buhari. Thereafter, we will take governance back to North for another eight years. That is the most equitable thing I will support, as a lawyer. Anything to the contrary is dead on arrival. Nobody will support that”.
